PedallingNowhereSlowly
Senior Member
I've had plenty of experiences of bad driving - as driver, pedestrian and a cyclist. On Sunday morning I marshalled a cycle race. I thought it would be a fairly peaceful and relaxed affair stood at the side of a road for a few hours.
With what I saw I can safely say, at least based on anecdotal experience, the majority of drivers do not drive safely.
I was stood at a T-junction where one B road intersects with another. The cycle race was proceeding along the road that was "Tee'd off" and turning left into the T junction - so they were just turning left and not giving way. The majority of the motorised traffic was proceeding along the road that is terminated at the T junction - so the drivers were giving way. Then most drivers turned left, continuing along the road that the cyclists were turning off. Or coming in the other direction, and turning right.
This was quite good, or at least should have been, as a good portion of the traffic was not in anyway affected by the cyclists.
If we concentrate first on the drivers in general, the vast majority did not negotiate the junction correctly. Many did not indicate. When the junction was clear, the majority turning right out of it or turning right into it cut the corner. When the junction was busy, many drivers turning right into the junction clipped or mounted the kerb stones on the left hand side. It's not the largest junction, but I wouldn't describe it as particularly tight.
The junction was so busy at times, that there were queues of vehicles forming to turn left out of the junction. This created anxiety and impatience in a sizeable proportion of drivers.
A lot of drivers carried way too much speed through the junction. A lot of drivers were carrying out secondary tasks - including, in one case, map reading.
Onto the interactions between the motorists and the cyclists.
The road that terminated at the Tee-junction, is a steady rise with limited onward visibility. Not somewhere I would deem safe to overtake. Yet, the majority of drivers were content to overtake the cyclists before reaching the brow of the hill. Given that some instances the competitors were really tackling that climb, that would mean they would be overtaking with some speed. In fact, I only saw one driver out of a good good many, patiently wait until cresting the hill.
A good number of drivers on the road that was Tee'd off saw no problem overtaking the cyclists on approach to the junction and then turning left across them. An even higher proportion of drivers proceeding straight on, were happy to overtake on approach to the junction. The worst of these was an Ocado delivery driver, who overtook two other left turning vehicles and a group of cyclists at a time the junction was quite busy. A local dairy farm's tanker driver, did the same and the blocked the junction to try and tell me how dangerous one of the competitors was ...
Given most of this was before 9am on a Sunday morning, I was a bit surprised how few drivers could actually negotiate this junction and/or the cyclists as per the Highway Code. There was a good number of motorcyclists also using the junction throughout the morning - much much better behaviour there.
I felt anecdotally before this that driving standards were falling. Now I'm absolutely sure that this is the case. Is there any substantive evidence of this? I've done some searching and I get lots of hits about drivers eyesight, but nothing that's particularly evidential. KSI statistics have generally improved, vulnerable road users excepted. Compliance with speed limits has alledgedly improve, even though it's thought to only be around 50% drivers in free flowing traffic for 30 mph speed limits. I don't trust the data on motoring FPNs or convictions - various other factors can influence those.
With what I saw I can safely say, at least based on anecdotal experience, the majority of drivers do not drive safely.
I was stood at a T-junction where one B road intersects with another. The cycle race was proceeding along the road that was "Tee'd off" and turning left into the T junction - so they were just turning left and not giving way. The majority of the motorised traffic was proceeding along the road that is terminated at the T junction - so the drivers were giving way. Then most drivers turned left, continuing along the road that the cyclists were turning off. Or coming in the other direction, and turning right.
This was quite good, or at least should have been, as a good portion of the traffic was not in anyway affected by the cyclists.
If we concentrate first on the drivers in general, the vast majority did not negotiate the junction correctly. Many did not indicate. When the junction was clear, the majority turning right out of it or turning right into it cut the corner. When the junction was busy, many drivers turning right into the junction clipped or mounted the kerb stones on the left hand side. It's not the largest junction, but I wouldn't describe it as particularly tight.
The junction was so busy at times, that there were queues of vehicles forming to turn left out of the junction. This created anxiety and impatience in a sizeable proportion of drivers.
A lot of drivers carried way too much speed through the junction. A lot of drivers were carrying out secondary tasks - including, in one case, map reading.
Onto the interactions between the motorists and the cyclists.
The road that terminated at the Tee-junction, is a steady rise with limited onward visibility. Not somewhere I would deem safe to overtake. Yet, the majority of drivers were content to overtake the cyclists before reaching the brow of the hill. Given that some instances the competitors were really tackling that climb, that would mean they would be overtaking with some speed. In fact, I only saw one driver out of a good good many, patiently wait until cresting the hill.
A good number of drivers on the road that was Tee'd off saw no problem overtaking the cyclists on approach to the junction and then turning left across them. An even higher proportion of drivers proceeding straight on, were happy to overtake on approach to the junction. The worst of these was an Ocado delivery driver, who overtook two other left turning vehicles and a group of cyclists at a time the junction was quite busy. A local dairy farm's tanker driver, did the same and the blocked the junction to try and tell me how dangerous one of the competitors was ...
Given most of this was before 9am on a Sunday morning, I was a bit surprised how few drivers could actually negotiate this junction and/or the cyclists as per the Highway Code. There was a good number of motorcyclists also using the junction throughout the morning - much much better behaviour there.
I felt anecdotally before this that driving standards were falling. Now I'm absolutely sure that this is the case. Is there any substantive evidence of this? I've done some searching and I get lots of hits about drivers eyesight, but nothing that's particularly evidential. KSI statistics have generally improved, vulnerable road users excepted. Compliance with speed limits has alledgedly improve, even though it's thought to only be around 50% drivers in free flowing traffic for 30 mph speed limits. I don't trust the data on motoring FPNs or convictions - various other factors can influence those.
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