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.

I'm noticing nobody ever wants to wait and give way anymore (barging through when the obstruction is on their side of the road and they obviously do not have time to get past due to oncoming traffic), people are less inclined to raise their hands in acknowledgement when you wait for them, and weirdly, people seem to be less capable of driving on their side of the road now. So many people I encounter on the roads around my village are in the middle of the road, straddling a white line when there's tons of space in each lane and no reason for them to be so sloppy.

Totally😂 The level of delusion is always hilarious. Some people also take a piss about drama llamas which cracks me up

I admit I find myself a lot angrier on the roads these days. I don’t yell or swear (apart from the odd for fucks sake what are you doing?? under my breath) or gesticulate at anyone though. But I’ve been driving over 25 years and the standard of driving now is appalling. People are so selfish as well.

People drive at 50 in the middle lane (or even the two middle lanes if it’s a 4 lane motorway)

People speed up when you overtake them

People just…. Stop. Just stop. For no reason in random places. I’m assuming the reason is they are lost. But you don’t just stop in the middle of a road or at the junction of the one lane roundabout to figure out where to go! You are meant to find an appropriate place to pull over. Yeah it might suck if you take the wrong exit at a roundabout and have to add 5 minutes on to your journey and then turn round. But you don’t just stop and block everyone else behind you while you figure it out! Someone just yesterday in fact stopped on a busy high street to let a passenger out. Doesn’t take long right? Someone just jumping out? So why moan? Because the DRIVER also got out to get a bag out the boot, then give the person getting out a hug and a kiss, then another passenger got out to do the same and then wanted to swap seats so now everyone is out of the car. On a busy high street where you cannot go round them.

Recently I went to get petrol and due to a big van being parked you couldn’t go round the person at the back pump to get to the front pump. When I pulled in both pumps were free but the person in front of me stopped at the back pump. Meaning the front one was left vacant and no one could get to it. I assumed he must be able to see something I couldn’t, maybe it was broken/out of petrol. When he finally finished and I pulled forward I could see the front pump was absolutely fine. So he just blocked the front one for no reason. (I pulled to the front one so another car could get in behind me because I’m not an arsehole).

As someone else mentioned people just pull out in front of you even when there’s absolutely nothing behind you and cause you to brake. But then they drive way under the speed limit.

People do u turns on blind corners and on busy high streets. I even saw someone try to do a u turn on a slip road to a motorway. Seriously. Trying to u turn to drive the wrong way back up a one way slip road.

And to mention a thread that people keep bringing up about the zipper merging. I have no problem at all with zipper merging. But the amount of people that zoom past in the more free flowing lane but try to get an extra car ahead. I’m already letting one in (you know, like a zip), and the next car starts pushing his nose in front as well. I recently was on a motorway which was slow crawling. I was just passing the end of an oncoming slip road and I let a car in who was merging onto the motorway. The car behind me (who had been behind me for ages) PULLED OUT into the slip road and tried to push in front of me as well. Why?? We were at a crawl. But he for some reason decided he just wanted to get in front of me. So no I didn’t let him. My car is an old banger. If he wanted to hit me it would cost him much more than it cost me. He started waving his arms about and yelling at me. He drove along side me into the hard shoulder in his obsession to get in front of me. In the end he gave up and pulled back behind me. Even if he had got in front we were stuck in that queue for another 20 mins! What good would getting in front of me have done??

The mentality these days just seems to be “I need/want to do this so I shall do it.” That’s it. No thought to anyone else. I was always taught that you need to wait until an appropriate time to do a manoeuvre. If you miss your junction tough shit you need to drive to the next one. Not pull rapidly across 4 lanes and the cross hatch thing to get to your exit. The amount of times I’ve thought Oh fuck as I’ve sailed past my exit. And it always seems to be about 10 bloody miles until I can turn round. But it’s life. Rather than cause an accident I drive on and turn round.

Put on a few dents/scraps/scratches and hold your space. They soon back off as they don't want their precious car damaged in any way. Yours is, so they know you don't care :-)

Worked for me.

I agree it’s probably the sheer amount of traffic on the road, everywhere you go there are traffic jams and you’re constantly stopping and starting for roadworks and traffic lights. It’s frustrating as hell! Especially when you never see anyone actually working on the roadworks, it’s just been coned off to inconvenience everyone 😂 life in the UK is getting worse and worse and it definitely manifests itself into road rage.

She mostly is alone. Most posters were in agreement that it's actually correct to drive up and empty lane past queuing traffic and then merge. It's not cheeky or pushing in, it's using the space available.

There was thread a week or two ago about a similar thing to this but people in foot, in shops, queues etc. Huge amounts of bile and ire on there towards anyone who might dare to exist in a space these terribly busy people want to be in.

Did you see the thread about the driver who refused to accept zip merging was a thing. Several people explained it to her. She wouldn’t let people in , said she’d rather have her car written off.
Then said she still wouldn’t let people in.
It’s no wonder road rage is on the increase , or is it just frustration with the amount of idiots on the road ? 🤔

I've made myself bounce back, I've made the effort to go out, reach out to my loved ones and get back into the habit of seeking meaningful interaction. I also try to hold myself to moral standards even if dealing with other people that I'm not all that fussed about.

I know some people that got very used to an isolated life and trying to get them to come out and meet up is near impossible. Some people have disappeared into a very insular self-absorbed world. It's not always easy, especially I think if your usual social spaces haven't returned or your contacts have retreated into themselves.

Cross post.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5425994-who-are-you-in-these-situations?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

The problem with "that" thread is that the posters don't acknowledge that usage of "merge in turn" is heavily restricted in the Highway Code. It's not "universal". Although in the OPs' OP it is high likely is the correct procedure.

Back to the thread.

Slow divers on the motorway... almost every time now there's some plank driving below 50, been behind people as low as 40. Lorries forced to overtake.

All this stuff has always gone on. But as the population grows and the infrastructure doesn't keep up it becomes more and more noticeable. Not much fun driving nowadays :-( Unless at night, well then you face extensive closures of motorways and dual carriageways for roadworks - so can be a literal nightmare if you don't investigate before setting off.

The roads are absolutely wild now . People are so selfish when they drive. And everyone
is so angry.
Yesterday I was at traffic lights , the car in the lane next to me was indicating to move over . I let them in front of me and the car behind them in the other lane started beeping and swearing at me so aggressively .Absolutely no clue what I did that upset him so much 🤨

Mine is already covered in bumps and scratches from being a dog walker who drives down narrow lanes all day long - doesn’t seem to make any difference 🫣

The latest thing around here is when you are the front of some traffic lights, you decide to drive on after waiting 20-30 seconds, when the lights are still on red.

On crossroads, cars going across have to stop to let idiot through or drive around them.

its going to be a major accident

https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-07-08/imposter-mum-who-made-thousands-taking-150-driving-tests-jailed

I know this is a very small number of licences compared to the population of the UK, but, no mention if the licences of those she passed the practical on their behalf had their licences revoked.

Alot of drivers are just angry in general, as is evident on this thread, what's the point of getting so worked up about every thing

We don't need infrastructure to keep up, we need fewer people driving

I know exactly what they mean. People have been less tolerant since Covid. See it in my office all the time when dealing with the public.

It’s changed since 2019.

Way too many people driving round coked out their bins now.

I live rurally so driving on narrow country lanes is a daily occurrence. People seem increasingly unable to reverse or else unwilling to tuck in to let anyone pass them.

I have seen an irate driver who only would have needed to reverse 20 metres to a passing place, shaking his fist at a tractor driver with trailer because they wouldn’t back up, on a steep hill and round a bend, to let them through with their precious Range Rover.

There seems to be a lot more tail gating and undertaking on the motorway. I assume it’s because there are a lot more people on the roads who didn’t pass their driving test in the UK. DH is one.

Mind you, I’ve just come back from Greece and despite much less traffic on the roads the driving was absolutely insane; loads of drivers overtaking on blind bends and double white lines, tail gating, you name it we saw it. Observing traffic signs seems to be optional.

All this blaming COVID, I just think it's social media like Reddit and other platforms where people behave badly and then others think it's quite ok. Some people have always behaved badly and its on the increase.

The amount of times I’ve experienced the same things you have described on here is unreal. People just stopping in the middle of a road for no real reason.

I also get sick of those who when it’s very clearly signposted as national speed limit they decide to trundle merrily along at 40mph holding a massive live of traffic up behind them but they just carry sauntering on blissfully unaware and oblivious. Then when the speed limit actually does change to 40 they slow down to 30 or 35mph so they are aware of the speed limit signs and have clocked them, they just think they should drive 5-10mph under the limit, sod everyone else! And for what reason? I would love for someone who does this to explain WHY they do it!

I don't think a lot of people actually know the NSL for various types of roads.

I think everyone should be retested every ten years. And it’s not necessarily pass or fail but the score you get on that test affects your insurance costs.