You can't expect people to deal with something as complex as a roundabout correctly when so many think it's OK to drive up the hard shoulder in heavy traffic conditions or don't understand what the lanes on a motorway are for.
People used to joke back in the 70s and 80s about Volvo drivers being a menace because their big tanks would stop them being hurt if they crashed. 4x4 drivers have copped similar flak in more recent times. I genuinely and honestly believe that attitude is spreading rapidly given the huge focus on crash testing and safety with modern car design. Plus of course even small cars now are big, quiet, and isolate the driver from the road. I believe if many people thought they would be injured in an accident, they simply wouldn't drive as they do.
This very morning on my way to work, an Audi TT driver turned right at a roundabout from the left hand lane, in order to avoid the four car queue I was sitting in, in the right hand lane on the roundabout's approach. His driving was so aggressive and appalling, it caused two people to blare horns, and another to take urgent avoiding action. In this time he had covered maybe 100 yards. This used to be a once a year sighting, but now I see something similar every 2-3 days.
When I started doing my commute just over two years ago, the really memorable "bad drivers" tended to be the stereotypical reps in poverty spec German premium saloons. If a 3 series bore down on you at 120 mph with its front fogs and main beam on, you simply got out of its way and thought "whatever, mate", the same way you did when it was a Vauxhall Cavalier 20 yrs ago. The problems now seem to be far more widespread and the likely perps far harder to pigeonhole.
Manners, in terms of people thanking you for letting them out or giving way when the law says you strictly don't need to, have pretty much gone, too.
Edited by DP on 13/01/2009 at 09:58
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I had a strange incident a couple of weeks ago. I was on a roundabout with four exits. For ease call them 6.00, 9.00, 12.00 and 3.00. I had entered the roundabout at 6.00 to exit at 3.00. Correctly positioned in the right hand lane, indicator on and progressing round. A woman entered the roundabout from my left ( 9.00 ) straight across my bows causing me to emergency stop. I didn't react. No horn, no flash, restrained myself from gesticulating. Life's too short. Just sat there waiting for her to sort herself out. Keeping my thoughts to myself.
Her car was now at an angle blocking both lanes as she had sort of panic stopped when she saw me doing so. A moment later she rolled down her window and gave me a tirade of foul language. I chose to ignore her until she got bored with that and eventually off she went.
Weird eh?
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Humph - I think that's a default reaction when some people screw up and feel embarrassed about it. Also seen it before, in different circumstances.
I also had a similar thing, but the other way around on a roundabout near me just before christmas. I was approaching at 6 o'clock to go straight ahead and exit at 12 o'clock. I went to go, and a car was approaching from 3 o'clock to exit at 9 o'clock which I will admit, I hadn't seen until I'd started to move. It was no problem - I stopped again with my nose maybe 2ft over the white line, and in no way impeding the traffic flow on the roundabout.
I stuck my hand up by way of apology to the guy who had started to brake sharply. Despite this, and my car being by no means in his way, the driver slowed down and drove across in front of me at literally 5 mph, staring intently at me. Whether this was designed to intimidate or teach me something, I'm not sure, but I really don't know what his problem was.
I'm not saying the make of the car as it will look like I have something in for those drivers based on my former post ;-)
Cheers
DP
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I'd like to nominate as the most abused mini roundabout the one at the junction of Hook Road and Chase Road in Epsom.
Twice I have been overtaken on this roundabout [ which is a bumped one, not a flat one ] while negotiating it correctly; on one occasion I was travelling northbound along Hook Road from the A24 and someone zoomed past when I was adjacent to the rounabout. The other occasion I was turning right from Hook Road southbound into Chase Road; someone overtook me by driving on the right past the roundabout.
In neither instance was I holding them up prior to the overtake; people routinely use the wrong side of the road on this roundabout when the traffic is heavy, sometimes from as far back as 100 feet southbound to turn right into Chase Road - despite it being "blind" at that angle!
And then there is the usual "no indicators" brigade.
There have been two serious accidents at this location as well that I am aware of. One was a cyclist versus a lorry and the other was a speeding car at night trying to do a right into Chase Road at around 50mph; it completely lifted off when the offside wheels went over the white bump and performed a barrel roll and a half before slamming sideways and upside downinto the brick base of the railway bridge, demolishing a lamp post in the process.
Plus countless minor bumps.
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I nominate the Caversham Bridge roundabout in Reading.
Approach to the roundabout from the Reading side is two lanes. Let?s call this the 6 o?clock exit. 20 yards before the roundabout, the road takes a minor kink to the left, and the right hand lane splits here in to two. There are then 9, 12 and 3 o?clock exits. The 12 o?clock exit is the bridge, which is the major exit (A4074), and is two lanes in each direction. So, at the 6 o?clock roundabout entry there are three lanes, one for exit at 9 o?clock, one lane for 12 o?clock exit to use the left lane across the bridge, and one for 12 to use the right lane of the bridge and 3 o?clock (which is a very minor dead end in to an office car park and one block of flats). This is a roundabout where the usual rule of left hand lane for straight ahead doesn?t apply.
However, the problem is that many drivers wanting to go from 6 to 12 o?clock insist on sticking in the left lane and then just cruising in to the centre lane at the last minute where the road kinks before the roundabout, cutting those drivers up who have correctly positioned themselves early on. These cutter-uppers never indicate, they seem to think that because the road is kinking and they are not adjusting the trajectory of their vehicle to get to the correct lane, that they do not need to indicate.
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The A3 Cobham roundabout , joining the southbound A3 has to be the worse
So many people use lane 1 to turn right, usually right in front of people in lane 2 who are going straight on (as per road markings)
Shocking driving
MVP
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The M4 J16 roundabout, at the SW edge of Swindon is pretty bad, partly be design, mostly by behaviour. Leaving Swindon, approaching from six o'clock, the westbound M4 carrigeway is at about 2 o'clock, and lane markings are clear, but a lot use the left lane and whip across, even the vast numbers of HGVs from depots nearby.
It's not a big roundabout, and most folks going through it know where they are going, but it is blinking dangerous. Avoid.
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