Originally written 01/12/2001
I've been driving about 5 years, and in that time have travelled about a hundred thousand miles, along a variety of different roads, throughout the UK. I had a few accidents early on, and this was one of the reasons that I started searching for further training. As luck would have it, a couple of days after starting this search, I stumbled across an IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) recruitment van in the town centre near where I lived, and after a quick chat with the people there, signed up. After many observed drives with an Observer from the local group, PAM (Portsmouth Advanced Motorists), I took the test, and passed, making me a fully-fledged member of the IAM. As a member, I try and drive to their standards at all times, and hope to set an example to other drivers too.
Over the time I have been driving, I have seen plenty of bad things, including signs, roads, and drivers. Below are my thoughts, feelings and opinions on things I have seen on my travels. Please note that these are my opinions, and not necessarily those of anyone else, including the IAM and the law.
Near to where I live is a stretch of dual carriageway between two roundabouts, which is joined in the middle by a slip road merging from the left, complete with give way markings on the road. However, it seems people don't understand quite what 'give way' means, choosing to barge their way onto the dual carriageway, usually causing traffic already on the dual carriageway to brake or swerve to avoid them. People on the dual carriageway itself are far from blameless too; they see people coming down the slip road, and slow down to let them out, only to see the people on the slip road slow down also. After taking it in turns to slow down, the person on the slip road ends up joining the carriageway at 10 mph, and the left lane slows to a crawl as everyone brakes. It's not hard for the traffic coming down the slip road to see the state of the dual carriageway, and if it is busy, they should prepare to stop at the end to 'give way'. Traffic already on the carriageway should maintain speed and course - unless, of course, they're changing lanes ready for the roundabout ahead.
Speaking of that roundabout, it is amazing how many people I see use the left lane (of two) to go right at the roundabout. Considering that the road layout allows someone in the right lane to go straight on at the roundabout, I'm sure it doesn't take a major leap of logic to notice that someone trying to go right in that left lane will be in for a nasty surprise. Why do they do it? Usually because the left lane queue is shorter. What do they gain? Oh, a couple of seconds, maybe? Hardly worth risking an accident over.
Just this Sunday, I was returning home via the M25, and saw a huge number of motorbikes on the road, presumably heading home from the big Brands Hatch meet I heard about. Normally, I have to say most motorbike riders seem fully aware that they are not in a favourable position when it comes to survival rates in accidents, and are usually courteous and careful. Not so on Sunday, though, it appears. First, many of them were not wearing sensible clothing - shorts and t-shirts, regardless of the hot weather, aren't a good plan if you like keeping your skin where it belongs - attached to your body. Second, at one point, whilst travelling at 70mph in the outside lane, overtaking other vehicles, I had bikers undertaking me - and, more annoyingly, then pulling out a few metres in front of me, forcing me to slow down to give myself some space again - which of course then prompted more undertaking and cutting in front, until I was travelling nearer 50mph than 70mph. To make matters worse, they all then proceeded to move to the lane to my left, and slow down to 60mph, meaning I accelerated back up to 70mph to pass them all. Someone please explain to me what the point of that was? I thought bikers liked to keep their image clean, in the hope of gleaning sufficient respect from other road users to make their travel safer? After all, I have always given bikers room to pass by pulling over as far left as possible when they otherwise would be unable to pass, and when taking my turn to overtake, have given them a car's width of space as opposed to brushing against them with my wing mirror.
This has got to be my biggest pet hate of all on the road - people who use fog lights in normal nighttime conditions, or worse still, broad daylight. This is often combined with having only sidelights on, rather than headlights, even at night. This behaviour is actually illegal; the highway code states "You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves." Also, a work colleague once told me that fog lights in the rain can pretty much blind a motorbike rider, since the undiffused red light from the rear fog lights, combined with the wet visor, makes the rider see nothing but red - literally. The only explanation I can find for this behaviour is that it is some kind of fashion statement. It seems to me that the only fog present is between the ears of the driver concerned. It is not cool, it is not clever, it is distracting, annoying, inconsiderate, dangerous, and illegal.
Another fashion statement lately appears to be the increase in 4x4 vehicles such as Range Rovers. Why someone needs 4x4 for road use, I don't know. Problem is, half the people that own them seem to have no idea how to drive them properly, and some obviously feel like it endows them with some kind of immortality judging by the way they swerve into other people's paths or charge onto roundabouts like lunatics. I heard somewhere that someone involved in a serious accident where the other vehicle is a 4x4 is twice as likely to be killed. It can't be the extra space that these people want, since estate cars and 'people carriers' are available to do that kind of thing, nor can it be for towing caravans, etc. as most large engine cars are perfectly capable. Maybe it just needs to be that big and powerful to carry those egos around.
Can't have a rant without including this one. The number of people I still see using mobile phones whilst driving is really quite scary. One hand, with phone, clamped to an ear hole, other hand on the wheel, these people are incapable of changing gear or undergoing a drastic change of direction. Their attention is usually far from the road, too. I must confess to using my phone whilst on the road at times, but I have a hands-free kit installed in the car, with speaker and microphone. Also, the road takes priority, and a few people have had me chatting away and then suddenly silence upon approaching a roundabout or other junction. The way I see it, talking on the phone with the hands-free kit is nothing different to talking to a passenger. Again, my trusty highway code states "You MUST exercise proper control of your vehicle at all times" - two hands on the steering wheel, for example.
Is it me, or does it seem that the only available option for stopping accidents these days is lowering the speed limit? I drive through little villages along country roads that I drove through a couple of years ago, and note that 40 limits have dropped to 30 limits, 30 limit signs have been moved further outside the village, and most of those are proceeded by a short spell of 40 limit. Does this really help? Or are drivers increasingly infuriated by what seem like inappropriate speed limits, which leads to them being ignored? I heard a story regarding a short stretch of dual carriageway near Reading that used to be a 40 limit, and most traffic trundled along between 35 and 40, since that's a safe sensible speed for that road. For some reason or other, the limit was reduced to a 30. The result? Now most traffic travels between 40 and 50. Why? Who knows, but it seems people have responded to a senseless lowering of the limit by ignoring it. Myself, I get sick of being forced down to 40 miles per hour along a long straight stretch of dual carriageway with no side roads, no housing, or any other apparent reason.
Following on from speed limits, speed cameras also annoy me. I'm talking about the variety that bounces radar off the back of your car, and takes a pretty picture if you're going too fast. What do these achieve? Mostly, the traffic slows down to pass the camera (and usually abruptly, due to seeing the camera at the last moment), and then speeds right back up again, thus becoming more of a hazard than a safety feature. I heard that cameras are being trialed which are much more obvious from a distance - this will at least get the fast-slow-fast drivers to slow down more smoothly. I also heard about the cameras that are spaced out at certain intervals along a stretch of road, and read numberplates to detect when cars pass those points, then working out an average speed. This is a more cunning idea, and will certainly have a greater success. But is speed really what needs enforcing?
I do think the wrong people are being targeted by current enforcement, from what I've seen. I've seen people weaving in and out of traffic, causing other people to swerve or brake suddenly, mobile phone clamped to their ear, fog lights on, number plate in fancy italic writing, one brake light not functioning, no indicating, and breaking countless other laws, all at the same time. These people are being allowed to continue driving, due to lack of enforcement, and yet someone that travels 100mph down an empty motorway can have their licence taken away. Tell me who is the biggest threat to themselves and others? Personally, I would like to see less marked cars and uniformed police officers manning speed traps, and more sitting in unmarked cars on busy commuter routes catching the people that are really causing a danger.
I've seen a lot of traffic calming systems pop up on routes I have frequently driven along. A lot of these consist of closing the incoming lane at the entrances to villages or other high-risk areas such as near schools, causing traffic entering the area to give way to traffic leaving it. Annoying that these are, I have to admit they seem to have the desired effect - there is less traffic, and more gaps in the traffic in which pedestrians can cross the road. Sometimes, however, the local authority concerned can go a little over the top, creating a stretch of road with several give way sections, alternating on each side of the road. All this seems to cause is a dramatic increase in speed as people rush for the gaps to avoid having to stop for oncoming traffic. A school I used to work at had a road nearby given this treatment, costing a horrible amount of money, which then had to be removed because it was causing more accidents, which cost yet more horrible amounts of money. Whilst these schemes appear good in moderation, I think more thought has to be applied beforehand.
At the end of the road I live in now, they are considering narrowing the junction for safety reasons. Bearing in mind that this junction is only a few seconds drive around a bend from a large roundabout, this narrowing - which is intended to slow traffic entering the road a lot more - is simply going to result in people coming round the corner too fast, and crashing into the back of someone turning left into our road. I did attend an exhibition of the plans for several changes to our local roads to object to this change, but came away feeling that I wasted my time. We shall see; the roadworks start soon.
Also on the road I live in is a school which appears to have no car park of its own, or at least not one that is easily accessible and of any size to be useful to anyone other than the school staff. This results in utter chaos at about 9am and 3pm every day, with people parked seemingly at random, across junctions, round bends, and opposite other cars leaving only a small gap to squeeze through. This kind of behaviour really doesn't encourage a safe environment for any road, particularly one outside a school, nor is it legal.
The road outside our house is such that about 3 cars can park on our side of the road, or 5 or 6 cars can park on the other side. Also, given that the road is on a slight bend, with us on the inside, it makes far more sense to park on the opposite side. I just wish other people saw that sometimes. Also, people parking opposite our driveway can make life very difficult for us to get out, and people don't seem to have the common sense or consideration to realise this.
Why do people insist of travelling a couple of metres off my rear bumper at 40mph? This is particularly the case in London, where it seems that everyone is fighting to make sure someone else doesn't 'steal' the space between their car and the one in front. My general response to someone being too close is to reduce my speed to a speed that is safe for the amount of distance they are giving me, and then reaccelerate to open up the gap. Of course, people don't take the hint, or are too stupid to realise that they are too close, and are soon right up behind me again.
Recently, my fiancee was driving along with someone too close behind her. Despite lightly braking a few times, she was unable to get the person behind to back off. Shortly after, a child on the pavement fell over, and ended up in the road, causing my fiancee to brake very hard and suddenly, narrowly missing the child. Needless to say, it was a very close call with the car behind stopping only a foot short of my fiancee's car. The woman in the car behind was somewhat distraught, and so she should be - had she hit my fiancee's car, she would have probably forced it over the child, and I don't really like to think what could have happened. Fortunately, everyone survived unhurt, and everything survived undamaged, except perhaps the lady's confidence and attitude. We can only hope she learnt a lesson.
These are also pet hates of mine; I include the two together, because the former often causes the latter. The lane hoggers are most commonly seen on the motorways and dual carriageways, and basically consist of two types. First, there's the people who hog the outside lane, not moving over into a gap to allow the (large and growing) queue of traffic behind to pass, usually because they're either ignorant or because they want to overtake the car 400 yards ahead that they're catching up with at the rate of about 50 yards a minute. This is not popular with most drivers, particularly impatient ones, who then think this gives them the right to change lanes and undertake the offending lane hogger. This in itself, of course, defeats the object somewhat, since it actually prevents the lane hogger from moving over, because people are undertaking!
Second, there's the type who hog the middle lane. Do they have some phobia about the left lane? Who knows. Either way, this causes problems for people travelling down the centre lane that are being overtaken themselves, since they are unable to move right to overtake the lane hogger, and must slow down. I often see people undertaking these lane hoggers to make some kind of point, but again, that just prevents them moving over. Another popular 'hint' is to overtake them, and then swerve across their path into the left lane, but this isn't really sensible either, especially when you catch up with that slow moving lorry a few hundred yards ahead, and have to pull back out, thus looking very silly.
Well, that's a great deal of ranting done and off my chest. I think there is definitely a need to raise the quality of driving on the roads, and whilst the government seems keen on raising the difficulty of the driving test to make it harder to get on the road in the first place, this does seem to be missing the point because there are far too many dangerous drivers that are already on the roads. Still, at the moment, there is no real incentive for people to join organisations such as the IAM - most insurance companies seem to ignore it, and there are only a few perks for being a member - to increase driving standards through further training/education, nor is there sufficient covert enforcement to catch the dangerous drivers that plague the roads. What enforcement there is seems to be damage limitation, rather than damage prevention.