The driving test assesses your ability to control the vehicle, react to a changing environment and follow the rules of the road... for about half an hour. The roads are awash with people who have been driving for decades, couldn’t even tell you which year they took their test and have long since forgotten anything resembling road sense.
Speed Limits
People will proudly inform you that they’ve never had an accident in forty years of driving. If you witness their driving you’ll realise why. They religiously drive everywhere at the same speed, which is normally about 40mph. Now, before you pull me up for being a reckless speed freak, let me continue. I followed one the other day; he did 40mph all through a 60mph zone and then continued at the same speed straight through a 30mph zone. He had absolutely no awareness or appreciation of his surroundings. So it’s actually kind of a miracle they haven’t had an accident, but maybe not too surprising if they never go above 40mph. You have to wonder how many accidents they’ve indirectly caused though. Everyone at some point will have witnessed the ten car tailback from one of these guys (who can only manage two thirds of the speed limit on a road which should have a higher limit to begin with). Eventually peoples’ frustrations will get the better of them and they’ll perform crazy, almost kamikaze, over-taking manoeuvres.
I was over an hour’s drive from home when I found out my wife had gone into labour with our daughter (and there were no convenient motorways to take). Honestly, in 60mph zones I had to pass three separate groups of cars doing thirty-something miles per hour (in near perfect conditions). More annoying, at the time, was the tractor which could only do 16mph up a hill (but at least tractor drivers are normally courteous enough to pull off the road every now and again to let traffic by). There’s little excuse for doing sixty percent of the speed limit in a fully functioning, modern car though.
Roundabouts and Traffic Lights
It gets more frustrating at roundabouts. With no confidence and without the ability to judge gaps, these people sit at a roundabout waiting for someone to stop and let them out (good luck with that) or for a gap large enough to manoeuvre a space shuttle into. On a really busy roundabout they’ll genuinely be forced to wait for a gap. When one comes along which is big enough for three cars they’ll crawl out with a complete lack of urgency, wasting two spaces and confining the car behind to wait for the next space. It’s a similar story at traffic lights. They’ll head the queue but will be completely unprepared when the lights change to green. What the hell were they expecting to happen?
"Oh look dear that light has changed colour! I think we might be able to consider moving off. Check mirror, press clutch… where’s first gear in this thing? Are we going straight on here or turning? Oh look, it’s changed back to red."
Motorways
These are the same people who drive all the way down a slip lane to join a motorway and stop at the bottom. Would someone please tell them the purpose of the slip lane is to build up speed to join the flow of traffic smoothly! If you stop you’re making it ten times harder and you’re probably going to make the cars behind you have to stop too, you idiot.
Other vehicles which should remain in the inside lane are trucks. Normally on any busy motorway they’ll be an uninterrupted stream of them, an inch apart from one another, stretching for miles. The worst place for this to happen is on a dual carriageway. I’m sure you’ve had that sinking feeling when, as you’re approaching one, it indicates and pulls into the outside lane in front of you. It’s trying to overtake the truck in front of it and the large sticker on its trailer proclaiming that it’s limited to a maximum speed of 14mph fills you with foreboding. You invariably have to brake, scrub off some speed, and then sit behind the lorry for a couple of decades while the two of them race each other. The one that pulled out of the slipstream (impeding your progress) gets struck with the full wind resistance and, suddenly, that 2mph advantage he had has disappeared. I’ve sat behind lorries that have done this for miles and then pulled back in again, unsuccessful. No doubt the driver of the other lorry was laughing his arse off and calling him a loser across his CB radio. I once sat for over four miles behind two lorries doing this in Belgium. I’d have given him some abuse when he finally pulled over if it weren’t for the fact he’d have probably caught up with me at the port and pummelled me to death with a tyre iron.
Caravans are just as bad. They should only be allowed to travel between the hours of midnight and 5am, so they don’t they don’t hold up people who have real things to do. (As a side question, why do caravans always have brown stripes on them? They look like skid marks. It’s quite fitting really.)
Oh, and what’s with those electronic signs on motorways? I know they’re supposed to be there to offer useful advice (TIREDNESS KILLS! TAKE A BREAK) but half the time you have to wonder who controls them (job title: Master of Stating the Obvious). CAUTION FOG is invaluable. Great, thanks for the scoop. I was curious about the strange mist and the fact that I couldn’t see more than twenty feet but now you’ve told me to be on the look out for fog I’ll be vigilant. On a trip down the M40 recently the weather was, technically, pissing it down. It’s okay though because the helpful sign informed me that there was a RISK OF SKIDDING! SLOW DOWN. The fact that I could barely see the car in front, let alone read the sign, kind of made it redundant. I wonder what the chances are of reading the sign and, while distracted, crashing into the car in front.
Another pet hate (of which there are many) is people tailgating and then jabbing their brakes every five seconds. This often causes a domino effect which results in the traffic coming to a dead halt a mile behind. I have a solution... don’t drive so bloody close! Or at least comprehend that you don’t have to press the accelerator or brake pedal. You can ease off the accelerator and let the car slow naturally. It’s smoother, better for the wear and tear on your car and won’t give the bloke behind heart failure.
Emergency Vehicles
I’ve got more gripes you know and the next one is emergency vehicles. If there’s something guaranteed to send cars spinning into hedges and double the amount of erratic driving it’s people seeing blue lights in their mirrors. What is it about an emergency vehicle that winds me up? Nothing, but it’s the fact that one will illustrate the complete lack of logic in road users. If you have an ambulance trying to get somewhere and you stop in the middle of the road it is not helpful. The ambulance then has to stop too and wait for a gap to overtake, you imbecile. I nearly crashed into someone who did an emergency stop in front of me once because there was a police car approaching from behind. What should you do? Speeding up is always an option. Yes, I’ve had an ambulance come up behind me on an A road before and I sped up. Why? Because to let it by would have slowed it down and I was capable of going much quicker than it was, safely. At the first sensible opportunity I moved out of the way. By sensible I mean something which won’t impede its progress, like a junction or a lay-by.
Weather
The order of the day seems to be to drive at 3mph everywhere. I fully appreciate that snow and ice makes driving tricky but it seems these people are completely incapable of interpreting any feedback from the road. It’s really quite simple. If everything’s steady at 5mph, try 8mph. Is that a bit slippery? Slow back down then, gently. Not slippery? Try a touch faster (within sensible limits), and so on. Obviously watch for changes and, at all times, drive smoothly. Of course it means you can’t put your make-up on, read the paper and will just have to wait until you reach your destination before reading text messages. I’m told the Police take a dim view on these activities when they’re performed while driving in the dry too so maybe it’s just a good practice to adopt, whatever the weather.
A couple of years ago I watched several people try and get out of snow ridden parking spaces by mashing the accelerator pedal into the carpet. After the wheels had spun for thirty seconds they had only succeeded in digging themselves in a bit more and had transformed the snow to ice, making their escape even harder. I even heard about a colleague who drove a Land Rover, lived half as far from the office as I did and wouldn’t dare venture out. Let me emphasise that: a four wheel drive, off-road Land Rover, one of the very best equipped vehicles on the road for dealing with bad weather. I was driving a crappy Vauxhall Astra at the time (the crappy bit is actually officially part of the title now, enforced by the Trade Descriptions people). It was front wheel drive and rates as the worst handling car I’ve ever owned. Still, I drove it 25 miles a day in the snow and didn’t come close to having an accident. Comically, I remember overtaking someone on a dual carriageway (he was doing about 15mph) and the shock almost caused him to crash. It would have been worthwhile though, just for the ridiculous look he gave me.
Conclusion
Although it might seem like it, I’m not saying that I’m a fantastic driver. I’m sure I’ve done my fair share of pissing people off (I guess they’re not always waving hand signals at me cheerfully), but I’ve driven enough to know I’m perfectly competent. It just staggers me how poor the general standard of driving is. We should get these people off the road (start by throwing stingers in front of cars which are travelling at less than 90% of the speed limit) and then the people who can drive will save themselves countless useful hours a week. The others can get the bus or just skive off work, as they would do in the snow anyway.
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