There is a small village near here with a mini-supermarket of one of the main chains. It is quite busy traffic wise in the main commuting/school run times. Despite parking nearby many choose to park illegally to pop into the shop. The same people then instead of going to the roundabout at the end of the high street do multi-point turns.

I see this a lot and it really irritates me. I could understand if the alternative to a u turn would involve great distance. But if it is just going to take a few minutes to go round the block, doing a u turn is just stupid, especially if, as is often the case, the driver in question is not very good at performing a u turn.

Not helped by the increasing number of cars these days with very poor turning circles - perhaps due to more having larger and larger wheel and (wider) tyre combos for the size of car which can only turn so far in the wheel well without touching the sides or suspension components?

Also the people who don't seem to care that pedestrians are walking on the pavement and will have to quickly get out of the way when inevitably the vehicle mounts the kerb, or risks wiping them out when the front/back end swings out over the pavement.

If it's clear and safe then U-turn, else round the block. I think many people who do it are lazy

We are talking London here, some sideroads are oneway systems and take you miles out of your way and full of speed humps/cushions, though it does depend where in London which the OP didn`t mention

It was a route from Angel down to Brixton.

Says it all really, motorists unlike cyclists do not have the freedom of movement bikes do, and can go almost anywhere they please including the wrong way through one way streets.

I am not having a go at cyclists even though it sounds like it, its just so many no entry/one way streets/narrow streets, its difficult unless you know where your going, to find a road that can take you where you need to go without taking you a long way from where you want to go

So unless they cause a problem I do not blame them for doing it, I`m not saying its right, but councils do not make it easy now for motorists going about their business, they are more in favour of cyclists now than they used to be..

if going clockwise round our local ring road, in order to get to the Police station Police vehicles do a U turn at a set of lights about 80 yards past it.

The alternative would be a 'round the block' of over a mile and 2 sets of lights.