Has anyone else noticed the sheer amount of road rage about recently?

[dinoma]

I do live in a city and one of the biggest issues is cars park on both sides meaning there’s only room for single traffic meaning a lot of cars meeting and reversing.

I have noticed the anger and rage, mouthing obscenities and hand gestures because someone else happens to be there.

I get the inconvenience of having to pull in or reverse back but I would never feel the need to aggressively stick my fingers up (or worse) or mouth something at another driver for simply using the same road.

I’m sure these people aren’t like this in their homes or businesses.

Have you seen the standards of driving these days? I'm not surprised.

It’s called “who are you in these situations” - either in Chat or AIBU.

It’s called “Who are you in this situation” - basically she was complaining that people weren’t queuing like she was and were merging as they’re supposed to do.

When everyone told her she was wrong she just said she didn’t care she’d carry on as she was 🙄

I’m not sure if it’s linked to Covid but there has been an increase in the amount of arrogant people on the roads over the last few years and in my experience it’s mostly those who drive large SUV type of cars that tend to think they have a god given right to bully other motorists. I’m sick and tired of when I have the right of way on a road full of parked cars, someone usually in a much bigger car than mine thinks it’s ok to come at me and try and barge their way through the tiny gap and narrowly miss hitting my car while I’m already passing a line of parked cars. It’s not always people who drive SUVs but I’ve noticed it’s mostly those who drive such cars who are the most common offenders.

Im also sick and tired of the aggression and tail waiting when you’re driving at the speed limit and on a narrow winding country road and you always get some arrogant fuck driving up your arse who thinks you should be going faster and who thinks you should get a speed ticket all for the sake of them.

It’s small cars that tend to get tailgated and bullied - I have a Hyundai i10 and DH has a decent sized 4x4 - when his car was off the road recently and he used mine he said he constantly had people up his arse or trying to push past him on narrow lanes - never happens in his car!

Road rage is fear, and yes I am noticing that people feel more fearful, threatened and unsettled. Its accelerated recently.

Dh has literally cycled the whole length of italy and France without one road rage incident. He rarely has a short ride here without one or two unpleasant altercations as a result of him daring to exist and not being in a car 🙄.

A lot of it is to do with the sheer number of abysmal drivers on the road

I travel to work at 3.30am so rarely see much traffic. I go down a road that used to be a 40 limit but is now 30. I'm a bit of a stickler for the speed limit as whether I agree or not, they are what they are. There's also quite a lot of wildlife crossing the road, especially deer that you really don't want to hit as they'd make a right mess of your car. This morning I could see a wagon barrelling down the road behind me. He ended up so close behind me that I couldn't see his lights. There isn't really anywhere to safely pull over otherwise I would have done and let the idiot get on his way. Luckily it was only about 5 minutes drive to where it opens up and I could get out of his way but I dread to think what would have happened if I had had to do an emergency stop for any reason.

Peoples driving is terribly bad. It’s ive developed such a defensive driving style as a result and I’m constantly on edge. How I manage to get places without a crash is honestly sometimes beyond me. The sheer lack of awareness of other drivers and complete lack of patience is insane.

people need to chill!

Haha
yes I know the type… they’d rather clog up a roundabout than use the two lanes DESIGNED to avoid clogging up the roundabout and ignore the “merge in turn” signs!!

I have to disagree here. It's not SUVs here, or in my extensive motorway driving, its the "executive" cars. So your BMWs, Audi and Mercedes.

Also, Tesla drivers. Yes I know they can be very fast and go like shit off a shovel. But that doesn't mean you have to drive at 150mph everywhere you go, you total losers!

I always wonder if these people never owned anything with zip on it so they have no idea how it works😂

I drive loads of different cars. And yes this is a massive problem. They don’t want to let you out, bully you on country lanes and motorways.

It has changed in recent years. I don’t know how many additional drivers are on the road, but aggression and bad driving seem to have increased. People are more stressed generally - standard of living has gone down, nothing seems to work, there is an increase in overall ill health. There was a study on driving and covid, showing that driving with covid is similar to driving at the drink/drive limit - look how many waves of covid we’ve had, including the one we are in right now.

Maybe it's also because the 20mph restrictions and all the unnecessary roadworks means one's journey seems interminable and therefore one is more agitated when people don't obey the rules of the road when there's a possibility of actually GETTING somewhere

That was the worst Adrian Mole book imho

😅

I've noticed this too @dinoma

Drivers that lose their patience over learner drivers have forgotten that they were once learner drivers when they were 17/18/19/whenever

There are few pages on fb which have dashcam footages. Honestly, some people ahould have licences revoked for inability to deive, others for road rage.

We cheer L drivers on😂 "Come on mate, bit more to the left , good on you!"
We swear at idiots who can't do basic things.

I like it when people post their dashcam footage and they’re clearly the ones in the wrong 😂

Round here, we have an absolute epidemic of low traffic neighbourhoods which push traffic onto roads which simply can’t cope with the volume, and exacerbate all the issues others mention. It’s a scandal. They are introduced by different boroughs so there’s no joined up thinking. It’s no wonder parts of the road network don’t function anymore when huge swathes of it are effectively cut off.

It's too many cars on the road and many different by people with a different driving culture.

I'm sure others are curious about this too, but: what do you mean by not having bounced back? It's been years sice lockdowns. I'm wondering what you haven't bounced back from and why you think that is?