Safe Speed Forums

Coming up to a roundabout today I had a lady in a small Ford (think) pull out very late, which caused me to brake hard and seek (but not use) my exit.
I stopped about 15ft from her as she merrily continued on her chosen path.
Now as much as one may like to chastise the lady, I chastise myself. For me to brake hard is a real mistake, resulting from bad planning and appalling allowance for lack of anticipation. Whilst no incident resulted the incident of hard braking is not what I expect to do when driving 'properly'. We can all mess up and to me this was one of those times, sadly.
I try to always allow for others unexpected actions and I obviously hadn't allowed fully for this to happen. The ABS had not kicked in but for me this is unacceptable none the less. It reminds me that I must always try hard to do better.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

It goes to show no one ever stops learning.
However, I would have still beeped at the errant driver, not to show my displeasure, but to ensure their attention is drawn to the glaring gap in their awareness.

Honking doesn't necessarily indicate road rage.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

A truck did that to me on Sunday. They often do. Lifting off was enough but I was virtually at walking pace. If you'd have honked the fiesta would have probably panicked and done something silly so I leave others to chastise the dopey! If she did that in front of a truck then she'd have been hit.

Could you have changed your position on the roundabout slightly so that she could see you better as this sounds like the classic smidsy due to A pillars?

Several of the roundabout here are 'flowing one's and they can be hard to pull out onto (for some) and I think she just saw a small pause and went for it personally. I tend to agree with the honk prior to my stopping or had I only paused to alert of my presence but I was too late so left it having made things safe.
Many drivers may not visit Inverness but once a year so it might have been one of those too and I should have allowed for better anticipation etc. Whilst she made a mistake it was my error in not allowing for it and be just that much better prepared.
Thanks for the inputs always gratefully received.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

There is a growing idea that is stemmong from the idea that those on the left have right of way .But unfortunatyely it OMITS the idea , THAT THOSE ALREADY ON THE ISLAND HAVE PRIORITY OVER THOSE WAITING - .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

You mean those waiting are beginning to regularly pull out into oncoming traffic ? Thus introducing the idea that they have done this so much they are beginning to think it is their right of way ?
Or do you mean that those on the right have a right of way ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Meant ,that I see a growing number of drivers that think that because they approach an island ,you are already on , that you MUST give way to them if they are on your left. There seems to be a growing inclination to give way to those on your right ,forgetting that additional clause of "unless they are already on the island " -to me bully boy tactics (or ignorance) .Personally ,i take the words of wisdom given to me many years ago by dad "better to be live coward than dead hero" , or in motoring terms "better to be not hit by idiot than argue over right of way,when insurance co might be inclined to class it as 50/50, BECAUSE IT'S CHEAPER( or in this neck of woods -the idiot might not be insured).Lossof face ,but it's better than loss of NCB
But also see many drivers failing to look /slowdown /stop at these ex junctions now mini islands.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

OK but the rule is that they give way to the right and this is a big normal sized roundabout with all the arrow brick work around it - one on those - (Link Here) - I was going from the East side (right of roundabout) to the West side (left of roundabout) - along the A82 - she was coming out of Rose Street and doing a right (towards East).
I think she just got fed up of waiting and just went for it very, very late indeed. She then had 2 options go or stop and she decided to keep going. Probably the better decision.
If you look at several of the roundabouts in Inverness many can encourage many to take them very 'quickly' - might still only be 20mph but that is fast if you are waiting to pull out and many people still won't pull out even if the 'oncomer' is not yet even on the roundabout, but their 'speed' can stop others from pulling out. So where many roads that lead to roundabouts curve in travel direction, that can lead to some traffic barely stop for the r/bout at all - almost as if it wasn't there. Now I think this needs to be addressed with police monitoring roundabouts and educational films reminding people to take them more carefully.
I don't think that all the segregation has helped at all and especially on the A9 / A 82 (near Kessock bridge - here) - people are too scared to pull out when they even see traffic on the r/bout but not in any danger from them - so much more needs to be done to educate and help drivers understand when it is safe to pull out and acceptable behaviour ad when it is not. this has led to huge tailbacks N and S on the A9 but the south road section has the added utter nonsense of a single lane dedicated to North traffic ! So in the summer the build up is utterly stupid. They need police directing traffic flows to help when things get silly. the markings need to be taken away for the left turn lanes as I don't see that they really help all that much but cause more problems than they ever 'solve'.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

You are lucky, most of our larger roundabouts now have traffic lights on them which are supposed to help traffic flow. so now , instead of having a couple of minutes wait at peak times to enter the roundabout and sailing straight over them for the majority of the times, you now have to stop every few yards and negotiating a roundabout can take a couple of mins even when empty of traffic....progress...no-one's thought of temporary traffic lights....too easy.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

we're going off topic, but Telford used to be a good place to drive around. I don't like it now, with all the traffic lights of roundabouts. At least down here, when you come of M25 to A127 at J29, the lights have sensors, and I rarely have to come to a stop at night. Nothing like sitting at an empty roundabout on a red light

Topic drift is allowed ... within reason ...

One of the roundabouts that has temp traffic lights on is so around the 'corner' that they have wisely added warning signs ! It is a big wide open roundabout so I assume people have been having shunt accidents ... On one of the roads into it there is a ped xing which as the first appearance of a green light (few people) onto the roundabout !

I would like to think that technology is smart enough these days to know when the roads are empty and when not but it is good to hear that those sensors are working at least. Unless of course the camera staff were practicing traffic control and following you !

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

To aid traffic flow systems enabled just this and congestion was moderate. With an increase in traffic there has been by comparison a clear case of little road space increase to handle more traffic and an increase in traffic management and control. So the flow has been stemmed and so congestion increases, it isn't rocket science ... and now we have a 'congestion problem' that needs solving ...
Looking at engineering and traffic management to enable traffic to flow again would seem rather obvious ... perhaps a bit too obvious as it is not 'complicated enough' and far too simple.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

NOt really - it's becoming aparent to me that the idea of of "GIVE WAY TO THE RIGHT " AS BEEN IMPLANTED OVER THE "UNless someone is already on the island" -IN OTHER WORDS "BULLYING" -and unless we get Trafpols ,we might get a system of Im in a bigger car/van ,so f** off- go argue with my insurance co - and can you chance that their not insured ,ot suffer a 50/50 claim .
The rule of law on the roads has given way to the rule of anarchy .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Hence why we need more than ever, good reminders of Courtesy and Consideration on the roads today. Frustration on the roads is a sure way to curtail courtesy especially - sadly.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

But. I think that Courtesy and Consideration should include waiving your priority occasionally to ease congestion. It is extremely frustrating waiting for several minutes to join a busy main road and that lack of C&C by every driver on the main road forces one to "bully" ones way on to the road

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I would say what you describe isn't frequent. I often see drivers being quickly waved into queuing traffic and rarely see joining drivers having to wait for 'several minutes'.
Even if you are right: we probably wouldn't be in this situation if the traffic flow wasn't so badly mismanaged in the first place.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Joining a busy road where the traffic is travelling at NSL or above and where earlier traffic control doesn't punctuate the flow is almost impossible. The drivers on the fast road tend to enter a mindset where they will not slow down to allow traffic to join.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

If the traffic flow is fast and dense then I wouldn’t expect that number of drivers to have to slow and stop just to let me in. I'm patient so I will wait for an appropriate gap.
Otherwise, I can honestly say I've never noticed such a problem when I’m driving.
Either way, I don't think I have ever needed to wait "several minutes" to be able to join, let alone on any frequent basis. Perhaps I'm alone in this, perhaps I'm not...

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Having travelled a lot of the Country especially over the last two years especially - with and without trailer, I can actually sit on both sides of the fence here, but I have techniques to help me 'go'. I 'ask' or 'say' - 'I AM ready to go, please just 'pause' and let me in', (so = 'I will inconvenience you as little as possible)' - so my car 'posture & position' is in a ready state. No one wants to pull out on someone, but the flows do need new techniques. Also cars that have some acceleration help greatly and enable less inconvenience to others.
I cannot say that i have had this happen frequently, but if you have to regularly pull out onto a busy trunk route with cameras it is becoming much more frequent in places on those roads. In town the often forced bunched traffic due to bad management is exacerbating factors.
I do know where a right turn across a DC near Aberdeen has caused many complaints to the Council, however is a roundabout justified for what might be a low amount of traffic?
I can be harder to pull out into traffic that now 'flows streams of tailgating vehicles', but by showing a 'ready to go stance' and looking at the drivers, I can show that I will be as little inconvenience to them as I can, and usually get out fairly easily.
Crossing these flows to do a right may often be easier to go left with the traffic, and then double back, but I can understand people never seem to like doing this.
If we see traffic waiting, how long have they been waiting? How can we tell?
What can we do to help ?
I leave good gaps anyway and if I can see a side road with traffic waiting I will increase my gap and hope they are paying attention and pull out.
If they don't I might conclude they having been waiting for ages, and are in a 'give up' moment, than an attentive ready to go stance.
Sometimes they wait longer than necessary as they maybe they lack confidence or have a 'slow' car (perhaps due to a trailer) or if a big vehicle need a much larger gap.
I do know that when I see traffic built up in a side road and 'constant traffic flow' (mostly streams of tailgating queues) side traffic is having a harder time pulling out as the flow is condensed and bunched.
In towns this has been causing a new problem for pedestrians too as there are no 'gap'. This additional apparent congestion is entirely caused by appalling traffic management.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Or , what my dad always said "better to be a coward(in the wrong) than someone hit ( in the right ) ,and have to fight it out .

IMHO -it's better to give way to the bullies on the roads ,than have to contest a claim .But IF ,we had the trafpols ,we were promised - these bullies would be driving shopping trollies

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on