Are terrible driving habits on the rise?

In response to paragraph one I have no clue what you’re talking about.

In response to paragraph two I couldn’t care less about a universally positive response but I laugh when I hear one woeful driver complaining about the mistakes of another woeful driver

In response to your third paragraph based on my own on road experience the vast majority of US are brutal drivers and should not be allowed in a public space with anything more mechanically challenging than a wheelbarrow.

I think you know that not what I was doing.

I somehow doubt that someone who cares so little about following the rules of the road is going to have an opinion about whether or not they see themselves as a good driver.

I dont think my original point was that difficult to understand but if you're going to insist on being all deliberately "yeah, but......" about it, then I guess we're done here.

It’s at the stage now if you stop on an amber light you’re in the minority and nearly risk someone running into the back of you . I don’t know the reason for it but in Dublin anyway, I could say 90% of the time I’m at lights someone breaks the red

Care to give us some indication as to your own driving abilities, or are you a brutal driver too?

Probably describe myself as poor to bad just like the majority.

On the basis that I did my driving test fifty years ago and have not done any training courses or refreshers since then my driving could not be good .

However in those fifty years I have never been involved in a road traffic accident of any kind or accumulated any penalty points so I don’t know what category that puts me in .

Of course that could all change in a split second.

There are people that are just inherently bad drivers due to poor observational or spacial awareness skills. But then there are drivers that just don't give a damn about following the rules. Stand at a pedestrian crossing while waiting for the green man on any busy road and it wouldn't be unusual for one in three drivers passing to be looking down at their phone.

Pulled out of a spot in a local Lidl, and felt the beep of a lad. Hammering on it. He must not have seen me coming out.

Proceeded to flip me the bird. So I slowed down in front of him, still not main road. Put my hand up, what's your problem. He thought i was putting it up to him so followed me home..

Had a massive row with him. Window to window. Said it was 'his road,' and it was his right to keep driving. This is a public walkway too with a Centra, crèche, pharmacy etc. Kids running out all over the place. It is certainly not a road of sorts and it's certainly not his road.

The aggression was off the chart. Said I'd call the Gardai. But was shaking enough. He drove off, mouthing a few F bombs. Not from Ireland. Eastern Europe. I only mention that as he insisted that he knew the rules of the road in this country.

A lad will run a red light, full red and then absolutely lose it with you if you do anything other than say, off you go.

The aggro is OTT

Driving used to be fun. Now it has turned into a melee. Add in random speed checks on perfectly good roads with not a speed limit sign to be seen. Nevermind the random 60km - 30km - 80km over the space of a few kms. I had the misfortune on one of our motorways in the past few weeks of meeting a car camped in the overtaking lane. Would it move over? no. Was it doing 120? No. 60km in the overtaking lane. I moved over and as soon as I accelerated he/she floored it. Tried to turn it into a race. Came over a hill and there was a tractor pootling along at 30km. I just burst out laughing at the tractor. I would have been funny except said car in the overtaking lane could have rammed me into the back of the tractor if I'd been daft enough to respond to the stupidity.

There is absolutely no law or consequences for breaking it on the roads. Just something relatively minor but very obvious like dodgy plates is rampant.

Actually getting aggravated and aggressive when such minor mistake happen is a really bad habit. Especially when it happens in a carpark where you are supposed to move slowly and be careful for other drivers and pedestrians.

Assuming the post is 100% accurate (yes, I know) it's the other driver who is much more in the wrong by getting aggressive and taking it way too far by following the poster home. Over some supermarket carpark inconvenience, which is a place where you should expect these kind of inconveniences. Someone who can't control their anger is dangerous on the road, the poster might just be an annoyance. Think the OAP doing 60 on a 100 road vs. the driver who overtakes them in a blind bend.

Some of the driving i see these days is crazy, only the other day someone in a 07 BMW overtook me and squeezed himself between me and he lorry in front of me. Then a few seconds later pulled out again over a continuous white line approaching a corner and over took the lorry. Very dangerous driving.

After that happened i was thinking it would be great if more drivers had cameras on their dash and could capture some of these incidents. Maybe if there was a website to post these examples up on it could embarrass the drivers into changing their ways.

We live in a first world country, its not to much to expect safer roads and better policed roads.

Do you think the driving described in this thread is fine?

Would be very interesting to get a quote from some of the bad drivers that the majority of the “ really good “ drivers on this discussion describe

On the basis of the poster's own admission, they twice did something which could have caused a collision in a short space of time and appears to have no concept of who has right of way, where traffic legislation / rules of the road apply, the difference between a road and walkway and tops it all off with a final bit of casual racism.

I can't see how you can think the other driver is more in the wrong. The poster has displayed an alarming lack of observation and basic driving ability and is a hazard on the road.

Think more of the driver who pulls out onto a main road at 10kmh in first gear, in front on oncoming traffic, causing it to have to brake hard and wondering "what's their problem, didn't they see me pulling out of the side road?" and then tries to argue that they are in the right.