Rant time!
My drive into the office this morning featured the usual idiots, including the inevitable 4x4 mobile user. What was different, and really got me going, was a newish Golf GTi sighted in my rear view mirror, dodging in and out of the bus lane. At first, I thought he had just hopped into the lane to get around a car turning right but after the next roundabout he overtook (undertook) a whole line of us at some considerable speed. After the next set of lights he did the same, weaving around any slower traffic.
I guess what really bugs me is not only the blatant assumption that the rules don't apply to the two lads in their GTi, but also the " fingers up" statement that they are effectively giving to the rest of us mugs who are sticking to the correct lanes.
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IanS
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The world is full of people behaving unfairly, inconsiderately, etc. Don't worry about it. Just get on with living your good, enjoyable life and have a nice day. Seriously.
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It might even have been stolen!
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Nick, don't think it was stolen. The passenger was reading a newspaper which seemed too normal.
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IanS
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My daughter's play school is at the end of a 100 metre long cul-de-sac. A mother behind me was trying to overtake me on this road this morning as I was slowing down for a speed hump. What she thought she stood to gain from this I can't possibly imagine. A better parking space than me perhaps.
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My daughter's play school is at the end of a 100 metre long cul-de-sac. A mother behind me was trying to overtake me on this road this morning as I was slowing down for a speed hump. What she thought she stood to gain from this I can't possibly imagine. A better parking space than me perhaps.
Pretty normal. I have to drive over loads of speed bumps every day, taking the kids to school. They are in a 20mph and I drive at 20mph, dropping to 15mph over the humps. I often get someone either 2 inches from my tail or trying to overtake. Also have to contend with ladies in 4x4's who drive down the middle of the road because they think their vehicle is 3 feet wider than it actually is - poor spatial skills.
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Absolutely Aprilia, but in a cul de sac? Where she had to be less than 100 metres from her destination?
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Most nights drving home a blue Peugeot 306 takes to the right lane of a roundabout and does a full pirouette around the roundabout to take the left hand exit - whilst I and a few others wait patiently in the left hand lane to do the same. You'd have thought however he'd have learned his lesson by now by the amount of people that nearly pull out in front of him because they think he's taken the 3rd exit instead of doing a full circle.
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I think some of you just don't appreciate that other people are in a hurry and have important things to do! (wasn't it Margaret Beckett who said that?).
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The plate on the car cannot have connected to the person driving it or he would not have taken the risk. Or maybe he does not have a UK driving licence so endorsements cannot be applied to it.
HJ
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Thats cheeky, but is it actually illegal? I mean he could say I was intending to take the 3rd exit until most of the way round the roundabout and then I changed my mind.
In some ways manoeuvers like his can be seen as anti-social, but in another way they reduce congestion. I'm actually thinking of a much less cheeky maneuver, well actually thinking about this has brought me on to one of my own rants....
There is a recently redesigned roundabout where I live where the whole junction was stripped out and is now traffic light controlled. Previously when turning right from one of the approaches, one had to take the right hand lane - but now after the redesign the left lane has a painted arrow for "straight, left, or right" and there is a clear route marked for using the left lane to turn right (and at the right exit there are 2 lanes for a short time to accomodate people turning right in two files).
The thing is sometimes the right hand lane is absolutely full, with 25+ cars, not all of whom are going to get through on the first green. The left lane however is almost always empty, with 3 or 4 cars at the most all of them waiting to go straight or left. When its like this I always use the left lane to go right.
The thing is I've been told this is "cheeky" by two people now (obviously argued back and got them to realise they were in the wrong), and what makes me angry is that not only have these people misunderstood or not looked at the arrows on the road and the newly designed junction, but their attitude is making the congestion worse.
The engineer who planned the new junction obviously put a lot of thought into it, and realising that most people want to turn right set it up so that both lanes can be used for this. If everyone took this in and used both lanes as intended, the queue would be much shorter in lane 2, and people in both lane 1 and 2 would get through on the first green. The traffic wouldnt back up to the previous roundabout and everyone would get to their destinations a little bit quicker.
Even if its just me doing this supposedly "cheeky queuejump" thats one less car in the clogged lane. So anyway, theres one circumstance where I think a rapid 'undertaking' manoeuver is the responsible thing to do, and good for everyone.
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">obviously argued back and got them to realise they were in the wrong<" No, no and no. Give them a bright and cheery Stirling wave as you sail effortlessly past.
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I sometimes do that if I spot the opportunity. The people that get narked about that sort of behaviour are most likely the ones that start to queue for a lane closure half a mile in advance while there remains an empty lane on their right.
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ladies in 4x4's who drive down the middle of the road because they think their vehicle is 3 feet wider than it actually is - poor spatial skills.
Not been in the car with her for ages, but my Mum does that and she only drives a Corsa. Partly due to poor spatial skills but also because she was taught to by her driving instructor. She was taught to give parked cars a wide berth, "because someone may open a car door while she is driving past". I've tried explaining many times before that if she can see there is nobody in the parked car, then the door is unlikely to suddenly open, but this doesn't seem to register with her... Her driving has improved dramatically since she passed but unfortunately this aspect hasn't.
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Nick, don't think it was stolen. The passenger was reading a newspaper which seemed too normal.
Maybe he was trying to find out if the cops were after them.
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Maybe he was trying to find out if the cops were after them.
Oooh..........very droll.
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>> >> Nick, don't think it was stolen. The passenger was >> reading >> >> a newspaper which seemed too normal. >>
They all do that - old trick.
Likewise when on foot carry a rolled umbrella - no one carrying an umbrella ever commits a crime.
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In response to horse, may I suggest he RTF (Read The Flipping) Highway Code Rule 120 which will refer him to RTRA Secs 5 & 8.
HJ
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No arguments about using a bus lane HJ, that is dodgey - I was talking about using a not often used lane that isn't a bus lane.
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I think the passenger of the Golf deserves some credit. I'd want to puke in about two minutes flat if I tried to read when someone was driving like that!
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The regular commute that I take in the morning has two points where the dual carriageway has an arrowed left hand turning lane and arrowed right / straight on lane when approaching a roundabout.
The left hand lane is usually free flowing whilst the right hand lane is stop start for half a mile.
You always get the regulars who wallop up the left hand lane and then cut in sharply ( or try to ) at the last minute. It annoys the hell out of me .......
I regularly see the full circle round the roundabout manouevre performed, occasionally do it myself if the traffic is really badly backed up .
I used to travel on M25 and would regularly in heavy traffic slip off on the slip road at a junction and go back down onto the motorway at the same junction - You could gain a mile on the traffic by doing this.\Regular to see coach drivers do this.
Cheekiest trick I have seen recently was the car driver trying to get out onto the very busy dual carriageway who finally got out of his car and walked 20 metres up the road to press the button on the pedestrian crossing to stop the traffic and then dashed back to his car
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"Cheekiest trick I have seen recently was the car driver trying to get out onto the very busy dual carriageway who finally got out of his car and walked 20 metres up the road to press the button on the pedestrian crossing to stop the traffic and then dashed back to his car"
That's not cheeky, that's genious!
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"That's not cheeky, that's genious!"
My grandad used to make me do that about 35 years ago in Levenshulme at a particular junction. "Why don't you pop out and press that button" he'd say. I thought it was a bit of fun, I didn't realise until 20 years later why he did it.
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The full circle to take the first exit on a roundabout is known as "Brooks Gambit".
An outragiously selfish manouvre that I have used on several occassions.
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Robin Reliant, formerly known as Tom Shaw
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An outragiously selfish manouvre that I have used on several occassions.
Ah, you are that blue Pug 306 driver, and I claim my five pounds.
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You always get the regulars who wallop up the left hand lane and then cut in sharply ( or try to ) at the last minute. It annoys the hell out of me .......
As someone who drives all over the UK, I would say that there are many places where the roads are marked like this, but it isn't obvious until it's too late. Then you get some drivers who see the arrow and just stop and try to change lanes, blocking the one they're in.
What's worse is where there are no markings on roundabout approaches with 2 lanes in and one lane out (Nantwich Bypass is like that on 3 of its 4 roundabouts). It really isn't obvious which lane to use and often leads to frayed tempers and near misses.
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Bill - its not the genuine out of town drivers who don't know the area that annoy me , I will let them in - they usually are pretty obviously lost.
Its the locals that try to do the same thing every morning, particularly the minicab drivers and local tradesmen in the white van - and they are usually busy chatting on the mobile or eating / drinking at the same time.
The other thing that annoys me is sitting behind someone in the queue who chucks their lighted cigarette end out of the car or the guy behind reading his newspaper and not concentrating.
My all time favourite was the stupid woman in front who was busily texting in the slow moving traffic up to the lights . I knew what was going to happen I watched her for around five minutes before she finally ran into the back of the car in front of her.....I just laughed as I overtook the resultant carnage.
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Theres a roundabout in Chesterfield I drive on every evening, the approach has 2 lanes for left/straight on, and straight on/right. The left turn is the A617 dual carriageway heading to M1 junction 29. Occasionally I see cars use the less-busy right hand approach lane then go left onto the A617; they either wrongly assume the left lane is left only, or they knowingly risk being t-boned by a car going straight on. Not just cheeky but downright dangerous.
Years ago I saw this happen in Sheffield. A Mk3 Escort driver thought he was quick enough to turn left from the right hand lane in front of a bus. The bus bumper hit the rear wheel of the Escort and neatly snapped it off, leaving the Escort sitting askew in the middle of the roundabout...
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Thursday before last was the first day back for our local private school so ineveitably the traffic was much worse than normal. There was a very long single file queue up to the main road even though I had set off earlier than normal.
I'd been sitting in the queue singing along with Dedlioake (Togs will understand) for about half an hour when a twit in a brand new A4 avant came up the vacant lane, forcing any oncoming traffic up the curb. He clobbered several door mirrors, including mine, but moved too fast for me to get his number. Still my red paint must look great on his highly polished black mirror housing!
Don't you just love the example he was giving to his private school son? (i could tell by the blazer)
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