Are car drivers getting worse?

After 2 v near smidys (Sorry Mate I Didnt See You), one after the other last night, im starting to think car drivers are getting worse!
First one was white van man-im going round a mini roundabout-indicating, taking it steady-he decides he'll just carry straight-misses my front end by inches and yells out "SORRY MATE DIDNT SEE YOU!" rolleyes:

Seconds down the road im almost taken out by a women whose come flying up a slip lane off the dual carriageway-sees me and has to brake and swerve in order to miss me-almost causing the 2 cars behind her to rear end her!
Do people not know what white dotted lines are- eg STOP and check its clear to pull out!

Combination of v good brakes, riders 6th sense and what treacle says is "good rider and obvs skills-i ssay 6ths nese) meant me and teal (my bike) got home safe last night
Oh and add the fact that the bike police were pulling bikers over last night (not me thanfully) but not the audi and mazda that were racing each other meant i had a pretty rubbish ride, can see why so many of my mates are using their bikes on track only now

Well the same blind stupidness seems to be at the same levels to me. I did notice a huge amount of mopeds and bikes this morning though, and I had the usual feeling of wanting to kick most of the scooter riders off.

[G]

I had two similar incidents both I knew were going to happen.

1) Car pulled out onto roundabout straight infront of me. My old neighbour that we drove out b ecause he was horrible.

2) I'm in left lane coming upto a roundabout, caravan in the right lane both lanes go straight on, caravan pulls from the right hand lane into the left hand lane halfway through the roundabout with me at the side of him

Originally Posted by G

1) Car pulled out onto roundabout straight infront of me. My old neighbour that we drove out b ecause he was horrible.

this seems to happen to me loads, especially when turning right. its not even like ive got mini indicators or anything, theyre huge!

yes they are especially 17 year olds and youngsters :@! wanting a race everywhere oh yeah and Audi drivers there c*cks even jeremy clarkson on top gear says

[fizzwheel]

I dont think so.

I have noticed though in my short riding career that when the temperature goes up like it has done over the last couple of days ( well here anyway ) peoples driving standards deteriorate.

Hot, impatient car driver been stuck in queues of holiday traffic or town centre grid lock, get frustrated and dont pay attention as much as they should do.

I witnessed two similar stupid happenings on the local roads recently. Both were of the "shouldn't be on the road" calibre:

1) Exiting a motorway service station. Lane 1 traffic going at about 60, free flowing. Mini Metro driver pulls up to a stop at the end of the slip road. Indicates. Moves directly into lane 2 causing two lanes of traffic to slow by about 20mph each.

2) Same thing, on a dual carriageway with traffic approaching at 70 in both lanes, but the slip/run up is a full 180 degree left hand bend, followed by a 100 yard merge distance, i.e short.

Yes, its difficult to merge in a small gap when you're only doing 40 because of the corner, but its a HELL OF A LOT HARDER IF YOU STOP!

[timwilky]

Some drivers have always been stupid.

I drove my bro to pick up his Mille on sunday. The traffic was horrible on the way back, an 8 mile crawl. at a roundabout the 2 lane exit quickly became 1 lane (in all of 50 yards)

So Mr X5 decides he can overtake 10 cars and use his size to intimidate an entry back into the queue. The guy behind me saw what was happening and straddled the white line to ensure the slow queue kept moving. X5 mounted the central reservation and cut in front of him.

Lots of horn sounding behind me etc. as I watched in my mirror. X5 then slams to a halt, driver gets out calling the car that had tried to stop him overtaking into nothing all sorts of obsenities and what he was going to do to him etc. I carried on down the road glad that I was just that bit further away from the idiot when he tried his silly get nowhere but wind up everybody antic.

There will always be idiots behind the wheel, the trick is to spot them before you have to avoid them

Yes. 3 things in particular have gotten appreciably worse in the time I have been driving:

1) The way people drive around roundabouts. Non-existent lane discipline, failure to pull out when its safe to do so, pulling out when something is coming (and this happens as much when I'm in the car as the bike, so it's not SMIDSY or me going too quick round roundabouts), indicating correctly on them only happens about 25% of the time now, approx 50% of car drivers near me don't indicate at all for the whole course of the roundabout.

2) Failure to stop at stop/give way lines and generally leaving braking much too late. Instead of slowing so they come to a stop just short of the give way line, many driver wait till they are about 5 foot short and then just floor the brake. Dangerous for a number of reasons: They often stop over the line, Traffic with the right of way thinks they haven't seen them (as it looks like they're going to pull out), so slow/take measures to avoid them unnecessarily, people behind think it's safe to go (as the car in front hasn't sloweded with only feet to go) so blindly carry on like sheep then rear end the car in front. Technically their fault, but still something the car in front inadvertantly caused.

3) Indicating far too late. The clue is in the name: they are supposed to show your intentions, not confirm what you are now doing. I think car manufacturers are at least partly to blame for this. Many new cars have a setting whereby you can 'click' the indicator stalk and just give (according to the car/setting) 1-3 flashes of indication, all of which are almost useless and contrary to the recommended "before, during and after" use of indicators. The number of people I see doing overtakes where they put a single click of indication on, once they are already out straddling the centre line is staggering.

Oddly enough, I find car drivers seem to spot bikes and move over to let them overtake more now than they did a few years ago.

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

I have noticed that when the temperature goes up like it has done over the last couple of days peoples driving standards deteriorate.

Guilty. It's cos I'm scoping the chicks in their skimpies.

I had some cocker this morning. I was on the roundabout, they were looking at me (well who wouldn't), waited for me to get a bit closer, then decided to pull out in front of me......across 3 lanes of traffic