To realise very few people care about road rules or the Highway Code any more

[JacquesHarlow]

AIBU here - is anyone on Mumsnet like me, and thinks about the Highway Code or bothers to follow its guidance? Please join me if so!

For my job I have to drive a LOT. I drive pretty much all over the UK.

Yes, the standard of driving is far better than many countries around the world. But something I have noticed increasingly (and especially since the pandemic) is this:

1. Very few people indicate right on a roundabout. You get this bizarre situation where someone approaches a roundabout in a right hand lane, doesn't indicate, careers around the roundabout for 270 degrees, then once at their junction, they indicate off left to show they're taking the exit!!
2. Middle lane hogging is now third lane hogging On any four lane motorway in the UK, I find the vast majority of drivers have moved to the third lane and sit there at 60 or 65mph. The first and second lane have been re-designated as a lorry lane, and as a lorry overtaking lane. Again, this is not the Highway Code.
3. Phone driving is an absolute epidemic. On the school run people drive off holding their phones and checking messages... next to a SCHOOL where children are still walking and crossing the road.
4. Merge in turn is completely ignored - instead you see bizarre behaviour like road captains who sit straddling two lanes, a mile before the merge, to stop "queue jumpers". This goes completely against the road rules and the Code but once again, British drivers know best and no one can tell them otherwise
5. Give way if parked cars are on your left again seems to be ignored. I've seen plenty of fellow women do this one, where they barrel through hoping the other person will concede, and then when asked to reverse their car, go into a complete blind panic and start swearing and shouting for the other person to reverse instead.
6. Give way to traffic already on the motorway when joining Again, forget it. When I'm in lane 1, and I see a slip road ahead, I try and move over. I can't straightway because middle lane hoggers, however I wait for a gap and then move in time. Only to find the car that is joining isn't happy I've made a space...because they want to slalom across two lanes and barrel their way into lane 2 or 3 in one quick glide! WTF.

Yeah I've shared too many examples, but I could share dozens more.

It's like the Highway Code is irrelevant to most drivers. They decide "what is fair". So if they feel they don't want to wait and there's an obstruction on their left? Barrel on through!

The only way around this is either

• increased traffic policing of road offences, which we all know won't happen because we have fewer police
• mandatory driving retraining, which everyone would hate

Is this just me? Does anyone else care about this or notice this, or am I a lone female voice in this space and actually it's fine to just make up the rules as we go along?

Thanks in advance

As a cyclist and driver the lack of use of indicators drives me mad. It doesn’t cost anything. There may or may not be other cars around, but other road users need to know what you are doing.

Thank you @Colourpurplepalette couldn't agree more.

The weirdest new one is how people who are positioned to go straight at a roundabout, with no indicators on, move forward and then suddenly veer off to the left.

Then they pop on a guilty , completely pointless half-second indicator once they notice the beeps and disgruntled shouts from people who could have made safe progress onto the roundabout if they had been given a signal.

I thought that if there are parked cars on your left, but you’ve already started to move past them, you have the right to continue.

The Merge in Turn on the A1 roadworks drives me mad. 90% use it properly. But there's just enough that take offence at the people using the 2nd lane that cause it snare up.

The idea is the queue takes up less space so side roads aren't blocked. Its not queue jumping.

This is absolutely the case @Bluevelvetsofa and I agree with this.

However I have seen plenty of scenarios where there are side roads with busy traffic, and the person approaching the parked cars can see there are cars already committed and about to come through on the other side.

They still barrel through because they expect those cars to suddenly come to a halt and reverse the priority.

That for me is wrong. You don't accelerate and try and barrel through to cause an emergency stop the other side, especially when you know the priority isn't yours.

Of course, if the cars about to commit can see you have already passed the first car on the left and you're "on" the road, they should stop and give way. That's the Code.

Spot on @TheNightingalesStarling and I experience this one also.

Part of the fault also lies in the traffic in lane 1. If everyone stopped bunching up but allowed gaps, the traffic could zip merge from the right and flow correctly.

The thing I have found mostly challenging recently (I drove about 1400 miles over the course of a UK holiday,) is not so much other drivers (I expect a percentage of them to drive like nutters,) but roadsigns obscured by foliage, so I can't tell which lane I should be in at a roundabout, and worn roadmarkings, so it's difficult to tell that there's a bus lane o'r box junction. Not that many people seem to know what box junctions are for, but you stand more chance if it's visibly marked.

I agree with all but number 4. The usual signs encourage people to get onto one lane much sooner than just when the lanes merged.

Yes merging sooner means a very slight longer time, depending on how long the queue is, but those who decide to pass everybody queuing are assholes.they don't do it because they like to.folliw the rules, they do it because they have a sense of entitlement and think others should just make way to their more important self.

Also with standing traffic... yes, motorbikes can just go up the middle. Its safer for them.

Temporary traffic lights at roadworks where the light will turn red and an approaching car will interpret that red light as "the car that has already legitimately passed the light plus me (and probably the car behind me too)" rather than "Stop Here".

The five second rule that seems to be unofficially attached to double yellows, as in "I'm only going to be a few seconds" as they proceed to block the junction into school and obscure the road view of every child crossing thus putting them at risk.

Indicators are entirely optional. The more dickhead-coded your choice of car is then the more optional they are. Same with dipped headlights, fuck everyone else on the road, you need LED high beams 100% of the time. It's for safety... at the expense of everyone else's

Parking in general is shocking. People seem to think a parking space is any space their car fits into, designated or no.

Driving instructors use our road for learners as it’s pretty much circular. The number of students that come to a stop without indicating and then park across people’s drives is astounding. Also, the vast majority set off - again, without indicating or checking there is another vehicle coming up behind them.
If they’re not being taught the basics, there’s no hope.

But you're literally supposed to use both lanes. I used to always sit in the left hand lane, but now seeing sign after sign saying 'use both lanes' and 'merge in turn' I do so. If you choose to queue in the left lane then more fool you. The signs say use both lanes, so I now do so and merge when the signs say to merge in turn. We'd all get where we're going quicker if people used both lanes and left a gap for cars to zip.

The signs say use both lanes
My experience is that when there is a sign that says to use both lanes, people do, but it is rare that it does. Instead you get signs that tell you to merge 300 yards before the merge, so people do....and then you gave the entitled who pass everyone, and then worse, who get cross when the first car doesn't let them through immediately!

Add to that people who park on pavements when there are no signs telling them to do so (which is the only time you supposed to do it).

People who don't stop to allow pedestrians to cross at junctions, as required by the highway code..

People who think they can drive at their usual speed in wet conditions regardless - I regularly get soaked on my walk to and from work.

It's not "entitled" is it @vivainsomnia to pass everyone after seeing a warning sign!

Unless the lane is closed with a red "X" above the gantry, then a warning sign is just that - a warning.

It is not an instruction or a summons to move over immediately in case you are called entitled or arrogant by other road users.

The Highway Code warms against people speeding to the end of the merge, but it does't tell everyone to get across as early as possible either.

Most advanced driving instructors say to use the available road space and then merge in turn.

It is only British drivers who have then decided that the 300 yards sign is the "last merge point" and anyone who continues after this is an entitled brat.

Agree with all of that. I’ve been driving more than usual recently and I just cannot believe the lane 2 and 3 hogging on the motorways, it’s never been this bad before. Although I have to say I don’t care if people indicate or not because, quite frankly, the amount of times you see someone indicating one way but then going the other is also nuts, so I don’t really trust them anyway 🤷‍♀️.

This morning I’ve driven from the Western Lake District to Manchester - so, tiny winding lanes, up and over the Honister Pass, through Keswick town centre and down the M6 - a wide range of driving environments. The standard of driving left me utterly aghast. Adding to your list, the need to give way to a vehicle coming up a hill where possible was ignored - luckily I’m good enough at hill starts to be able to do one climbing a 20% incline on Honister. The number of women hogging lanes 2 and 3 was really disappointing I checked everyone one, and 100% were women. And as someone who usually cycles a lot more than she drives I am in full agreement with @Colourpurplepalette that people don’t indicate enough, especially when turning right at roundabouts. Do they no longer teach mirror-signal-manoeuvre?

Yep. Loads of people don't understand it. A driver just turned from a main road wham into a side road I was crossing, got out his car and yelled at me. Even if I was waiting to cross I would've had have right of way - this was a rule introduced in 2022, but he didn't believe me and refused to. It's dangerous people like him can drive.

The number of women hogging lanes 2 and 3 was really disappointing I checked everyone one, and 100% were women.

I concur with this @PauliesWalnuts although I do see a fair few middle aged men in SUVs doing this also.

I have heard in person evidence of why fellow women seem to gravitate to lanes 2 and 3.

It tends to go like this:

• "I don't want to do all that weaving about. It's safer to stay in one lane"
• "I don't want to have to move over for people constantly joining the motorway"
• "Lane 1 is for lorries, and lane 2 is often taken up by overtaking lorries"
• "Lane 1 is rutted and not a smooth enough surface for my car"

etc etc

It's why you end up seeing the following

• People hunched over their steering wheel terrified, staring ahead and then desperately trying to move over when they realise it is their junction, and mis-timing everything because they're not used to using their mirrors and judging distance in changing lanes
• People sitting at 65 or 70 but being irritated or waving their hands when flashed by other users. To those drivers, everyone "fast" should be in lane 4.

But if everyone queued in both lanes no one could just barge past everyone else. The people queuing in one lane for 1000 yards before the merge cause the issues as they effectively leave a completely empty lane for people to drive up to the merge. Madness

In your Example 1 I am surprised at them using the indicator to exit left. In my experience as a pedestrian at the roundabout exit in the centre of town, many don't use the indicator. There are always pedestrians there coming from the busy station and always cars going to it (including many taxis going to the station taxi stand.)

It happens regularly in other local roads too, when simply turning off the road into a road to their left or right. No indicator. Several times I could have run into the back of some car while cycling down a local hill because it turned across in front of me without any signal.

Failure to use the indicator is not just by speedsters or boy racers, either. The solid men and women who are parents of children in my neighbourhood regularly turn into the road they live in without indicating. Oddly enough, a lot of these non-indicator users, whether turning off roundabout or road, will stop and wave across pedestrians waiting for the car to pass. The mentality seems to be 'Who needs an indicator'?

No they are following the signs and merging as is lawful.
I don't sit and wait I carry on in the lane that is still open until I can merge safely, the ones not letting people in are the arseholes!
I agree OP I'm on the motorway every day an now tend to use the first lane as its bloody empty!

It's not "entitled"
I think it is entitlement for many. The same way every day, you get people going into the turning lane to bypass the one queuing and then expect to be let through at the light.

There are two very busy roads with such two lanes in my town. Every single day during rush hours, you get cars doing just that.

Yes, there might be some who do genuinely get frustrated that people don't use both lanes in the instance of roadworks and use the outside lane for that reason, but many, just like those in the above instance, do it because they genuinely believe waiting and queuing shouldn't apply to them.

Add to this, people driving through red lights in busy built up areas. Not just one, but routinely 2 or 3 cars in a row. Often driving through when the green man is telling pedestrians they can cross. How are we meant to teach children to cross the road safely?

And don’t get me started on undertaking at speed on motorways