Are Driving standards getting worse

[Gingga]

Well that’s my point. Nobody should be allowed to drive after 8 lessons. You’ve learned to operate a car, not to drive.
There should be a minimum number of hours before you can go solo, like a pilot.
Out of interest, were you involved in any incidents in your first year of driving?

None, I have been driving now for 33 years and I have caused not so much as a bump.

 

[dangermows]

Were talking about this at work, the trip home from it pretty much reinforced what was said.
Almost everyday there seems to be a bad collision or even worse, watching some drivers is f***ing terrifying to be perfectly honest, i don't drive myself (currently learning) but on a 25 minute bus journey today, 3 cars cut in front of either the bus itself or a car in front, a Quad thing cut across a lane of traffic to get in front of a bus in front to mount the kerb outside a shop and almost hit a pedestrian and then coming over the town bridge someone skipped the lights coming off Dame Dorothy turning right up Bridge Street and almost got wiped out by the bus i was on, then the bus itself tried to skip a red light and nearly hit someone.

Are people really that desperate to jump a red light and get somewhere that few minutes quicker.

Lad i work with has been banned for 3 years for drink driving, lad on the opposite shift for 18 months, another wrapped his car around a tree trying to impress his lass and wrote off his 19 plate Golf.

What seems to be the issue now, do people not give a fuck because there are less coppers about or is it as a colleague believed that its young, headstrong young 'uns getting cars on finance too powerful for them right out the gates and can't control them or in some cases get sniffed up or pissed and decide it's worth bombing out in their financed Merc or BMW at stupid speeds, these are the types that have turned my street into a drag strip at night.


A mate of mine has been a driving instructor for 22 years and said he's stopped young lads taking their tests because they have issues he wants to remedy before they get out on the road, so they've fucked off to other instructors and been out on the road within weeks and subsequently banned within a year.


Seems people just don't give a fuck on the roads anymore.

We appear, as a nation, to be no nearer to sussing out how to merge in turn correctly, instead opting to queue for miles in one bastard lane whilst leaving the other free.

 

[joemcdokes]

Absolutely. What was wrong with left for left and straight on, right for right.

Has anyone used the new layout on the roundabout between Leam Lane (A194) and John Reid Road? The arrows and writing are contradictory and the writing is wrong on some parts.

Remember when you used to be on a roundabout with only two lanes and once you were you didn’t get stuck on it due to bloody traffic lights with four f***ing lanes.

Arrrrrrrrrgh!

 

[Dave Herbal]

And make my sat nav and Spotify completely redundant?

The law hasn’t moved with the times and still classes

None, I have been driving now for 33 years and I have caused not so much as a bump.

You must be the exception then. We opened a “dead pool” book on who would crash next when we all passed our tests, and the majority had a bump within 6 months.

We appear, as a nation, to be no nearer to sussing out how to merge in turn correctly, instead opting to queue for miles in one bastard lane whilst leaving the other free.

Because as a nation we are terrified of people thinking you a knob for pushing in, so we’d rather queue than take the risk.

 

[Frijj]

Minor inconvenience at the expense of stopping lorry drivers plowing into the back of cars with kids in them though i suppose.

How do you propose you stop phone signals coming through glass, or an open window?

 

[dangermows]

How do you propose you stop phone signals coming through glass, or an open window?

Shut the window.

 

[Frijj]

Shut the window.

How do you make glass so that it blocks phone signals but doesn’t cost a load?

Some twat put my window out to nick a iPhone charger from my glovebox, and the council’s shoddy road resurfacing put my windscreen out.

I’m not paying £500 for some fancy phone blocking glass.

 

[Butcher's Coat]

Because as a nation we are terrified of people thinking you a knob for pushing in, so we’d rather queue than take the risk.

Not as a nation IMHO Dave, but I think that the older generation of drivers had a more courtious approach to fellow road users, and were taught to be so.
Even though a "merge in turn" rule is in the Highway Code, a lot of the more experienced drivers do not care for the "pushing-in" of drivers.
The "merge in turn rule" is thus:-
"Rule 134
You should follow the signs and road markings and get into the lane as directed.
In congested road conditions do not change lanes unnecessarily. Merging in turn is recommended but only if safe and appropriate when vehicles are travelling at a very low speed, e.g. when approaching road works or a road traffic incident. It is not recommended at high speed."

But the drivers these days who choose to make their own "interpretation" of such rule, sometime take the piss, and this is what causes animosity when they don't play by the rules of the road IMHO.

 

[PJH]

"I'm almost at this junction. Is my exit clear? No it certainly is not. Oh well, best drive into the junction anyway and block other drivers from using it."

 

[Frijj]

The worst driven car on Britain’s roads has to be the BMW 1 series.

BMW drivers are overwhelmingly cocks, but the affordability of the 1 series means they’re bought or leased by charvers or 20 something lads who live with their Mam

 

[steve30000]

Much worse IMO. You get some clowns who don't signal but they don't signal when turning right at roundabouts. Er how the fuck can you give way if we think someone is going straight on?

Idiots trying to join motorways doing about 30 MPH on the slip road, incredibly dangerous.

People who can't judge a gap. Car doing 30 about 50 yards away and they just sit there.

People who can't read the road at all. For example idiots slowing right down and then giving way to nobody at roundabouts.

The list is endless

I hate that. Why do the dangerous bastards do that? They're risking everyone's lives around them.

A few year back I was behind one of those small road sweepers doing this... Wtf was going through his head thinking it was OK to join a motorway in a dust cart? Some people shouldn't be on the road

Driving right up your arse when you're in a queue of traffic - I'm not Bruce Almighty mate, the traffic doesn't just part ahead of me.

Gandalfing - overtaking someone who's trundling along in the inside lane until they spot you and by the time you get alongside they're doing the same speed - YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

Owening AKA playing on the shoulder - when someone comes roaring up the outside lane (beware Gandalfing at this point) and then inexicably sits in your blind spot. Get past or get behind.

Oh... I f***ing hate people who do this.. What's wrong with them?

 

[Charlestonian]

I passed when I was 25, I’m 33 now and every year it seems to be worse.

Can’t wait for driverless cars me.

 

[matt228]

This thread has been interesting and I certainly recognise these behaviours in drivers around me, but I can't help but thinking there's an awful lot of rose-tinted specs, "when I were a lad" nostalgia.

Plus whenever I have trouble on the road it is usually from angry-looking blokes in their 40s and 50s, not the recently-passed. There's a mini roundabout at the end of my street (in Shildon) and almost daily someone wipes me out from my left because they simply don't look to their right. It happened today at another one in Aycliffe. JUST TREAT IT LIKE A REGULAR ROUNDABOUT YOU ABSOLUTE ARSE.

 

[DaftGet]

The rate of people killed or seriously injured in England has plateaued of late, with a small rise in the last year or so for the rate for children specifically

Cars are smarter and safer than ever but a plateau or rise is indicative of poor driving standards IMO

Biased I know since I work in a town where people drive and cycle like it’s the Wild West, but I see so much poor driving.

Constant speeding, undertaking, lack of indicating, etc. A bloke nearly hit me last night because he sped onto a roundabout with very poor visibility and did not give way to me.

I live in a much more rural place and the driving I see on my commute is just as bad. Motorbikes by far the worst offenders though.

If grandpa's didn't fanny on doing 60 in the outside lane on a motorway undertaking wouldn't be a thing.

Much worse IMO. You get some clowns who don't signal but they don't signal when turning right at roundabouts. Er how the fuck can you give way if we think someone is going straight on?

Idiots trying to join motorways doing about 30 MPH on the slip road, incredibly dangerous.

People who can't judge a gap. Car doing 30 about 50 yards away and they just sit there.

People who can't read the road at all. For example idiots slowing right down and then giving way to nobody at roundabouts.

The list is endless

You raise valid arguments. However on your later three points its nearly always the older generation, I have nearly been wiped out a couple of times on my daily commute when the old guard decided to slow and stop while entering from a slip road to a motor way.

 

[oROSSo]

Sorry to all you mackems but as soon as you hit at A19 at doxy all hell breaks lose. All the way along the 1231 none of you can use roundabouts or read the lanes you’re meant to be in. By far the worst drivers in the NE.

 

[Man About Town]

There's a lot of very impatient and angry drivers on the roads these days, wtf's that all about? Not one of them could call themselves a well balanced person which is worrying.

Sorry to all you mackems but as soon as you hit at A19 at doxy all hell breaks lose. All the way along the 1231 none of you can use roundabouts or read the lanes you’re meant to be in. By far the worst drivers in the NE.

Most people coming into Doxy from the A19 are not from Sunderland.

 

[VXi]

Most deals done for new cars now are these PCP (LEASE DEALS)

These deals put Audi's and Beemers well within the reach of younger people who a decade ago couldn't go anywhere near being able to afford such a vehicle. We have twenty-somethings who's brain power is not as powerful as the engines in the cars they drive.
A true recipe for disaster.

 

[oROSSo]

There's a lot of very impatient and angry drivers on the roads these days, wtf's that all about? Not one of them could call themselves a well balanced person which is worrying.


Most people coming into Doxy from the A19 are not from Sunderland.

True but I meant I hit doxy then go north, some of the drivinf is insane

 

[Keith S30S]

Sorry to all you mackems but as soon as you hit at A19 at doxy all hell breaks lose. All the way along the 1231 none of you can use roundabouts or read the lanes you’re meant to be in. By far the worst drivers in the NE.

The A1 in Gateshead is the worst road for drivers like. Full of nob heads.

 

[oROSSo]

The A1 in Gateshead is the worst road for drivers like. Full of nob heads.

I did team valley for years and A19 in and around Sunderland is loads worse. Every other day there’s a crash and it’s not surprising

Most deals done for new cars now are these PCP (LEASE DEALS)

These deals put Audi's and Beemers well within the reach of younger people who a decade ago couldn't go anywhere near being able to afford such a vehicle. We have twenty-somethings who's brain power is not as powerful as the engines in the cars they drive.
A true recipe for disaster.

Ner bollocks that, they all get the smallest engine possible