Safe Speed Forums

In case those of you in England think life moves at a gentler, less stressful, pace here in northern Scotland, let me disabuse you.

This pm, 12 March, I signalled right and prepared to turn off the South Deeside Road, B 9077 onto an unclassified (though quite busy) minor road. A Transit van behind me blocked my view of the road behind. More importantly, it blocked the forward view of any cars behind it. Those cars, if any, would not have known why the Transit was slowing down. Just as I began to turn the wheel, a sixth sense told me to look in my wing mirror. Lo and behold, a car was busy overtaking the van! I stopped dead in the road and allowed it to speed past. I hoped the twat would feel embarrassed. I began to turn right again, and checked the mirror, again. Well, fuck me rigid if a 4 x 4 wasn't attempting the same manouevre - overtaking the line of traffic waiting for me to turn right. This particular twat stopped, with his indicator signalling right, on the wrong side of the road. I hoped he would feel even more of a twat as I continued to turn into the side road. I made it safely, but only just!

I have driven in places as disparate as France, Australia, the USA, Iran and Afghanistan. The French can be aggressive and rude, Aussies never go more than 1kph over a speed limit, but will race each other away from traffic lights with all the enthusiasm of dragsters, and Americans are wild, but friendly. In Iran, always move over for a vehicle that is bigger than you - if you don't, you will be forced to! If driving at night in Afghanistan it is wise to remember that the next bend may conceal a truck parked in the middle of the road with no lights.

It turns out that this was all good training for driving in Britain. I used to think British drivers were a level-headed, polite lot. Recent experience such as the one above has convinced me otherwise. On the A9 near Aviemore, I was forced onto the hard shoulder by a truck anxious to get past. In Aberdeen I was forced off the road onto the verge by a truck whose driver hadn't noticed I was in the inside lane. On the M73, just before a 50mph bend onto the A80, I was passing a truck when a car came up fast, tailgated and flashed its lights vigorously. What did he want me to do? - I was at 60mph, alongside an articulated truck, slowing down for a bend. When he got past, he hooted angrily several times. Immediately after the bend he took a slip road exit to Cumbernauld or somesuch vile haunt of twat drivers. Something similar once happened to me in Dundee. Not content with expressing his anger by tailgating, the driver, who had police contacts, reported ME for dangerous driving!

I suspect that drivers like these, who don't appear to have understood that their impatience might only get them to their destinations a minute or two earlier, may be responsible for bestowing Speed Cameras, Sleeping Policemen and the like on the rest of us. WE have to bear the brunt of their impatience, selfishness and lack of awareness.

i was driving down to Worcester along the A449, the road drops to 50mph at Ombersley. A usual haunt for the camera vans, i slow down to about 50 to have white van man up my jacksy trying to eat my last rolo of the dash.

i adjust my mirror to let him know i know he is there, but after a couple of gestures and flashing lights i pull over to let him go, round the next bend is the talivan WVM sails through oblivious, i would say he was doing about 65mph

Witnessed a similar incident yesterday in a residential area during early evening moderate traffic, although in this case the person in your position was in the wrong.

Fiesta was turning right into a side street, and so other vehicles were backed up behind it and traffic coming in the opposite direction so the Fiesta had to wait. Meanwhile, an ambulance with lights and sirens going appears at the back of this queue of traffic. Drivers (for once!) move out of the way and vehicles coming the opposite direction do the same as well as stopping. Fiesta takes this opportunity to cut across into the side street just as the ambulance gets to the front of the queue of traffic. Queue a near miss, lots of amazed looks and a relieved and quick-witted ambulance driver. Clueless behaviour. Quite how the Fiesta driver failed to notice a) the lights and sirens and b) that the other drivers were all pulling over and reacting to an emergency vehicle I don't know.

I have seen some truly awful reactions to emergency vehicles recently, including two drivers traveling in opposite directions. Vehicle A going one way and B the other. Ambulance comes up behind A, which stops. Vehicle B, rather than driving on and thus allowing the ambulance to pass A, also stops alongside A! Blocking the road completely and then both drivers seemed to stare at the ambulance as if to say "why aren't you moving?" Took blasts of the horn for them to realise what was happening and B finally drove on. Unbelievable!

Not a near miss, not even a far miss - just an observation of life in the UK.

why,why, do people rush into situations without looking??????

Scenario 1 --- gaggle of OAP in supermarket - moving slowly - you hold back to see which way they're going - suddenly pirrock shoots through and parts the group


Scenario 2 - at a road junction - all have right of way - you are observing critical rule - "if unsure hold back" - when someone decides to force the pace.Accident id prevented by those involved stopping.

I prefer bluff and cave myself. Was it me you saw boldly go perchance? I would have given the tiniest of spurts and been coveringt the brake immedaitely afterwards. In the next few tens of miliseconds, if I'd seen the opposition not take up the slack, I'd go. If ANY of the opposition had made any move of asserion, I'd have been obviously braking.

Perhaps. Certainly drivers like the ones you describe are those that pro-camera lobbies think are going to get caught and taught a lesson by having speed cameras everywhere.

I'm sorry, but I disagree.

The ambulance driver was the one performing the dangerous manoeuvre of overtaking a line of stationery traffic, and then assuming that he would be OK overtaking a vehicle already signalling to turn right. The Fiesta was turning as planned when the traffic from the opposite direction allowed it.

Blues and twos do not give any sort of right of way to emergency vehicle; their purpose is to draw attention to a vehicle requesting the courtesy of precedence.

Has a collision occurred, then the ambulance driver would be at fault.

It is a credit to the ambulance driver that he was prepared for the Fiesta's manoeuvre. I guess he encounters such activity regularly. Put yourself in the Fiesta for a moment and assume that the radio was full on - and his gaze intently alternating between forward (looking for a gap) and to the right (to see if he still had somewhere to go). He looks forward - sees the nearest car slow up - and the REFLECTIONS of the ambulance's HEADLIGHTS in the HEADLIGHTS of the car in the front of the held-up oncoming traffic. VERY easy to mistake that as a "You may pass in front of me" indication. Fortunately the ambulance driver would be aware of this thtrough advanced training and be fully capable of a switchback behind the right-turner.

It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL when turning right from a main road into a side road, drive,... or whatever, or even when pulling out to pass a stationary obstruction, in addition to making sure you have somewhere to go, that nothing coming toward you is going to have to take evasive action, to BE CERTAIN that nothing is overtaking you. The most likely is a motor bike, I've probably had four of those in my driving life, but I've been taken by all sorts in the 35 years of motoring! Here are a few...

A pushbike (which actually turned right with me, but on the wrong side of the road (and intended to before anyone asks) - I waited until I was certain of his movements before turning, but this guy knew what he was doing and I'd have not made him change speed or direction if I HAD gone when it was clear. This was about 20 years ago and I remember it for his entrepeneurial use of tarmac!

An impatient car that had actually waited behind me for a while before doing so (I had a trailer on the back and needed a slightly bigger gap to do the right turn than he needed to take me - he went straight on). I was toying with taking the gap but my mirror glance realised that chavchav was committed - no point in proving how wrong he was. This was quite a while ago too - asnd I wonder if he'd thought I should have had earlier gaps and had actually conked out!

A speeding taxi that decided to pass me and a line of parked cars, making the oncoming traffic brake hard (I was waiting to pull out past the first parked car). He had battlescars all over his car, and it ended up a few days later wrapped around a lamp post (it was a distinctively coloured Mk III Cortina. I'm sure it was the same car, in my then home town).

More recently a police car - I've mentioned this one elsewhere - as I was about to go around a parked car - all perfectly safe and I KNOW the police driver realised I was up for it - I'd "indicated" as such with every pore of the car's body language - except the indicator - that was unnecessary and would have meant nothing as the police car was close to me and only about 70% overlapping - the rest hovering outside in preparation for the pass.

As for the example here, had the ambulance winged the Fiesta, I believe BOTH would have been in the wrong. As it was, the ambulance driver's training and skill saved things nicely.