Your bad driving encounters

[ianh]

Yesterday I saw a very elderly lady drive through several cones and a "road closed" sign as she tried to turn, in broad daylight, off the main road into a very clearly closed side road.

I think it was the noise of a 5mph bump into the loud metal sign which eventually "woke her up" - no damage to the sign, a few crushed cones and a scrape to the bumper but, as there's no injury, there's no Police involved so she's free to do the same day after day until she hits someone.

 

[SilverTongue]

Had one this morning, thankfully anticipated he was going to do this.

Following behind a van in traffic approaching a roundabout, van driver seemed to be dithering between 2 lanes and ultimately chooses to go into far right lane. I hold back a bit from him as the lights go green (I'm in lane to his left and 2 cars behind) glad I did because as soon as he started to move he immediately stuck his left signal on and turned at the same time to cut across the 3 lanes of traffic (far left being a bus lane that joins the roundabout) to take same exit as me, if I hadn't held back he would have hit me. He then turned right into a side road, noticed he was on his phone holding it directly in front of his face (hands free bruv)

 

[Resident]

Yesterday I saw a very elderly lady drive through several cones and a "road closed" sign as she tried to turn, in broad daylight, off the main road into a very clearly closed side road.

I think it was the noise of a 5mph bump into the loud metal sign which eventually "woke her up" - no damage to the sign, a few crushed cones and a scrape to the bumper but, as there's no injury, there's no Police involved so she's free to do the same day after day until she hits someone.

You can report that to DVSA if you believe they're unfit to drive.

They'll be called for assessment and a decision made whether they keep their licence

 

[Stu999]

Definitely ****** the job here:

Ferrari crashes into city centre bike racks

CCTV footage shows the sports car bouncing off the bike racks and mounting the opposite pavement.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Rroff]

Definitely ****** the job here:

Ferrari crashes into city centre bike racks

CCTV footage shows the sports car bouncing off the bike racks and mounting the opposite pavement.

www.bbc.co.uk

Was debating posting the crash I was talking about above as I don't know the backstory and it doesn't seem to have shown up in local news, etc. but from the damage and skid marks they were likely doing considerably more than the speed limit - possibly a medical incident but I'm suspecting someone blindly pulled out of the road on the left as they were coming down the main road and they swerved to avoid them.

Spoiler

 

[Greebo]

Definitely ****** the job here:

Ferrari crashes into city centre bike racks

CCTV footage shows the sports car bouncing off the bike racks and mounting the opposite pavement.

www.bbc.co.uk

How can the police say they are not taking any further action? Clearly the guy doesnt know how to drive! You would think he would be done for driving without due care and attention

 

[Greebo]

This one is even more shocking!

Motorcyclist falls from bridge after car collision

Video shows a rider being pushed against railings by a car after a disagreement with its driver.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Dyson]

Auto headlights must be one of the most unneeded "improvements" made to cars. So many drivers don't think of their lights when driving in fog!

 

[Rroff]

Auto headlights must be one of the most unneeded "improvements" made to cars. So many drivers don't think of their lights when driving in fog!

I doubt it was much different before auto headlights - people don't tend to think about them in daytime conditions. I've even had a few instances of driving half a mile to a mile down the road before it occurred to me in poor day time conditions.

 

[Dyson]

Just see it as another level of interaction and thought removed

 

[Rroff]

Just see it as another level of interaction and thought removed

What I find annoying is the lack of decoupling between auto headlights and the auto-dipping feature, as the headlights coming on automatically I find useful, but nothing I've driven so far has an ideal implementation of auto-dipping - though most systems rarely fail to dip appropriately for other traffic there is too many false positives and several vehicles I've driven the main beam when on auto doesn't come on straight away when you manually push the stalk forward! but waits until the system has analysed the scene which can result in anything from almost immediately on to several seconds delay, which is a massive fail in my opinion and amazed it ever made it to retail.

 

[Greebo]

What I find annoying is the lack of decoupling between auto headlights and the auto-dipping feature, as the headlights coming on automatically I find useful, but nothing I've driven so far has an ideal implementation of auto-dipping - though most systems rarely fail to dip appropriately for other traffic there is too many false positives and several vehicles I've driven the main beam when on auto doesn't come on straight away when you manually push the stalk forward! but waits until the system has analysed the scene which can result in anything from almost immediately on to several seconds delay, which is a massive fail in my opinion and amazed it ever made it to retail.

the multi led tracking headlights work well I find. Its very quick (quicker than me to manually dip headlights) to put a black/dark box around any traffic.

But people still think you are on main beam esp since I have a tall SUV and the other person is in a low down sportscar.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Last night I was driving home around 7pm. Following behind someone with their lights off along a town centre one way system, then a sizeable roundabout, and another mile past the local hospital and several junctions with lights.

I was flashing them at sensible intervals, leaving my hi beams on, eventually beeping the horn behind them at lights...Not a clue. The were either totally oblivious or sat there thinking "What's this guy smoking?"

Maybe all their rear lights have failed? Car was only about 5 years old IIRC

 

[Rroff]

the multi led tracking headlights work well I find. Its very quick (quicker than me to manually dip headlights) to put a black/dark box around any traffic.

But people still think you are on main beam esp since I have a tall SUV and the other person is in a low down sportscar.

Off the top of my head don't think I've driven anything with matrix or similar headlights, at least not at night.

I've very mixed feelings about them as I've said before - can be really useful if someone is following you with them if they work as intended with the extra light adding to the illumination of the sides of the road, etc.

 

[Greebo]

Off the top of my head don't think I've driven anything with matrix or similar headlights, at least not at night.

I've very mixed feelings about them as I've said before - can be really useful if someone is following you with them if they work as intended with the extra light adding to the illumination of the sides of the road, etc.

I think the issue is that if you are in a low vehicle or your car goes over a hump, the LED headlights are so bright nowadays that it looks like full beam to the person in the other car.

 

[Rroff]

I think the issue is that if you are in a low vehicle or your car goes over a hump, the LED headlights are so bright nowadays that it looks like full beam to the person in the other car.

Same with driving something taller like a van or pickup. Problem with most of these systems though they work fairly reliably with the most common situations and vehicles but struggle or don't work with less common stuff i.e. if the shape and positioning of tail lights on a vehicle you are following are relatively abnormal it won't necessarily black them out well enough.

 

[cheesefest]

On M1 yesterday afternoon - it was heavy rain with spray from the road surface. About 15% of vehicles had zero lights on. No wonder there's always an accident when it rains.

 

[Stu999]

Last night I was driving home around 7pm. Following behind someone with their lights off along a town centre one way system, then a sizeable roundabout, and another mile past the local hospital and several junctions with lights.

I was flashing them at sensible intervals, leaving my hi beams on, eventually beeping the horn behind them at lights...Not a clue. The were either totally oblivious or sat there thinking "What's this guy smoking?"

Maybe all their rear lights have failed? Car was only about 5 years old IIRC

Someone joined a dual carriageway in front of me last night and I flashed them cos I thought their lights were off but when I passed them their headlights were on. They had one rear light failed and the other one was partly failed / covered in dirt!

 

[theone8181]

Auto headlights must be one of the most unneeded "improvements" made to cars. So many drivers don't think of their lights when driving in fog!

What do you mean by auto? Turning them on imo is good as there's so many poor drivers that seem to forget/drive with sidelights on. I actually think lights should just have on or auto as the only options. If you meant dipping, then I agree with you, I turn mine off full beam when I see the sky light up from another car.

 

[sigma]

the multi led tracking headlights work well I find. Its very quick (quicker than me to manually dip headlights) to put a black/dark box around any traffic.

But people still think you are on main beam esp since I have a tall SUV and the other person is in a low down sportscar.

Don't they cost £2k a headlight though? So most cars won't have them.