Went out this morning around 7:15am this morning and the way people were driving put a cold shiver down my back. The temperature gauge on my car was reading zero degrees. Half a mile down the road (dual carraigeway)there was a multi car pile up with cars skidded off everywhere on black ice. There was a Police car sitting with lights on and policeman waving people down,warning them to slow up. People were absolutely oblivious until they were on him despite the bright lights. I went through this and another quarter mile up the road there was a two car shunt. Another 300 yards and a new Mini was into a tree!
Coming past the two car shunt and passing the Mini, a guy in a Picasso was two inches off the rear of my car and then overtook me in an industrial estate/30mph
On the way back home around an hour later, we were u-turned on the dual carraigeway with the multi car pile up, to enable them to clear up the carnage. Now there is another idiot tailgateing me along a small untreated country road, while texting on his mobile phone!
What is wrong with these people. Can't they see what has happened around them?
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They're too busy reading the paper or finishing their breakfast or shaving whilst on autopilot to notice anything out of the ordinary.
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Maybe if they had the book thrown at them.They may concentrate on driving.. rather than being occupied elsewhere??
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Steve
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I can sympathise with you perturbed,driving becomes less pleasurable each year. If this sounds condescending it is not meant to be but I keep myself as safe as I can by; a.reading and obeying the Highway code; b.reading Roadcraft and trying to emulate the driving techniques therein. Also by keeping calm, mind you I've only managed the latter since I matured/grew old, take your pick.
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Once people have passed their driving test they are left to their own devices. No one ever checks up on them & its only a very small handful of people who are caught by the police. Many people even a short time after their test, forget about stopping distances, road markings, speed limits etc.
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Interesting, as I've just had a particularly good run to Cardiff and back (from Berkshire) - clear both ways on the M4 and 43 mpg from the Audi! Contrast with your experience this morning, Perturbed, and my own on Friday evening coming back from Milton Keynes, with my Trafficmaster screaming and having to divert off the M1 once and the M25 twice.
The difference is the weather - clear on the M4 today, freezing wherever you were this morning and wet last Friday. Leaving aside the idiots with their razors and / or mobile phones, there are far too many who don't allow for the conditions and try to pretend everything is normal.
Some employers are to blame as well - no-one should be penalised, or thought worse of, for taking more time to get to work because of bad weather conditions, any more than if a train is late. There's far too much pressure nowadays - usually for some short-term goal - and although I love my job I'm glad I'm at the back end of my career.
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My neighbour (a builder) does a tabloid crossword as he drives his Transit to work. He has an expensive and much-used handsfree kit though as he fears being booked... I avoid him in the mornings.
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The crime in our area-people are trying to nick stuff out of my boot at 50mph! I manage to just stay 5 inches in front of them!
Twits. No wonder the life insurance industry is in so much trouble, so few premiums, so many payouts.
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Really challenging his brain then! It's clearly the use of the pen and not the drain on brainpower that's causing the danger here!
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Just a sample of this weeks sightings:-
Timber lorry driver coming towards me drifting across the white line as he was reading his road atlas.....
White van man with both main rear view mirrors smashed - no glass at all in the top so the only rearward vision was the two tiny curved mirrors at the bottom.....
White van man No 2 cuts into my path from left hand minor road forcing me to brake, clutching his mobile to his left ear with left hand and trying to do a full 90 degree turn with his right.
The BMW who every day knows very well he should be in RH lane at the local roundabout as everyone turning right is queued back half a mile but speeds up the LH lane and cuts across on the roundabout or forces his way in ... I've got your number mate - just try it with me!
etc etc etc.
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see similar things all the time these days, was never a big supporter of cameras but more & more beginning to think it would be a good idea to have one every 100yds !!!
Not saying I'm completely innocent myself but some people just have no regard whatsoever for anyone else on the road - if you drive like an pink fluffy dice then you might just end up killing someone - maybe yourself - just not worth it.
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And the guy in his Volvo estate who was parked in the inside lane of the Leeds ring road 5/6 car lengths from a set of lights - no hazrad lights so he can't have broken down. But of course he was too busy looking at a map and talking on his phone to realise the lights had changed. He didn't flinch as car after car blasted their horns at him.
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If I see a BMW coming up the lane next to me in order to jump ahead at a set of traffic lights / roundabout etc, I do my best not to let him in and everyone around me does the same, even if it means moving within inches of each other. It's different when it's a genuine mistake, because it's obvious. The driver looks apologetic, waves their hands around, smiles etc, and is almost certainly let in.
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There's a roundabout in our city centre where people regularly try going in the wrong lane and cutting in. I was in the proper lane, and the woman behind me was so determined not to let someone cut in that she actually nudged into the back of my car!
It was such a tiny knock that I didn't even bother stopping in the busy road to look, I don't think she even realised that she had hit me.
Of course I might have reacted differently if I wasn't driving a company car...
At least it showed the pusher-in that we really meant business though! :-)
Blue
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Stand by for more of the same - eastern areas - snow and ice forecast for weekend and early next week. Plenty of notice of bad weather - someone somewhere is going to get stuck/slide off the road and blame everyone else for their predicament.
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"Stand by for more of the same - eastern areas - snow and ice forecast for weekend and early next week."
Will it happen this time though? Exactly two weeks ago today they were saying the same thing for the following Monday - nothing!
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Oh dear - I do hope the forecasts are not right then, for it seems our winter is yet to come, here in the south-east. Next week, apparently, is our time.
I put a load of anti-freeze in last week, but I am not sure there is an awful lot more I can do except pray!
Pray that other road users don't do as others in this thread have told, and that when they do, I am a million miles away. Selfish, yes maybe, but if I and you can protect our own then so should everyone.
Night for now
HF
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