Driver got out of his car and opened my car door.

Ok I misread. We all make assumptions in the absence of a video or clear description.

And apologies I did assume raised voices as they’d need to be heard over the traffic and beeping horns.

And as stated here a few times sounding a horn in stationary traffic isn’t permitted.

I am confused as to the road layout. A slow lane implies a motorway. Then a short lane which I, and others, thought meant a merging lane but was actually a right turn only lane, so not on a motorway unless that’s a slip road?

And everyone was stopped or not, dunno. Waiting to turn left could mean either.

Or have I my rights and lefts mixed up?

Anyway I think the person getting out of the car and opening a door is OTT and could be very scary for someone else.

Meanwhile I feel it’s likely that the N drive (drive of the N car) was a few cars ahead unaware of all this making it all pointless from any learning experience
 
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Of course another possibility is that they were driving along and changed their mind about their destination or inadvertently ended up in a right turn lane without realising it.

It’s not unusual to be driving along and find that as you approach a junction the road becomes a right or left only lane. If you aren’t a regular user of that road you can be caught out.
 
I do find that a smile plus a cute car helps…(old mini)
If I’m driving our larger car, grey jag, I get filties
 
Interesting
My driving instructor mislead me. Or it was many years ago so maybe rules changed, my bad, I should keep up.

So warning of danger is the case here I guess? The danger from the novice driver undertaking?
 
Every driver makes mistakes. Let’s be more gentlemanly on our roads and lead by example.

Every driver knows the law if an Algerian Turkey walks the wrong way up a one way feeder lane, as far as I can see nobody knows how to use car indicators properly on any roundabout.
 
Difficult to understand exactly what's happening from the description, but I think I can picture it - I'm assuming it's two lanes, left lane heading straight right lane turning right. Sounds like the N driver was driving in the right lane, and then tried to merge into left lane.

Exiting a car in active traffic lane is a a potential offence I think. Opening another car's door is bad. I can't think of a specific offence for that - there's no general catch-all road rage offence in Ireland for example. I would like to think opening the door of a vehicle that is not parked and in active traffic lane is a potential offence. It sounds like it was an attempt to intimidate as well, which I again would hope there is law to deal with this, particularly on the road - although it's open to interpretation.

Bit of unsolicited advice though. You used the words "barge", "force" to describe the actions and intention of the N driver and "patiently" to describe you and the other cars in your lane. I don't think it's not a good idea to assume intentions and assign emotions to others on the road in this way. You can't know what the N driver was thinking, you didn't give them the benefit of the doubt. To me, this sounds a bit like signs of othering - would you have sounded your horn if they had "patiently" sought permission and space to merge? Or if they weren't a N driver?
Not a blame thing, it's often a natural reaction - but our roads and driving cars only work in general if everyone cooperates and gives each other the benefit of doubt - and work better the more we give a bit of leeway to everyone.

Thinking of stretches of road like this in general - realize that not everyone is familiar with every road layout. Road markings are difficult to impossible to see when traffic is blocking it. There is no obligation to merge into a turning lane early. Just because a lane is full of slow moving traffic does not mean you must assume that will be your lane at the next junction and merge into it immediately - with limited visible marking and unfamiliarity they might have honestly been trying to merge as soon as they realized.
 
Leper said:
Every driver makes mistakes. Let’s be more gentlemanly on our roads and lead by example.

Every driver knows the law if an Algerian Turkey walks the wrong way up a one way feeder lane, as far as I can see nobody knows how to use car indicators properly on any roundabout.
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Mannerly

I’ll never manage the gentleman aspects

Driving in France and roundabouts is an educational experience. Zero knowledge in rural areas that I drive in. People launch themselves onto a roundabout assuming they have right of way (apparently they used to, no idea how that can work) and rarely bother using indicators. Double mini roundabout are appearing in some rural towns we visit, not unusual to see people just drive straight across a junction. But rare to hear a horn sounded except in greeting in the countryside
 
Leper said:
Let’s be more gentlemanly on our roads
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Cos 'tis only the men that do be drivin' ?

in any event on the ops question, I would view any stranger's act of opening my car door without permission or good cause (e.g. emergency) as an act of aggression.

However, it's on a par with some one putting their face in yours with a 'what are you looking at'? remark. A threat, but so long as no hand was laid on you, there's no actionable event.

Edit to add: this is assuming a one off, ongoing threats are a different form of abuse.

IANAL
 
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Annieindublin said:
I did assume raised voices as they’d need to be heard over the traffic and beeping horns
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What beeping horns? The OP sounded his car horn once? After this a 3rd party exited his car and lectured the OP. What beeping horns are you referring to? Are you making assumptions again?

Annieindublin said:
And as stated here a few times sounding a horn in stationary traffic isn’t permitted
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Answer me this. I was driving down Foster Avenue in Dublin and came to a stop at traffic lights. About 6 cars ahead of me. The lights turned green. All of the cars moved off except the car in front of me. Head down looking at her phone. I waited a few seconds. Then I sounded my horn.....was I wrong to do this or should I have waited for her to finish what she was doing on her phone?
 
My writing was sloppy… seriously sorry for upsetting you… or are you upset.. or I am making assumptions again? Maybe you aren’t upset.

I am very bad at this internet stuff. So hard to read a tone, like you come across as angry but in reality you probably aren’t.

And clearly I don’t know much about driving rules either as was displayed above you are allowed beep your horn while driving but I’ve already apologised for getting that wrong as you will see above I have acknowledged my mistake there,

And if you are in a traffic queue and someone is not moving I can’t think of any other way of alerting them to the change in lights. But that’s not the same as beeping at someone in another lane who you think might be breaking rules (although that’s not clear, you are allowed change lane and maybe they indicated and waiting until there was a gap, or maybe they didn’t, dunno)
 
Annieindublin said:
It’s not unusual to be driving along and find that as you approach a junction the road becomes a right or left only lane. If you aren’t a regular user of that road you can be caught out.
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Common rookie mistake. What you should have done in this situation is put on your X-ray glasses and see what arrow markings are on the road underneath the cars in traffic in front of you in the various lanes before you chose one.
 
andrew2000ad said:
Difficult to understand exactly what's happening from the description, but I think I can picture it - I'm assuming it's two lanes, left lane heading straight right lane turning right. Sounds like the N driver was driving in the right lane, and then tried to merge into left lane.

Exiting a car in active traffic lane is a a potential offence I think. Opening another car's door is bad. I can't think of a specific offence for that - there's no general catch-all road rage offence in Ireland for example. I would like to think opening the door of a vehicle that is not parked and in active traffic lane is a potential offence. It sounds like it was an attempt to intimidate as well, which I again would hope there is law to deal with this, particularly on the road - although it's open to interpretation.

Bit of unsolicited advice though. You used the words "barge", "force" to describe the actions and intention of the N driver and "patiently" to describe you and the other cars in your lane. I don't think it's not a good idea to assume intentions and assign emotions to others on the road in this way. You can't know what the N driver was thinking, you didn't give them the benefit of the doubt. To me, this sounds a bit like signs of othering - would you have sounded your horn if they had "patiently" sought permission and space to merge? Or if they weren't a N driver?
Not a blame thing, it's often a natural reaction - but our roads and driving cars only work in general if everyone cooperates and gives each other the benefit of doubt - and work better the more we give a bit of leeway to everyone.

Thinking of stretches of road like this in general - realize that not everyone is familiar with every road layout. Road markings are difficult to impossible to see when traffic is blocking it. There is no obligation to merge into a turning lane early. Just because a lane is full of slow moving traffic does not mean you must assume that will be your lane at the next junction and merge into it immediately - with limited visible marking and unfamiliarity they might have honestly been trying to merge as soon as they realized.
Click to expand...

Suspect it's the hill at Rody Boland's junction coming from N11 direction where such last minute lane change shenanigans are all too commonplace? I don't blame the OP for beeping the horn - it's a dangerous manoeuvre that affects others' safety as pointed out above.
To say nothing of the fact that N means the driver has recently completed their training, is familiar with the rules and evidently passed their test so they should know better!
Dunno why your man behind you was sticking his oar in tbh. L is a different story since they are quite literally still learning.
 
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Annieindublin said:
although that’s not clear, you are allowed change lane and maybe they indicated and waiting until there was a gap, or maybe they didn’t, dunno)
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No. This is what I said.

"The N driver just barged in front of the car in front of me, nearly taking the side off it. No indicator or anything. The car in front of me braked and thankfully I wasn't that close to him so I could stop."
 
SlurrySlump said:
No. This is what I said.

"The N driver just barged in front of the car in front of me, nearly taking the side off it. No indicator or anything. The car in front of me braked and thankfully I wasn't that close to him so I could stop."
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I think your response was reasonable in the circumstances.

Assuming that’s the extent of what you did, it didn’t justify anyone opening your door to give you a lecture. That’s not the response of a sane person. What would he have done if you’d beeped at him?
 
Fortune said:
The rule in Wicklow is that you indicate the opposite direction to where you are going.
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In Boston, a taxi I was in simply drove onto the roundabouts without a care in the world.

I asked what the rules were for roundabouts there.

He replied "I have dozens of dents on my car - another few won't make a difference - hence I have right of way"

In a way it made sense
 
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