Are terrible driving habits on the rise?

_Kaiser_ · 09-09-2019 10:12AM

fryup wrote: »

its those damn entertainment screens that are causing bad driving imo...there too much of a distraction....fiddling around changing apps etc

That's a valid point I'd think and particularly the touchscreen aspect that requires more attention/need to look at it. We already know phones are distracting. Why would this be any different or in fact not worse?

How this was approved from a safety point of view is beyond me.

garv123 · 09-09-2019 10:18AM

When did it become optional to go around a roundabout ? Most people going straight through just cut as close to the roundabout as possible and feck the people beside them taking a later exit.

whiterebel · 09-09-2019 10:44AM

garv123 wrote: »

When did it become optional to go around a roundabout ? Most people going straight through just cut as close to the roundabout as possible and feck the people beside them taking a later exit.

"Cough.....my missus....cough" Guaranteed row when I point it out.

Wanderer2010 · 09-09-2019 10:47AM

the_pen_turner wrote: »

the reason he (presumably) hasnt been lynched is that most people can clearly see that its true. i often make a note of this if im driving a lot around town . it usually plays out to be 75% + being men that let you out usually closer to 90% but never below 75% yet.
the same aplies when your walking. . female drivers raraly inconvenience themselves to let you cross the road.

Men can get a bad name on the roads at times between speed and boy racers but in general, the male drivers I encounter on the road have some compassion in them in that they will let you out or if you manage to get stuck going down a one way road, they aren't as impatient as the women. And im a man as well.

kirving · 09-09-2019 10:52AM

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm surprised you've not been lynched yet for that comment, but I do actually agree with this. I rarely see a woman letting me out or doing anything nice/polite on the roads.

There's a 2.5km single lane farm road I often drive. At least once per journey I have to stop, or even reverse up to 100m to allow the other car pass.

The vast majority of the time, a man will wave or flash to say thanks. The vast majority of the time, a woman won't do it.

I'm not going to invade people privacy by posting dashcam video, but in my limited experience women tend to be less courteous. I'll have to go back through my last 10 trips on the camera and count the numbers.

Men on the other hand tend to be far more aggressive drivers in general, and in particular tailgating on the motorway. Although strangely enough, the two memorable/worst experiences I've had of tailgaters have been women in SUV's who would have killed me had I slowed down for any reason. Totally unscientific and not representative I know, but that's my experience.

The one thing that drives me nuts is on the motorway, approaching a far off truck in the left lane with cruise control set to 120km/h. Car behind (overtaking lane) is approaching so I don't pull out ahead of them.

Rather than maintaining speed, they slow as they approach the truck, and come alongside me as they go from 130 to 110. Leaving me with no choice but to brake in the left lane. If they kept a consistent speed I could have planned ahead and not had to slow.

whiterebel · 09-09-2019 10:57AM

Agree with all the OP points. Its pure and utter selfishness. The sense of entitlement that we seem to have got by divine intervention.
Point 3 - but with a twist.....coming up to a slip road - car overtakes, and then slams on to make the turn off. Saving 0.3 of a millisecond over pulling in behind and doing it safely.
Dunkettle roundabout in Cork. Slip road to tunnel has 2 left lanes to go to tunnel, 1 to go straight ahead or Dublin road. Every morning, queues on the right hand lane trying to burst in, because they can't be arsed queueing like everyone else. One Saturday morning, with light traffic a complete w*nk*r pulled right across from the right lane taking off from the lights at the roundabout and missed me by inches. Sorry he didn't, the dashcam would have made interesting viewing.

I have a neighbour who drives into a busy estate with headphones on. According to a Garda, the offence is Driving without due care and attention.
I find the French, in big towns and cities bad drivers. Pleasantly surprised when I drove in Italy a couple of years back. Road manners were impeccable.
I have a terrible confession to make. I agreed with a statement that Conor Faughnan made. There I've said it. A lot of dual carriageways here don't have enough room for all the exits, hence the constant hogging over the overtaking lane. The East Cork Parkway between Midleton and Cork, has the following: Turn off to Carrigtwohill, Turn off to Cobh/Cartrigtwohill, turn off to Little Island all in the space of 5/6km? No excuse on M7/M8, though.

The law was changed a few years ago to allow vehicles to drive on the hard shoulder, when the way ahead is clear, to allow vehicles to overtake. Some people don't know this, and others don't understand the concept of "when the way ahead is clear".

Fan of Netflix · 09-09-2019 11:22AM

I agree totally with the women thing. Most women won't let you out. If you let them out they are rude and refuse to thank/wave. The worst offenders being women in their 30s/40s/50s who drive in jeeps or oversized expensive cars. Many times with kids on board. Stuck up ones, usually the type who berate retail staff because they can. Those who worked in retail will know the type.

Fan of Netflix · 09-09-2019 11:25AM

The ones that really need to have manners put them are drivers on phones. Start jailing them. They are more dangerous than drunk drivers and far more widespread. Many aren't even looking at the road.

Dravokivich · 09-09-2019 11:28AM

I think it just boils down to 1 thing, the attitude of those drivers tends to be someone else will leave me the space. Sure in the multi storey car park in the square, theres people driving the wrong way around it all the time. And most of them tend to be people who work there.

Tazzimus · 09-09-2019 11:33AM

One I noticed this morning while sitting in traffic on the M4.
If there's so much as a brake light in front of them, people are zipping into the hard shoulder to get to their exit, which could be over 1km away.
And more often than not, some of these will nip back into traffic at the next slip road, as they were just trying to skip the queue a bit.

Fan of Netflix · 09-09-2019 11:42AM

I feel an element of cyclists are also engaging in more dangerous behavior. Skipping red lights. Being quite aggressive. Thing is they are the ones risking themselves.

Motorcyclists, well the stats speak for themselves. A more dangerous hobby in Ireland I've yet to see.

Tchaikovsky · 09-09-2019 12:10PM

Fan of Netflix wrote: »

I agree totally with the women thing. Most women won't let you out. If you let them out they are rude and refuse to thank/wave. The worst offenders being women in their 30s/40s/50s who drive in jeeps or oversized expensive cars. Many times with kids on board. Stuck up ones, usually the type who berate retail staff because they can. Those who worked in retail will know the type.

Forever looking to speak to someone's manager.

dsmythy · 09-09-2019 12:57PM

Fan of Netflix wrote: »

I feel an element of cyclists are also engaging in more dangerous behavior. Skipping red lights. Being quite aggressive. Thing is they are the ones risking themselves.

Deliveroo and friends in particular. Have to be extra careful around them. Their cycling behaviour is driven by fairly strict working conditions.

Cordell · 09-09-2019 01:05PM

Looking down presumably at their phone and putting on makeup and drinking coffee, this is what I see every single day multiple times in the morning. Usually women drivers, and you can tell even when driving behind one when you can't see her face in the mirror.

micks_address · 09-09-2019 01:08PM

Haven't read the thread. Was driving on some country smaller roads back home over the weekend and drivers seem to have forgotten there's a side of the road to drive on.. everyone I met was driving straight down the middle of the road at high speed..

Bigbagofcans · 09-09-2019 01:10PM

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Every week I see cars flying over pedestrian crossings with someone already crossing, its like drivers don't even recognise them for what they are, merely an inconvenience.

I was crossing a pedestrian crossing recently and a taxi driver flew through it and beeped at me. I got such a fright and am now a bit anxious at pedestrian crossings.

So many bad taxi drivers out there who seem to not use indicators and glide along lanes. And they rarely thank me if I let them out in front of me.

Panthro · 09-09-2019 01:16PM

At least 2 or 3 cars drive through as the orange light goes to red at every single set of traffic lights up and down the country

CrankyHaus · 09-09-2019 01:17PM

Bigbagofcans wrote: »

I was crossing a pedestrian crossing recently and a taxi driver flew through it and beeped at me. I got such a fright and am now a bit anxious at pedestrian crossings.

So many bad taxi drivers out there who seem to not use indicators and glide along lanes. And they rarely thank me if I let them out in front of me.

Sadly in Ireland "professional" as a prefix to "driver" generally means : "of a worse standard than normal".

It's mad, you wouldn't get away with it in any other game. Imagine professional athletes were worse at kicking a ball around than some local teenagers or if a doctor was a dodgy choice for medical attention compared to some random aul lad in the boozer.

That said, Taxi Driver, Truck Drivers etc do have a hard job so I try to let them off in traffic. It's safer in the long run because many are liable to fly out into your path anyway.

Tchaikovsky · 09-09-2019 01:31PM

Has anyone noticed the lack of proper indication when drivers are exiting at the third exit on a roundabout? The majority of drivers will either never indicate, or indicate right coming up to the roundabout and leave it on as they're turning into the exit. I'd say 5% of drivers will indicate right until after Exit 2, whereby they indicate left.

micks_address · 09-09-2019 01:57PM

Y

Tchaikovsky wrote: »

Has anyone noticed the lack of proper indication when drivers are exiting at the third exit on a roundabout? The majority of drivers will either never indicate, or indicate right coming up to the roundabout and leave it on as they're turning into the exit. I'd say 5% of drivers will indicate right until after Exit 2, whereby they indicate left.

Yes pretty regular occurrence.. they don't indicate when taking second exit or leave indicator on when taking 3rd

Cordell · 09-09-2019 02:02PM

I've seen so much misuse of indicators in the roundabouts so I wouldn't trust them either way for the rest of my life.

chooseusername · 09-09-2019 05:12PM

Cordell wrote: »

I've seen so much misuse of indicators in the roundabouts so I wouldn't trust them either way for the rest of my life.

A flashing indicator means only one thing;
that the bulb is working!

Cordell · 09-09-2019 05:20PM

That is true!
Also, a car indicating left doesn't mean that it will go right, they can keep on straight

K.Flyer · 09-09-2019 06:57PM

chooseusername wrote: »

A flashing indicator means only one thing;
that the bulb is working!

This a million times.
Especially if they are on a main road indicating to turn into the road you are exiting from.
I now wait until they are physically turning into the road before pulling out because you just cannot trust them anymore.

10-09-2019 01:56AM

I do take care myself not to but one thing I will say is that loads of roundabouts in ireland are very badly designed and don't make it easy to enter the roundabout at leftest point. I feel like I've to turn aggressively to the left on entering many smaller roundabouts.

Its not an excuse but it certainly doesn't help the problem, I always stay a little bit back on the tighter ones when turning right as you always get people encroaching in your space

run_Forrest_run · 10-09-2019 08:10AM

whiterebel wrote: »

The East Cork Parkway

is this a thing now?

Brussels Sprout · 10-09-2019 10:07AM

K.Flyer wrote: »

This a million times.
Especially if they are on a main road indicating to turn into the road you are exiting from.
I now wait until they are physically turning into the road before pulling out because you just cannot trust them anymore.

Same. In my case I learned this lesson the hard way, at a time when I had only been driving a year. A lady was indicating left and I was waiting at that junction. As she started to slow down, I pulled out and promptly struck her car as she drove past the junction, not turning left at all. It turned out that she was indicating to pull into a house situated on the left-hand side of the road beyond the junction. The police commiserated with me but told me, correctly, that I was to blame since indicators basically mean nothing. Cost me €600 in damage to her bodywork. Lesson learned.

FishOnABike · 10-09-2019 12:26PM

Deleted User wrote: »

I do take care myself not to but one thing I will say is that loads of roundabouts in ireland are very badly designed and don't make it easy to enter the roundabout at leftest point. I feel like I've to turn aggressively to the left on entering many smaller roundabouts.

Its not an excuse but it certainly doesn't help the problem, I always stay a little bit back on the tighter ones when turning right as you always get people encroaching in your space

There's a significant number of roundabouts which have two lane approaches where the roads and roundabout are too small to comfortabley accommodate a two lane approach and two lanes around the roundabout. These reoundabouts also frequently lack any lane marking on the roundabout itself.

It would be far more sensible (and safer) if any of these roundabouts that are too small / narrow for an articulated lorry to drive around without having to straddle lanes (marked or unmarked) to be make into single lane roundabouts on both the approaches and on the roundabout itself.

there's a certain amount of bad driving but there's also an amount of bad road design.

twin_beacon · 10-09-2019 12:47PM

I fully agree with the OP. as a commuter to Dublin I see most of these things on a daily basis, and of course even more so in the last 2 weeks since the schools are back. Most of these issues are caused by congestion and drivers getting frustrated. I'll add 2 more to the list:

Ignoring Solid White lines. They are solid for a reason! I had someone follow the red line this morning, to skip the queue. I was doing the speed limit, and they just merged in front of me. Its regular occurrence there

Indicating as you change lane. A driver wants to enter your lane, and they just indicate as they turn the steering wheel

Tchaikovsky · 10-09-2019 12:53PM

twin_beacon wrote: »

I fully agree with the OP. as a commuter to Dublin I see most of these things on a daily basis, and of course even more so in the last 2 weeks since the schools are back. Most of these issues are caused by congestion and drivers getting frustrated. I'll add 2 more to the list:

Ignoring Solid White lines. They are solid for a reason! I had someone follow the red line this morning, to skip the queue. I was doing the speed limit, and they just merged in front of me. Its regular occurrence there

They've had to put orange poles up along those lines in certain stretches of road due to the fact that drivers don't know what they're for/choose to ignore them.

Are terrible driving habits on the rise?

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