Good roadcraft

[Daniel]

:mark:

After driving a few thousand miles in this country I'm apalled at the lack of skill/roadcraft which soooo many drivers show on the roads.

A few things I've noticed.

People in the UK generally don't

Indicate lane changes on the motorway
Keep a safe distance behind the car in front
Indicate when entering or leaving roundabouts
Drive with a view to what's going on 200+ metres up the road (ie they accelerate like crazy when traffic is slow ahead and so on)
Drive slowly down lanes when coming up to a blind corner.

Now there are a lot of other things that I see going on here that are real rarities in Australia but these are the worst things and these happen almost daily to me. Every frigging day without fail I come across at least a car or two which doesn't indicate at all on the 2 roundabouts I use to get on the A55, every day I drive at a decent speed (ie over the limit and as fast as the car in front) in the fast lane and get tailgated, usually once a fortnight someone almost kills me on a corner in a lane, someone will undertake me after tailgating me for a mile or so when I'm doing 75 in the fast lane and then accelerate madly only to be met by a swathes of traffic up ahead which is only doing 75mph.

Why is this? Why are people here in such a hurry? Why do people drive so dangerously?

Tbh I think people here deserve to be taxed on their road use, charged extortionately for car insurance, milked by the government for fuel tax and so on with they way most people seem to behave :mark:

[Dave B]

There's an attitude in the UK that driving is a right not a responsibilty, plus the driving test is so easy with no requirements for re-testing. Add to this the almost total disdain for the law, and the fact that the presence of speed cameras seems to have replaced actual human police officers, and there's your answer.

[BeansBeansBeans]

Things that drivers do that annoy me...

Fail to pull into filter lanes properly, leaving the back end of their car blocking a lane of traffic when there's no need....

Fail to keep up with traffic...

Fail to move away from traffic lights quickly in rush hour, meaning that people behind are delayed unnecessarily...

Go out of their way to not let people into their lane ie, today I indicated and went to pull into a perfectly good gap, and the chap behind put his foot to the floor to block me, causing me to swerve back into my lane (I'll add that this took place in almost stationary traffic)...

I could go on and on...The fact is Daniel is 100% right. The road sense displayed by most drivers is nigh on appalling.

[Erki]

... every day I drive at a decent speed (ie over the limit and as fast as the car in front) ...

I'm not sure driving faster than the speed limit allows shows a good roadcraft.

How do you indicate when entering a roundabout? Or are there some special roundabouts in Wales?

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I'm not sure driving faster than the speed limit allows shows a good roadcraft.

How do you indicate when entering a roundabout? Or are there some special roundabouts in Wales?

If you are taking the first exit you indicate left, otherwise you indicate right if you are going more than half way around becuase you will initially need to go in the right hand lane.

[Kneeslider]

An old chestnut:-

The faster you drive, then the more idiots you are likely to meet.

I think that in the UK, the driving isn't really all that bad compared to places like Turkey, where they have bus stops on motorways, or France where they have all that priority from the right nonsense, leading to massive queues before sliproads and roundabout chaos.

The biggest threat is from people driving with their brains off.

As a motorcyclist, the knack is spotting them, before they pull out on you. The familiar bike vs car accident can be avoided from the motorcyclist's pov by looking directly at the face of the driver about to pull into your path, have they seen you? Watching the top of the wheels of the car, they will move proportionately more as soon as the car starts to move, finally, look for escape routes, work out how far it will take to brake down to 0 mph, and the path you could take to achive that, so road positioning is vital. It usually takes two to have a collision, so do what you can to make your part of it as blameless as possible.

[Erki]

If you are taking the first exit you indicate left, otherwise you indicate right if you are going more than half way around becuase you will initially need to go in the right hand lane.

Is there one entry lane onto the roundabout? Here, if the roundabout has two lanes then all the road that lead to that roundabout, also have two lanes so if you know what you have to use the inner lane, you can go straight onto that without changing lanes. Maybe a diagram would be good here..

[Daniel]

I'm not sure driving faster than the speed limit allows shows a good roadcraft.

How do you indicate when entering a roundabout? Or are there some special roundabouts in Wales?
Erki. I'm not impeding anyone's progress :) Nor do I make people feel uneasy by trying to make them go faster or by trying to force them out of the way.

Indicating when approaching a roundabout.

OK. Say we have a standard 4 way roundabout and we're in the UK so we're driving on the left hand side of the road. If I'm going to take the first exit I should indicate to turn left when entering the roundabout. This tells anyone else on the roundabout that I'm turning left so if they're on the lane coming into the roundabout from my left they can go. If I am going straight or right or if I'm doing a 360 degree turn I should indicate to turn right until I am 90 degrees from the exit I am going to turn into when i should indicate to turn left. It worries me somewhat that you don't know this when you've recently passed your test Erki :mark:

I think the motorway stuff I talked about is exactly as Dave has described it. Driving is seen as a right. I'll be honest and say it's almost always a man in his mid to late 30's going into his 40's. He's almost always driving a large 4 door saloon and it's usually a Mondeo or a Vectra or something similar. What concerns me is that quite often said man quite often has the kids and wife in the car as well :crazy:

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Is there one entry lane onto the roundabout? Here, if the roundabout has two lanes then all the road that lead to that roundabout, also have two lanes so if you know what you have to use the inner lane, you can go straight onto that without changing lanes. Maybe a diagram would be good here..

But when entering the the roundabout you should indicate if you are entering from the inner lane. Because roundabouts usaually split into 2 lanes, you should indicate left or right depending on which lane you are entering in.

http://www.2pass.co.uk/roundabout.htm

[Daniel]

An old chestnut:-

The faster you drive, then the more idiots you are likely to meet.

I think that in the UK, the driving isn't really all that bad compared to places like Turkey, where they have bus stops on motorways, or France where they have all that priority from the right nonsense, leading to massive queues before sliproads and roundabout chaos.

The biggest threat is from people driving with their brains off.

As a motorcyclist, the knack is spotting them, before they pull out on you. The familiar bike vs car accident can be avoided from the motorcyclist's pov by looking directly at the face of the driver about to pull into your path, have they seen you? Watching the top of the wheels of the car, they will move proportionately more as soon as the car starts to move, finally, look for escape routes, work out how far it will take to brake down to 0 mph, and the path you could take to achive that, so road positioning is vital. It usually takes two to have a collision, so do what you can to make your part of it as blameless as possible.

Scary...... I'd love to be able to ride a motorcycle but really don't like the thought of being around all these morons and having to ride in a certain way so as not to die. I'm generally fairly considerate to motorcyclists because of the fact that they tend to die quite easily so I prefer not to have them around me in case he makes a mistake or if I make a mistake. So like I did yesterday if I'm in the right lane I usually indicate for a bit longer than I would with a car and then move to the left lane, let him past and lessen the risk of me being involved in an accident with him. I don't mean that to sound like I don't trust that most bikers are skilled enough not to have an accident but any accident that happens with a bike is usually more serious than a car on car accident and I'd just rather that it not happen to me as I've seen a friend die in a bike accident and it's not pretty :mark:

Kneeslider. Just out of curiosity I was down near Stonehenge on the weekend and there were tonnes of bikers down there. Any particular reason why? I always see tonnes of bikers here in North Wales around Llangollen going over the horseshoe pass for obvious reasons but the roads down in Wiltshire were to me rather unremarkable looking to a non-bike-riding-type like me :mark:

[Kneeslider]

Don't really know that part of the world very well. Whenever I have been there, I have always been en-route to somewhere else! Salisbury plain motorcyclists (much better term than the rather vulgar biker, YSG remember!) are a bit of a funny lot in that they don't really have much in the way of exciting countryside to motor through.

A bit like my current situation, where I live, I have to go a fair way to find some interesting roads, but that just comes from growing up in Cumbria, and being spoilt for choice. Around where I live, most of the roads are quite fast and open, but where's the challenge in that? You just end up having a more spectacular accident. Most of the guys round here have big yet unwieldy, although undeniably fast stuff, like Honda Blackbirds, or XJR1300s. They suit the territory (a bit like natural selection). I am alone in prefering something punchy, but light and flickable.

[Rollo]

:mark:

After driving a few thousand miles in this country I'm apalled at the lack of skill/roadcraft which soooo many drivers show on the roads.

A few things I've noticed.

People in the UK generally don't...

Now there are a lot of other things that I see going on here that are real rarities in Australia

Point of order here - you lived in Perth which has a population of a million and a half people and is separated from the rest of Australia by some distances. Therefore the traffic you were exposed to was a) less than the UK and b) less than the cities in the Eastern Seaboard. From what I can gather, your experiences in either Melbourne or Sydney were limited to nil.

Traffic in Sydney is as bad if not worse than the UK because of two major factors - the cars are bigger and the road furniture is not as good. The traffic in Sydney I'd say is roughly of the same quality as say Manchester or London, because the spread of people's ability is probably about the same.

The law of large numbers suggests that you're going to find more cases of poor driving more often because the number of people in the UK is roughly double than in Australia and packed into an area of less than NSW.

I think that the basis of your comparison is flawed because your initial sample size wasn't big enough.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I've read on internet articles that british roads are among the safest in the world. This is probably due to our use of 'over'use of roundabout here, that are safer than juctions.

http://tollroadsnews.info/artman/publish/article_222.shtml

[GridGirl]

On the point of indicating on islands, I've been confused about this point for the last couple of weeks. On an island when the first exit is straight ahead do you indicate left? Plus does your same principle apply if the first exit is say 3/4 quaters of the way round etc. I've been driving alot in the Warwickshire country side lately and they have alot of round abouts where the first exit isnt what you would generally call a left hand turn. I'm sure I've been doing different things each time because I'm never quite sure.

Who's got a recent edition of the highway code I can borrow?

[Daniel]

Point of order here - you lived in Perth which has a population of a million and a half people and is separated from the rest of Australia by some distances. Therefore the traffic you were exposed to was a) less than the UK and b) less than the cities in the Eastern Seaboard. From what I can gather, your experiences in either Melbourne or Sydney were limited to nil.

Traffic in Sydney is as bad if not worse than the UK because of two major factors - the cars are bigger and the road furniture is not as good. The traffic in Sydney I'd say is roughly of the same quality as say Manchester or London, because the spread of people's ability is probably about the same.

The law of large numbers suggests that you're going to find more cases of poor driving more often because the number of people in the UK is roughly double than in Australia and packed into an area of less than NSW.

I think that the basis of your comparison is flawed because your initial sample size wasn't big enough.

Good roadcraft is universal.

Your talk of sample sizes isn't really relevant tbh. On the A55 I get about the same amount of traffic I would get if I was travelling on the freeways on Perth an hour or two after peak hour. The A55 isn't usually a particularly busy piece of road when I'm on it as my work hours aren't regular 9-5 hours. Even in peak hour yesterday the traffic wasn't that bad and there was lots of clear road.

Just because people are squeezed closely together on this island doesn't give them any excuse to be rude, uncourteous and dangerous on the roads. People die just as easily here as they do in Australia. People are not well 'ard here in the UK in regards to being able to withstand serious trauma from a road accident. So why drive in a manner which seems to indicate that you feel that you're invincible?

Jon, that article is about the roads themselves and not necessarily the drivers on them. I haven't got a bone with the roads themselves as I think they're excellent. It's the drivers on them which make them displeasurable and at times dangerous to drive on.

I think Dave had a point earlier on about Police. I think in the whole 500 miles we drove on the weekend we saw about 2 or 3 police cars on the roads and we were mainly on the M5 and M6 so we weren't driving on roads which weren't busy :mark: I think the Police who are around do a great job. We just need more of them. Scarily enough you still see plenty of people still using their phones in cars :crazy:

[Mark]

On the point of indicating on islands

Roundabouts?



I've been confused about this point for the last couple of weeks. On an island when the first exit is straight ahead do you indicate left?


No. But it wouldn't do any harm if you did so.



Plus does your same principle apply if the first exit is say 3/4 quaters of the way round etc. I've been driving alot in the Warwickshire country side lately and they have alot of round abouts where the first exit isnt what you would generally call a left hand turn. I'm sure I've been doing different things each time because I'm never quite sure.


In that case it doesn't really matter.



Who's got a recent edition of the highway code I can borrow?

No need - http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/

[Erki]

OK. Say we have a standard 4 way roundabout and we're in the UK so we're driving on the left hand side of the road. If I'm going to take the first exit I should indicate to turn left when entering the roundabout. This tells anyone else on the roundabout that I'm turning left so if they're on the lane coming into the roundabout from my left they can go. If I am going straight or right or if I'm doing a 360 degree turn I should indicate to turn right until I am 90 degrees from the exit I am going to turn into when i should indicate to turn left. It worries me somewhat that you don't know this when you've recently passed your test Erki :mark:

Why should I indicate when entering a roundabout when I don't change a lane? Isn't it clear that if I enter a rounabout from an inner lane, I'm not going to turn left? If I don't turn into an inner lane on a roundabout, why should I use right indicator at all?

It worries me somewhat that one of us lacks common sense. :)

[Mark]

Because the right hand lane is not always for turning right, often the left hand lane is for left turns only and the right hand lane is for going right, or straight on.

[BeansBeansBeans]

Why should I indicate when entering a roundabout when I don't change a lane?

Because that's what you're supposed to do.

[Rollo]

Just because people are squeezed closely together on this island doesn't give them any excuse to be rude, uncourteous and dangerous on the roads. People die just as easily here as they do in Australia. People are not well 'ard here in the UK in regards to being able to withstand serious trauma from a road accident. So why drive in a manner which seems to indicate that you feel that you're invincible?


It might not be an excuse but it is an adequate explanation. Your original question was "why"?
It usually follows that when population densities increase, then there is an increase in the level of poor behaviour. This has been noticed in quite a number of societies in the animal kingdom and can be directly seen in areas where populations of people are higher.

If you're noticing an increase in poor driving in your area and there's not a corresponding increase in population, then it follows that my original assumption must therefore be wrong and there's some other factor.

According to the people at http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/ the number of offences is lower in North Wales, than elsewhere in the country.

Perhaps either you're getting old or there are genuinely more nutters on the road where you are.

[Erki]

Because the right hand lane is not always for turning right, often the left hand lane is for left turns only and the right hand lane is for going right, or straight on.

I understand this, but I'm not even changing lanes. Who do I indicate this to at all? Isn't it clear that if I drive onto the roundabout from the right lane, I'm not going to turn left?

[BeansBeansBeans]

I understand this, but I'm not even changing lanes. Who do I indicate this to at all? Isn't it clear that if I drive onto the roundabout from the right lane, I'm not going to turn left?

If I was approaching a roundabout and a car travelling in the opposite direction in the right hand lane didn't have their right indicator on, I'd assume they were going straight on.

[Erki]

If I was approaching a roundabout and a car travelling in the opposite direction in the right hand lane didn't have their right indicator on, I'd assume they were going straight on.

Now I don't understand. If you were approaching a roundabout then the car on the right lane is already passing you. Or are you saying that that other car is on a roundabout? If they were going to go straight on, wouldn't they indicate left then?

[BeansBeansBeans]

Now I don't understand. If you were approaching a roundabout then the car on the right lane is already passing you.

A car coming in the opposite direction. God God Erki, this is like trying to explain the offside rule to my mother.

[Erki]

It probably depends on the particular roundabout I guess. There aren't many of them here, one is though and it's quite big and you can't see the cars coming from the opposite direction. If it was a tiny roundabout then maybe indeed indicating right would come handy.

[Mark]

On the contrary, the bigger the roundabout is, the more important the signalling becomes.

[Daniel]

Ok Erki. What if it's a single lane roundabout like the one I go on every morning? You should always indicate your intentions regardless.

In Australia the rule is you indicate right coming into the roundabout if you're going straight or right and indicate left coming in if you're going left. Personally I feel this is better than the system here for the following reason.

A lot of people just don't indicate. So if you make the assumption that they're just going straight you could have an accident. At least in Australia when someone doesn't indicate you just know that they're a moron who doesn't know the rules. Here there's just that little bit of a grey area. Of course if you drive with your head you'll take these people into consideration and just give them a wide berth. But it just makes driving just that bit harder than it needs to be if everyone just did the right thing.

Rollo....... the problem is not localised in the North Wales area. It's a common thing on the roads just here in the UK at least where I've driven. So far I've probably done about 2 or 3 thousand miles of driving here to various places and this is just how men with 4 door saloons tend to drive. I would expect to be tailgated by chavs all the time but I don't think i've had a chav following me that closely :crazy:

Just out of curiosity are all 30/40 year old men who drive those Vauxhall Signum things knobs? :confused: Just seems that way to me.......

[Erki]

Uhhhhhhhhh...

I don't know. Of course my only reference is my "local" roundabout since roundabouts are quite rare here. It's not a very little roundabout, its radius is probably something like 20-30 metres(I don't know exactly, estimation). And I fail to see how would I benefit if I'm on the roundabout and someone who's waiting to enter it, indicates left.

[GridGirl]

Roundabouts?

No Mark its not a roundabout its an Island.

I do want to know where the north/south divide on where people stop calling the roundabouts and start calling them islands is exactly.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

No Mark its not a roundabout its an Island.

I do want to know where the north/south divide on where people stop calling the roundabouts and start calling them islands is exactly.

Devon

[imull]

Erki, dont for Gods sake ever go to Milton Keynes or East Kilbride :D

[Daniel]

No Mark its not a roundabout its an Island.

I do want to know where the north/south divide on where people stop calling the roundabouts and start calling them islands is exactly.
So you mean a roundabout right? :confused:

[Daniel]

Another example of the fine standard of drving today. At a crossroads I was at the stop sign across from a Mondeo. I was turning onto the main road, he was going straight. I went to go as it was my right of way. He went too and didn't stop at all and I could see he was angry. In hindsight I should have kept on going as it was my right of way. Silly me though I don't like causing accidents :mark: Oh well!

[BDunnell]

I have noticed that fewer and fewer drivers seem to obey box junctions, or apparently know what one is. They are there for a reason.

I might add that I think pedestrian discipline has also become worse, with people increasingly crossing roads without a moment's consideration of the traffic.

[Rollo]

In NSW as part of a set of regulations, one indicates right (if turning right) or left (if turning left) and not at all if going straight on, and then indicates left when exiting the roundabout.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/rulesregulations/roundabouts.html

In practice it's very easy to flick the indicator left as you exit a roundabout because they design these things so that you have to veer left out of them anyway.

The biggest problem we have on motorways in Sydney is that people don't keep in the inside lane when they're not overtaking. You can pull out from behind someone to overtake them and find some slack-jawed lolligabber doing 51mph in the outside lane. Gah!

[Funks]

Let us remember of course, any person from over the oceans should be grateful they are even allowed into the UK, never mind be privileged enough to drive on our roads.


Everybody in North Wales knows each other and that is reflected on the roads.... they all know exactly where each other is travelling to - it's all routine. The trouble starts when these southern hemispherian sorts comes over and upset it all.

:p :

[Daniel]

Let us remember of course, any person from over the oceans should be grateful they are even allowed into the UK, never mind be privileged enough to drive on our roads.


Everybody in North Wales knows each other and that is reflected on the roads.... they all know exactly where each other is travelling to - it's all routine. The trouble starts when these southern hemispherian sorts comes over and upset it all.

:p :
So true ;)

People were much nicer to me when I was driving Caroline's Scooby and they thought I was local. Now I'm in my 406 and people are dead nasty :bigcry:

That's a complete lie tbh :p

[Mark]

Another example of the fine standard of drving today. At a crossroads I was at the stop sign across from a Mondeo. I was turning onto the main road, he was going straight. I went to go as it was my right of way. He went too and didn't stop at all and I could see he was angry. In hindsight I should have kept on going as it was my right of way. Silly me though I don't like causing accidents :mark: Oh well!

Not enough information there. You were at a crossroads which crosses over a major road and you and the Mondeo were opposite each other waiting on the minor road?

Which way were you turning?

[Erki]

Sounds like he was turning right. Otherwise their trajectories wouldn't have crossed and neither should have stopped.

[Daniel]

Yes. I was turning right onto the mainroad :)

[Erki]

But wasn't it then you who should have stopped to let the one who goes striahgt trough? At least that's how we do it in Estonia. :)

[Mark]

Yup, it was the Mondeo drivers right of way, no doubt. The general rule is that if you are crossing someones path, then you give way. Not doing that is what causes accidents. So Daniel was lucky in this case.

[sonic_roadhog]

Ok then just for the record here is the dsa roundabout approach. Use the 12 O'clock rule. e.g imagine a roundabout as a clock face with you always approaching from the 6 position. If you are going anywhere on the left of 12 e.g. 7,8,9,10,11 or 12 itself then use left lane (unless local road markings instruct otherwise). If your left is the first exit apply a left signal before entering roundabout. If your left turn is the second or more stay in the left lane with no signal on the approach only signalling left after passing the exit before the one you want. If you are turning right i.e anywhere after 12. 1,2,3 etc use right hand lane (again unless local road markings change that) and enter r/a with right signal, maintain that until you pass the exit preceeding yours then switch to a left signal and leave if safe.

This is a general rule of thumb and should be alterted on roads displaying alternative markings.

The other thing that became clear reading all the posts here is that almost everyone considers themselves a good or above average driver. The only way to keep safe is to accept other drivers make mistakes (so none of this....heres what really anoys me about other drivers....... stuff) and accept that we have all made stupid errors on the road (and probably blamed anyone but ourselves at the time) so allow room and space.

[Malbec]

An old chestnut:-
As a motorcyclist, the knack is spotting them, before they pull out on you. The familiar bike vs car accident can be avoided from the motorcyclist's pov by looking directly at the face of the driver about to pull into your path, have they seen you? Watching the top of the wheels of the car, they will move proportionately more as soon as the car starts to move, finally, look for escape routes, work out how far it will take to brake down to 0 mph, and the path you could take to achive that, so road positioning is vital. It usually takes two to have a collision, so do what you can to make your part of it as blameless as possible.

One thing I've discovered on my bike is the sheer number of people who drive with their sidemirrors either broken or folded in. It says a lot about their driving and observation that they can't even be bothered to have a functioning mirror....

There's a big difference between the culture of driving and riding a bike, at least in the UK.

Pass your driving test and the instructor might mumble something about having further lessons, but noone really does. When you pass your DAS, the next question is 'which course are you going to go on?'. Pick up a bike mag and you'll get almost as many articles on riding technique, hazard spotting and what kind of course suits your needs as you do about the bikes, while you'd be lucky to get an article a year in a car mag about improving your driving.

Even the police are more than happy to help out improving your riding, I went on a bikesafe course recently and the police officers were great.

[sonic_roadhog]

One thing I've discovered on my bike is the sheer number of people who drive with their sidemirrors either broken or folded in. It says a lot about their driving and observation that they can't even be bothered to have a functioning mirror....

There's a big difference between the culture of driving and riding a bike, at least in the UK.

Pass your driving test and the instructor might mumble something about having further lessons, but noone really does. When you pass your DAS, the next question is 'which course are you going to go on?'. Pick up a bike mag and you'll get almost as many articles on riding technique, hazard spotting and what kind of course suits your needs as you do about the bikes, while you'd be lucky to get an article a year in a car mag about improving your driving.

Even the police are more than happy to help out improving your riding, I went on a bikesafe course recently and the police officers were great.

Its a good point but its not universal. I've met plenty of bikers who when behind the wheel seem to have a switch that makes them completly oblivious to their two wheeled friends. The number of times I have called out blindspot! in a queue of traffic to an experience biker/driver on an advanced session is beyond counting.

[Iain]

So Daniel was lucky in this case.

Just like when he signals right to go straight on at roundabouts which is clearly very very wrong and dangerous. :p :

[Daniel]

Just like when he signals right to go straight on at roundabouts which is clearly very very wrong and dangerous. :p :
Signalling right to go straight is dangerous? Explain how........

[Iain]

Look at my highly technical diagram. Car A is going straight on, but indicates right. Car B sees the indicator and assumes this car is going right, so it can go left like it intends to. Only to find Car A is not going right and there's a collision. This is simulated on a right lane for straight ahead roundabout.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u56/iainw1981/Misc/hitechdiagram.jpg

[Daniel]

Look at my highly technical diagram. Car A is going straight on, but indicates right. Car B sees the indicator and assumes this car is going right, so it can go left like it intends to. Only to find Car A is not going right and there's a collision. This is simulated on a right lane for straight ahead roundabout.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u56/iainw1981/Misc/hitechdiagram.jpg
Car B shouldn't be zooming into the roundabout at a significant speed until A is past regardless of what's happening anyway.........

[Iain]

Never said it was zooming. I was told never to signal right if I was going straight ahead. Besides, think of all the extra wear and tear you're putting on your right indicator bulbs........

[Daniel]

Never said it was zooming. I was told never to signal right if I was going straight ahead. Besides, think of all the extra wear and tear you're putting on your right indicator bulbs........
:laugh:

Yes :p

I did look at the highway code and it says here not to indicate when going straight so I don't anymore at least in the UK :p

As I've said before I think it'd make sense for the rule to be that you indicate on a roundabout regardless of what you're doing so that at least you can spot someone who can't be arsed by the fact that they're not indicating.

[Erki]

I think the safest way to drive on a roundabout is with emergency lights on. :) Then everyone knows that there's a nutter behind the wheel and let him through. :)

[Rollo]

Look at my highly technical diagram. Car A is going straight on, but indicates right. Car B sees the indicator and assumes this car is going right, so it can go left like it intends to. Only to find Car A is not going right and there's a collision. This is simulated on a right lane for straight ahead roundabout.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u56/iainw1981/Misc/hitechdiagram.jpg

All traffic IN the roundabout has right of way. Car B must give way to all cars within the roundabout.

Your diagram shows that Car A is still turning right and has not indicated it's intent to exit the roundabout.

[Erki]

Usually other drivers don't tailgate me... No, not that I'm driving fast. It's sometimes impossible to drive faster than 40kph here because I'm so afraid that the car is gonna brake down - we've got a Safari here. :)

Well, but today some guy was in the mood for some tailgating... I noticed it and told my passengers(mum and sisters) that "someone wants to see brake lights". At the next moment I was about to run over a dog and had to brake very hard...

Hopefully someone learnt a lesson... I certainly did! (Be careful of what you wish for)

[J4MIE]

My mum was talking to me about this a few weeks ago in that people used to be taught to indicate right at a roundabout if you were going straight on, but as far as I know it isn't these days (I'd certainly never heard of it before). She said that it tends to be older drivers that still do this out of habit :p :

My main annoyance when driving is people going far too slowly, I really don't know how people actually get anywhere. Was coming home this evening from the pub, in a line of traffic doing 55-60mph, then it started to rain and everyone in front immediately slowed down to 30mph! This is on a main A road!! Of course, knowing the road like the back of my hand I know exactly where it's safe to overtake, so did so at the next opportunity, only to be flashed and tooted at whilst passing. Really, really annoys me as I think they are probably driving more dangerously than I do! :s

[Daniel]

I know I'm older than you but no need to rub it in :mark:

[AndyRAC]

I have noticed that fewer and fewer drivers seem to obey box junctions, or apparently know what one is. They are there for a reason.

I might add that I think pedestrian discipline has also become worse, with people increasingly crossing roads without a moment's consideration of the traffic.

Here, here, box junctions really annoy me, because people don't know what they're for. There should be cameras at these junctions, the amount of times I've seen people not enter and people blow their horn at them is unbelievable. I could go on and on, but won't....

[Dave B]

There should be cameras at these junctions....
That's already being trialled, expect it to roll out anytime soon.

[Daniel]

That's already being trialled, expect it to roll out anytime soon.
Do they have missle launchers attached? :cheese:

[Erki]

When there is a box junction, is one road a main road there too?