To conclude there must be many thousands of people on the roads who have not passed the driving test.

[redange]

I cannot believe the appalling standard of driving i see every day. To 'Legally' pass a driving test today requires a higher standard of competency than 35 years ago. In order to pass today requires an awareness of Hazard perception, correct use of Gears (if in a Manual) understanding of speed and distance and before that a difficult theory test. Therefore, how is it possible that the standard of driving is infinitely worse. The only conclusion can be that many thousands of people are driving illegally and dangerously on the highways of the United Kingdom.

Indicators have been a legal requirement on all new cars sold in the UK since 1935 so not sure which driving instructors are teaching in pre-1935 cars. Are they teaching people to double declutch as well?

BBC article on ghost plates https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ex1nvvgpzo.amp

i weekend https://inews.co.uk/news/crime/ghost-plates-dodge-speeding-tickets-4033586?srsltid=AfmBOoqeSuQIl5tZ3XhRhLdtnzGKoxER9gxR0q-_sEqaoz_8U_wUmn1S

(I can't remember how to do links). 1 in 15 on ghost plates, possibly 40% of London taxi drivers. Does look like west mids has a problem. Too many dodgy number plate dealers. They can drive around doing whatever they want, they won't get caught. Unsurprisingly the removal of paper tax discs hasn't helped.

I now drive assuming that everyone is about to do something ridiculous, dangerous or erratic, because there’s a good chance they will.

Im sure I was taught this way when I was learning 10 years ago. The rules change & some people driving for decades won’t realise, things have changed since I learned. Just this week I have had an older lady not look at the mini roundabout & carry on even though I was to her right, I always pause though as so many forget it’s a mini roundabout.
An older man was driving in the dark without lights!
A speeding driver overtook me and then swerved in front of me so I had to slam on the breaks as he didn’t realise we were approaching a roundabout.
A car overtook myself and the 2 cars in front of me when we had stopped at temporary lights, He carried out and then realised a HGV was coming so we all had to reverse/move which meant waiting for the next green light round.
Parking near primary schools is horrendous, white van drivers never indicate & don’t care about lane discipline & there are immigrants who clearly don’t have licenses.
Driving isn’t really enjoyable anymore.

There are new rules coming in, including eye tests, I think.

As pp said we should all get re tested every decade & there should be higher sentences for dangerous driving.

Read Court reports in your local paper. There are always people getting sentenced for no license/insurance etc. But a driving test is a one off for most people and there are no refresher tests. The pilots on your holiday jet have to requalify twice a year. Also it seems people believe they are entitled to drive how and where they want

On the M74 and M6 north it's equal opportunities. The thing that's the same is that they're behaving like arses. Deliberately. They know what they're doing..

In my area it is huge numbers of people on their phones. Mostly on video calls. Not just cars, but lorries too.
The police have a particular road near us where they pull people over and check paperwork and do a drink / drug drive check. You would be disgusted at how many they catch each time.

I’m another who thinks we should be retested every ten years. The standard of driving is shocking now. You have to drive defensively all the time.

there’s one woman I see on the school run, everyday she does something dangerous. Pulls infront of someone as your approaching roundabout and slams on her brakes, wrong lanes for round abouts, jumps traffic lights, pulls out on people.

she’s a driving instructor.

There are so many.
Sunday I watched woman trying to park by Tesco... She backed out of the spot 4 times trying to park straight and in the bay, then she gave up and just left it there and went shopping.
Incredible number of people don't indicate.
Guy changing his mind on large junction, not caring that he nearly hit us who were in the turning lane just last week.
Keeping in 1 lane? Why when you can drive third in the other too...
Some impressively terrible parking around.

I hear way more honking lately. And I get why. I saw car pull onto a road with n9 care in the world 2 weeks ago. Got proper honked at by others.

It's abysmal.

Who are you reporting to

Just watch some of the police series on TV.

I tell my children to cross the road as though every car has a driver behind the wheel who is drunk,.distracted and hasnt had a lesson in their life.
And I drive with that in my mind too

The problem is possibly that the ones with no licence or no insurance also have or claim to have no money -so what can be done e if there is no room in prison (and if they are working illegally they have no job to lose by being given a prison sentence) - pointless going to the trouble of arresting them

Literally says in the post......they have been reported to DVLA, via the proper process.

I don't think older people are to blame. Most of the poor driving I see is from entitled drivers - they don't need to indicate/give way/use headlights if they don't want to.
Or they think it's uncool to do these things (particularly BMW/Audi drivers I find).

It's safely endemic in all areas of life now sadly.

Going by local newspaper reports my guess is it's a combination of lack of ever having learned as you say, and driving with drink/drugs in their system. The latter feels like the only rational explanation for some of the insane behaviour I come across regularly when driving, either that or people just suddenly not caring if they die/become very disabled/cause similar to other road users etc.

Yes this is good advice.

We live in a reasonably affluent part of South London and it's become common for drivers to simply drive across junctions without looking. They certainly don't look like cars belonging to people who can't afford lessons, insurance etc.

Our neighbour is in his 80 with failing eyesight but still insists on driving. I know I’ll get up one morning and find his car in my front garden - he lives opposite.

We have both advised him to stop driving and no doubt his optician has advised the same but he’s having none of it. Reporting to 101 does nothing either…….accident literally waiting to happen!

My driving instructor in the 80s told me to treat every other driver as they are likely to do something stupid so that's not a new thibg

If watching Police Interceptors now and then is anything to go by, plenty of people are driving with no licence (or, obviously) insurance. Or who have lost their licence because of drink/speeding, etc.

I dare say someone will call this a racist comment, but in the past I’ve known more than one foreign-born person who freely admitted that back home, they’d paid someone to take their driving test, and that it was common enough.

Not sure how that works now, though - I learned to drive in Cyprus (ages ago) but could drive on that licence only for one year, after which I had to pass a U.K. driving test.

You can submit footage apparently
https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2024/november/gmp-continue-to-use-footage-submitted-by-you-to-catch-dangerous-road-users-to-keep-our-roads-safer/

Link: Report a road traffic incident
https://www.gmp.police.uk/ro/report/rti/rti-beta-2.1/report-a-road-traffic-incident/

The amount of drivers overtaking me in a 20mph area is scary. Im sick of people barreling up behind me then getting pissed off that i dare do the speed limit. These are built up areas where there is more likely to be children in the road but these people have no issues with putting their foot down. I imagine they would be absolutely up in arms if a speeding driver hit one of their children.

What i can't get my head round is the number of people driving around in uninsured and not taxed Lamborghini Hurrican's

Police in Lancashire seize uninsured Lamborghini and 100 other vehicles in a week (lancasterguardian.co.uk)

Who in the right mind lets an uninsured driver drive a circa £200 K car. Years ago uninsured and not taxed cars were write offs or cars on their last legs.

I agree OP. These people are overall strange.

I had one behind me once and as I looked in the drivers mirror to see who was such a bad driver, I noted he had a man dressed as a clown next to him in the passenger seat.

I asked my companion to look in their vaniry mirror and we both were quite scared.

Later as he tore past me dangerously, we saw that he actually had a clown mask on the head rest of the passenger seat.

I think you’ll find the poster is being sarcastic!