Mad drivers.

Anyone notice how crazy drivers become as soon as December starts?
Every year it's the same. People just have no patience and do crazy manoeuvres.
 
Teatime said:
Anyone notice how crazy drivers become as soon as December starts?
Every year it's the same. People just have no patience and do crazy manoeuvres.
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You're dead right! Just noticed December idiot-driving kicking off at the weekend when I had to go over to Liffey Valley. Absolute mayhem driving around there and it becomes a complete free for all in the car park as to what direction people can drive in. The arrows are only rough guidelines it would seem.
 
I was leaving Blanchardstown shopping centre carpark on Saturday at around 2:30 pm. Two drivers looking for a space noticed me getting into my car. The both frantically tried to get to the space first, and ended up in a stand-off while at the same time blocking me from getting out. One of them got out of their car and started shouting at the other. I eventually opened my window and asked if someone could move to let me out. So one of them gave in and left. Hillarious....... As we drove off my four year old son shook his head said "they weren't very nice ladies"..........
 
MrMan said:
How can aggressive driving causing others to not properly concentrate on the road not be viewed as hazardous?
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We only have the OP's version of events re the degree of danger or hazard the other driver may have caused, therefore not the entire truth of the situation. While he / she has clearly stated they incorrectly use their hazard warning lights. Its not only that driver who has annoyed you who is aware of the lights, it incorrectly warns others of dangers which they could anticipate to a crash ahead/breakdown/dangerous conditions.
 
Personally I would make every driver resit the driving test every 5 years. Everyone talks about learner drivers but at least they generally understand the rules of the road even if they make mistakes. The next time a car drives up my This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language flashing his lights in the overtaking lane while I am doing the speed limit and overtaking a car, I will lose it. News flash for people. It's an overtaking lane. Not a fast lane where the speed limit doesn't apply. Has happened three times in past two weeks.
 
Sunny said:
Personally I would make every driver resit the driving test every 5 years.
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But idiots will just temper their idiocy for the 30 minutes or whetever the test will take. The vast majority of people I see driving like this are alone in the car.
 
geri said:
.. leaving Blanchardstown shopping centre carpark on Saturday at around 2:30 pm. Two drivers looking for a space ..
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Arriving in Blanchardstown at 2:30 on a Saturday in December and hoping to be able to park your car .. that's another form of madness !
 

So using your hazards makes others possibly slow down; i don't see how this equals driving dangerously?
 

Were you heeding those rules of the road which you're so fond of...?


How to overtake safely


  • Make sure the road ahead is clear so you have enough distance to allow you to overtake and get back to your own side of the road without forcing any other road user to move to avoid you.
  • Never directly follow another overtaking vehicle.
  • Give way to faster traffic already overtaking from behind.
  • Before overtaking check that the way is clear, check in your mirror and blind spots to ensure another vehicle is not approaching from behind. Give your signal in good time, move out when it is safe to do so, accelerate and overtake with the minimum of delay.
  • When you are well past, check the mirror, signal and gradually move in again making sure not to cut across the vehicle you have passed.
  • Take extra care when overtaking a vehicle displaying a "LONG VEHICLE" sign. This means that the vehicle is at least 13 metres long and you will need extra road length to pass it and safely return to the left-hand side of the road.


Sounds to me like you possibly were being that person who so annoys me on the motorway, the one who saunters out into the overtaking lane ignoring the fact that I am already out there and approaching rapidly, due to my terrible punctuality...
 
Eh no I wasn't actually. I was overtaking a row of about 4-5 cars so I had no where safe to pull back into until after I had overtaken the last car. If you had bothered reading my post before posting your useless comment, you would have seen I have said I was doing the speed limit. Yielding to faster traffic does not mean giving way to people doing 160 or 180kmh on the motorway. As long as I am overtaking, I am perfectly entitled to be in that lane.

You are obviously one of those drivers who annoy me so much who think that lane is a driving lane where you can stay in that lane as long as they like and go whatever speed you want. No one is obligated to break the speed limit or change lanes dangerously to get out of your way.
 
mandelbrot said:
Sounds to me like you possibly were being that person who so annoys me on the motorway, the one who saunters out into the overtaking lane ignoring the fact that I am already out there and approaching rapidly.
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In fairness to mandelbrot, there are a lot of very bad motorway drivers out there who do exactly this and worse.

The number of drivers who think it's ok to sit in the middle lane of the M50 where there are 3 lanes doing 80kph or less is astonishing, forcing drivers who are in the left lane doing 100kph to cross two lanes to overtake them.

There are many drivers who sit in the overtaking lane of two lane motorways who are not actually overtaking, i.e. no cars in the left had lane, and are travelling at 80kph or 100kph and will not move into the left hand lane.

I've driven in loads of different countries around the world and this seems to be peculiar to drivers on Irish roads. Perhaps it stems from the fact that there were no motorways here until relatively recently and that driving lessions / tests don't include motorway driving.
 
delgirl said:
The number of drivers who think it's ok to sit in the middle lane of the M50 where there are 3 lanes doing 80kph or less is astonishing, forcing drivers who are in the left lane doing 100kph to cross two lanes to overtake them.
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Im not sure I understand this?
Surely if someone is doing 80 in the middle lane and someone in the left lane is doing 100, the person in the left lane doesnt bother crossing 2 lanes to overtake? Ive never seen this. Otherwise you would have a constant diagonal swerve of cars around the slower one in the middle lane - it just doesnt happen - or at least, Ive never seen it.
 
Jeez, defensive much?!

Sunny said:
Eh no I wasn't actually. I was overtaking a row of about 4-5 cars so I had no where safe to pull back into until after I had overtaken the last car.
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That's fair enough, but that's not clear from your previous post. Hence I said "Sounds to me like you possibly were being..."

Read the rules of the road - it says give way to faster traffic, which includes traffic exceeding the speed limit.

It's not obvious what kind of driver I am at all from a single post on AAM, so I'll be clear - I use the overtaking lane for overtaking, when I'm not overtaking I pull in to the furthest left lane.
But equally if I choose to drive 130 - 135kmh then I can, as long as I'm willing to take the consequences of it, which shouldn't include you deciding I'm going too fast so you're going to pull out in front of me when I'm approaching from behind in the overtaking lane.

The way I was taught, and the way the RSA TV ads tell it, when overtaking traffic, you aren't supposed to pull in until you're a safe distance in front of the vehicle you've overtaken, so quite often you actually should stay in the outer lane if there's less than say a hundred yards (and closing) between that vehicle and the next one you're going to overtake.

That's not the same as using the overtaking lane as a driving lane, it's avoiding weaving between lanes. And that's the situation I'm talking about, where someone in the inside lane decides to pull out and overtake, forcing the person already in the outside lane to brake hard, and it's irrelevant who is driving what speed.
 
AFAIK it's illegal to undertake on the left unless the vehicle in the right hand lane is doing less that 40mph or 60kph or there is a traffic jam with stop/start traffic.

According to RSA.ie:

You may overtake on the left when
- You want to go straight ahead when the driver in front of you has moved out and signalled that they intend to turn right;
- You have signalled that you intend to turn left;
- Traffic in both lanes is moving slowly and traffic in the left-hand lane is​
moving more quickly than the traffic in the right-hand lane.

It also says:

You must normally drive in the left-hand lane of a dual carriageway.

You may use the outer lane of a two-lane or three-lane dual carriageway only:
- for overtaking;
- when intending to turn right a short distance ahead.

Dangerous overtaking 2 points and 5 on conviction with €80 or €120 on conviction
Failure to drive on the left-hand side of the road 1 point and 3 on conviction €60 fine €90 on conviction.

It does happen on the M50, but a lot of people don't bother and just use the left hand lane to pass slow traffic in the middle lane.

My OH is a culprit when it comes to hogging the overtaking lane and was pulled over by the Garda Traffic Unit and told off for driving in the overtaking lane even though he was driving at the speend limit. Result!



 
The above goes all funny when I try to quote it.

This
Traffic in both lanes is moving slowly and traffic in the left-hand lane is moving more quickly than the traffic in the right-hand lane.
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is what tends to happen.

I wasnt commenting on the legality of this in my earlier post btw, I was just commenting that I never see people bothering to cross 2 lanes to overtake a slow car in the middle lane and if it were common we would be seeing a rolling roadblock of diagonal swerve around the slow car by everyone in the left lane - and thats not a common sight.

I agree that in general Irish people drive badly on motorways.
 
IMO generally knowledge of the rules of the road isn't great here.

I regularly meet people at junctions and approaching stationary vehicles who don't seem to know who has right of way.

Hopefully the new regulations for learner drivers will help with compulsory lessons from approved driving instructors.

They should, however, include motorway driving as they do in countries like Germany.
 
I drive on the M1 twice a day at rush hour. The problem I find is that when you pull back into the inside lane after overtaking, cars in the overtaking lane then won't let you back out to overtake the next car you need to overtake. So people stay out in the overtaking lane.

Coming down the slip road onto the motorway with a view of both lanes, there is generally at least 5 times more cars on the outside lane than on the inside lane - a steady ribbon of cars overtaking versus cars dotted here and there on the left lane.
 

I think a car speeding up behind you and breaking at the last minute is of a high enough degree of danger to warrant flashing of hazard lights to warn him to back off.

Are you sure you're not the driver in question? You seem very anxious to defend this type of agressive, intimidating and dangerously distracting driving.
 
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