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

DH is a bus driver and moved from
town driving to longer distance coaches because he was fed up of people thinking they had the right of way because the parked cars were on the same side as the bus (usually longer roads where the bus was fine to move out when it got there but someone flying up the other way didn’t think to wait to let the bus through the whole way) and would refuse to reverse causing a total roadblock. It’s usually not safe for buses to reverse on public roads so it’s better for the car to reverse, but the amount of people adamant they were in the right because of where the parked cars were was crazy.

Driving nowadays is just a giant, dangerous game of chicken.
All my regular journeys are sub 15 minutes, 3x a week 7.20am and between 5-6pm.
Every single time I am almost run off the road by people coming towards me on the wrong side of the road, even when I have priority.
Every red light has multiple cars go through, every roundabout has people not indicating or indicating wrongly.
I don’t understand why traffic lights don’t have cameras, they could be making a fortune from fines.

If I were a benevolent dictator I would make the requirements to hold a licence much stricter. You'd need a much more advanced licence to drive anything larger than a hatchback for a start.

I would introduce random mandatory testing, I would do away with the hardship plea, and I would impose a three-strikes rule which covers everything; speeding, impaired driving, phone driving, poor lane discipline (including cutting corners and middle lane hogging), dangerous / aggressive driving, and poor parking (yes I would bring parking badly into the offence regime too). I wouldn't have speed or traffic cameras visible either. They deter people for a few metres, that's it.

I would also fund a lot more traffic police.

The standards of driving in this country are, as a rule, appalling.

If someone is able to undertake you at speed on motorways, you are in the wrong lane

Hogging the third lane is a new annoyance I’ve only really noticed in the last couple of years. I have to assume these drivers are so oblivious that they just don’t notice the aggressive tailgaters who also stick to this lane.

But the most aggravating aspect of modern driving is the barrelling through thing you mention. At full speed too, so you’re forced to stop even though your side is clear when if they slowed a little both could safely proceed. I’m also noticing an increase in drivers who overtake cyclists even though they have to drive into oncoming traffic to do so. Either forcing those vehicles to brake or leaving hardly any room. Really dangerous.

No, I know what you mean, but it’s not what I meant.
I’m thinking about congested traffic where all traffic is slow, and they weave in and out trying to get one car ahead, then move back over to the middle lane, then briefly into the fast lane, then undertake agin in the middle lane. It’s very common and very dangerous. Or, I am behind a middle lane hogger, unable to overtake due to faster cars in the fast lane, and they undertake the middle lane hogger.

The tailgating has become ridiculous. It’s so dangerous. Why do people do it?

Ah I see what you mean now. Yes the weaving is very dangerous!

If you're sitting in the middle lane and not overtaking however, you should move over to lane 1 as otherwise you are adding to the hazard. So if you're stuck behind a middle lane hogger it is best to move left and wait for the traffic to clear.

There are also the dickheads who join the motorway and immediately speed into the outside lane, usually by cutting in front without a safe distance. Everyone else can be driving in the correct lane and overtaking those on the left properly, but it doesn’t stop these clowns undertaking.

Well, that’s it. You’re now crowned minister for department of driving @@JacquesHarlow

keep up the good work.

also drive a lot for work and couldn’t agree more with what you’ve said!

When it comes to ‘merge in turn’ would a better solution not be to make the stretch of road running up to it a 30 then only giving warning to merge 100m before?

And yes 3rd lane hogging has got really bad on motorways. I regularly sit in lane one at 70 and cruise past lots of people hogging lane 3 doing 65. Madness.

No they do it because they understand basic road signs and congestion management.

If everyone "queues" in one lane, then the queue is twice as long. This means it has more chance of backing up and blocking side roads, roundabouts, and so forth, causing greater disruption.

Both lanes are fully open until the merge point and both lanes should be used until the merge point. The highways agency puts the merge where they want it to be. If they wanted it a mile beforehand they'd have put it there.

Please, use both active lanes correctly and merge in turn at the point of the closure.

Don’t get me started on yellow boxes…or fog lights when it’s not remotely foggy.
I had someone giving it loads in my rear view mirror after I merged….apparently he wasn’t happy with how close I’d got to his car…well, it’s a merger, so take your foot off the accelerator and let me in??

Poor driving standards is just one example of the increase in selfish and ani-social behaviours we are increasingly seeing in today's society. A case of 'the rules don't apply to me'. The trouble in this case though is that it can be extremely dangerous. I'm all for mandatory re-testing every 5 ot 10 years.

I'm not sure where I heard it so this may be completely wrong but if someone comes here from another country where they have got a driving licence, they are permitted to drive on UK roads for a whole year before having to take a test. If this IS true, it may account for a lot of the poor driving!

When it comes to ‘merge in turn’ would a better solution not be to make the stretch of road running up to it a 30 then only giving warning to merge 100m before?
Absolutely!

People not following the code using both lanes doesn't make passing everyone ok.

Merge IN TURN means that. Take your turn, not pass everyone so you are ahead of the cars who were there before you.

They need to make their signage better so that people understand they shouldn't merge early.

It's the sane principle than lane hoggers. They are so annoying but it doesn't make passing them on the left the right thing to do. You either pass them on the right or you slow down behind however frustrating it is.

When I left the army I was going to join the police to become a traffic officer spending my time on the M5 pulling over middle lane hogs. That was nearly 40 years ago and the problem is still ongoing.

Merge in turn at a lane closure is not difficult. Use all available road space just exactly as you do the rest of the time you are driving.

I trained as a driving instructor and and taught to use indicators when there was someone there to signal to, rather than just blindly putting the indicator on whenever you made a turn. The idea was to get learners to look for who they needed to indicate to, be it vehicles, cyclists or pedestrians. My DH still doesn’t get why I don’t always indicate - I tell him there was no one around to signal my intentions to except for him, and as he is in the car with me, he’s coming too! It really does make you look properly.

And I still cross the white lines without hitting the cats eyes if I can, having been taught by a staff car driver and a police instructor back in the day 😁

It's merge in turn at the point of the closure and NOT "half a mile before".

It is not a question of taking turns, if everyone is queuing at one checkout in a supermarket and I go to the other checkout that's open but being ignored by everyone else then you wouldn't say that's queue jumping as that's nonsensical.

It is the fault of everyone who moves over too early which creates an empty, active, open lane which others then use, correctly. The fact there is a lane which other drivers can use to "skip the queue" is the fault of all those who don't know how to merge in turn or read road signs correctly.

This chap on Instagram explains it quite well: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DM4_dULokrZ/?igsh=MWRzbzVzbmlzcGQ4eQ==

I agree. The reason I suspect is lack of consequences. If carelessness/thoughtlessness comes with no comeback, it morphs into an entitlement. Unfortunately it is impossible to have anywhere near enough traffic police to make the risk of being caught for careless driving high enough that people will THINK and consciously avoid doing it.

One pet hate of mine you missed off, the slip road trundlebunnies. They enter a slip road in front of you leading to a free flowing motorway with traffic doing 55-70 mph, and they drive at 35 mph all the way to the merge point before trying to merge in with that traffic, and I am talking about slip roads with a decent straight acceleration lane here. If you are behind them, you have the fun challenge of trying to merge in traffic with a 20+ mph speed differential and/or a convoy of HGVs barrelling along lane 1 and closing fast. Good luck with that.

The lack of zip merging on UK motorways is appalling, and it is way worse in SE England. Much of the congestion on busy motorways like the M25 is due to people who can't/won't zip merge, which slows everyone down.

It's merge in turn at the point of the closure and NOT "half a mile before"
So you think that because some people don't understand the rules, decide to act fairly, it gives the higher above who know the rules the right to avoid the queue, avoid the frustration of waiting, making it 20 second quicker to their destination?

I know the rules, but I still don't think it gives the right to cross before many people who have been patiently waiting. Just like I don't pass middle lane huggers on the left, or rush from the back of the queue in a supermarket when a new till opens, because rightly or wrongly, it is rude and entitled to think you shouldn't wait when others do.

As an equestrian the one that gets me is passing horses wide and slow we seem to get the barrel of abuse “you shouldn’t be riding on the roads” unfortunately with more developers building on fields ect we are being forced to ride on the roads unless you have the luxury of a horse box!

They shouldn’t be patiently waiting. They should be following the rules of the road.

But it's not "acting fairly". It's acting dangerously and inconsiderately and in contravention of the road signage. By moving over early and creating a queue in one lane, you are directly contributing to that queue getting longer and longer, backing up into side roads and other junctions, and causing more congestion and hazards.

If you are actively ignoring an open lane / checkout / ticket line (take your pick, any scenario works) next to you out of some misplaced sense of "fairness" and then get annoyed when someone else uses it correctly, it is a symptom of your own poor road use and judgement.

Both lanes should be used for as long as they are open. If everyone does this, then no-one can jump the queue. If you move over too early it is your own fault.

Going through 'no entry' signs is rampant here. Near a school and a 'no entry' however, parents just go through the no entry to save going a slightly longer route around. Since they get away with it now hundreds do it, despite leaving the road going the correct way, impossible since so many come through the no entry so have to wait for all of them to exit. Madness, but it saves them 30 seconds