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

Right but undertaking falls into the dangerous driving category… dangerous driving is illegal. Ergo…

might take a step to get there but the result is the same. They only don’t say it’s illegal itself because there are times (like traffic) where it isn’t and laws can’t be grey or murky and the majority of people would use that as a get out clause. Like you by the sound of it.

It doesn't. Not in and of itself. The authorities would need to prove it had been executed in a dangerous manner for it to meet the threshold of a dangerous driving charge. I'm not sure how many different ways I can explain this...

At no point have I suggested drivers should undertake, by the way. I would generally advise against it. I merely posted to explain that it is not illegal per se.

You can explain it any which way you want. If you undertake when not in congestion, filtering or otherwise and are seen, you will get three points.

This. Is. Not. True.
You might get 3 points if it is decided that you did so in a dangerous or careless fashion.

Why do you continue to post incorrect information? Just check with a law firm or look on the AA or RAC’s website - they literally say ‘it is not illegal.

Not illegal as such. Because there are clauses such as congestion. It doesn’t have to be done in a dangerous manner at all. The AA et al. also say that so… I’m a professional driver with additional training and see non dangerous undertaking receiving points all the time. But I’ll leave it there because this is clearly pointless.

I have noticed (since changing to a job in a different area) that whether drivers obey the rule of giving way to a pedestrian at a side road, and pavements being for people not bikes, is area dependent.

In my borough drivers do generally give way to pedestrians at side roads and it's rare to encounter a cyclist on the pavement. In the borough I commute to, it's the opposite. I have to really watch myself not to be mown down by mum or dad and kids on multiple bikes and/or to be run over crossing side roads!

I was in Germany at the weekend and it was really noticeable how good peoples' lane discipline was on the motorway. However, a couple of factors help with that.

One - no speed limits on those particular motorways (A7 and A23), or not for most of them. When someone is doing over 100mph you shift out of the outside lane sharpish!

Two - no lorries allowed on Sundays which means much more space generally and there are far fewer vehicles you need to overtake, it's quite easy to cruise in the inside lane.

I drive in France quite regularly, and it's very noticeable how much better the lane discipline is over there. Particularly as so many of their motorways are only 2 lanes. It's not exactly rocket surgery.

No the signs don’t tell you to get into the lane sooner than where they merge. They just tell you the lane is closing in 800/600 yards etc. Often accompanied by signs saying ‘Use both lanes when queuing’.

The people who straddle both lanes to stop the ‘queue jumpers’, thereby not allowing the traffic to fully use the available lanes, and causing tailbacks and gridlock in the roads and roundabouts behind are the assholes.

Somebody posted a picture on the village WhatsApp, where we have a huge problem of people parking on pavements. She was outraged that people visiting the local church were so inconsiderate they'd blocked her in. When people pointed out she was being inconsiderate to pedestrians by parking on the pavement there was every excuse. Apparently it isn't against the highway code if it conveniences other drivers. 🤔