How sheep like are drivers

Phantom Shadow

Phantom Shadow

Phantom Shadow

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How sheeplike are drivers

So today I came to a set of traffic lights, which were red when I arrived, about 5th in the queue. After maybe 10-15 seconds of waiting the 2nd car started shifting around in the queue and honking at the van at the front. Then the rest in front of me all starting honking as well. Then all hell broke loose.

One went over the central reservation and through a no entry side road. Another drove fully on the pavement around the corner, behind railings. The last one and the van proceeded to try pulling out into 4 lanes of traffic who had the green light.

I stopped at the front thinking wtf is going on, and then the lights went green for me to go, so clearly there was nothing wrong with the lights.

Seemingly 1 impatient person led to everyone doing everything they could to jump the red light. Seen people do stupid things before, but never seen a whole queue of cars go crazy like this before.
 
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We've all seen the ones where 1 direction gives way to the other. If 1 car goes through, the one behind just follows them. The first car 'just' about has time and the 2nd one forces the oncoming traffic to stop.

I beeped my horn at someone doing this once to quickly let them know they had done wrong but they just stuck their finger up.

So either people just blindly follow, can't drive to start with or are simply ignorant.

I always hate it when left lane in roundabouts cut the right lane off when going over. Happens constantly. At least 90% of drivers do this from what I've seen. Again, often just following the line of the car in front, even though they themselves are doing it with someone on the inside going right.
 
^^

In London what you get is people who come from a side road and will be extremely aggressive in getting on to the main road, causing people that have priority to brake suddenly to avoid collision. Infact on Friday this happened 3 times.
 
platinum87 said:
^^

In London what you get is people who come from a side road and will be extremely aggressive in getting on to the main road, causing people that have priority to brake suddenly to avoid collision. Infact on Friday this happened 3 times.
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London is a joke. At one point i told my gf it wasn't if but when we crash (albeit at sub 30mph) because you have such a mix of drivers from all over the world.

The other week someone tailgated me on the A13 inner lane while i was going at exactly GPS 50mph (the max speed limit for that particular part), who then then decided to beep & start flashing lights while we went through the speedtraps. So i VERY slowly moved into the middle lane & let them go. Maybe his wife was pregnant?
 
Why don't we have the traffic lights that count down to when they're going to change? In this day and age you'd have thought the benefits would outweigh the costs.
 
Ali195 said:
London is a joke. At one point i told my gf it wasn't if but when we crash (albeit at sub 30mph) because you have such a mix of drivers from all over the world.

The other week someone tailgated me on the A13 inner lane while i was going at exactly GPS 50mph (the max speed limit for that particular part), who then then decided to beep & start flashing lights while we went through the speedtraps. So i VERY slowly moved into the middle lane & let them go. Maybe his wife was pregnant?
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Was there space for you to move over earlier or were you overtaking cars the whole time? It is an overtaking lane not an "I'm doing the speed limit leave me alone" lane. Doing the speed limit with the lanes to the left clogged full of cars fair enough, but it annoys me when you get someone blocking up the road in the wrong lane and not a car in sight for miles.

scorza said:
Why don't we have the traffic lights that count down to when they're going to change? In this day and age you'd have thought the benefits would outweigh the costs.
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Think I've read somewhere that it's thought this sort of thing would lead to people speeding towards traffic lights if they could see they had a few seconds to get there before they change to red, or jumping the gun if they see they only have a couple of seconds before changing to green.
 
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scorza said:
Why don't we have the traffic lights that count down to when they're going to change? In this day and age you'd have thought the benefits would outweigh the costs.
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It would be like having a Grand Prix start at each set of the lights. Boy racer heaven. :D
 
scorza said:
Why don't we have the traffic lights that count down to when they're going to change? In this day and age you'd have thought the benefits would outweigh the costs.
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These already exist in London, I've certainly seen them on Camberwell Road. Although they're aimed at the pedestrians rather than drivers, they're still visible to the traffic so give a cue for the lights changing.
 
Phantom Shadow said:
Think I've read somewhere that it's thought this sort of thing would lead to people speeding towards traffic lights if they could see they had a few seconds to get there before they change to red, or jumping the gun if they see they only have a couple of seconds before changing to green.
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People do that anyway, might have the reverse effect with a light just change to red counting down from 30s - drivers/cyclists might think "ah it's only a few seconds" and not speed through them.

The worst traffic lights are the ones with pressure pads that encourage drivers to tailgate each other through - leave a gap of more than 2 metres and the light will think "ah, no-one there, time to change".
 
scorza said:
Why don't we have the traffic lights that count down to when they're going to change? In this day and age you'd have thought the benefits would outweigh the costs.
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Impatient people would still be impatient. They would just know how much longer they need to rage to themselves.

Honestly, I let go of most of my driving rage years ago and am far happier for it. Lights change, idiots make you take evasive action and you rarely make any time up speeding if you are going through urban/semiurban areas
 
What's wrong with the title? Would it make more sense if I took the space out between sheep and like? I'm saying driving are sheeplike, or like sheep in that they just follow whatever the person in front does stupid/illegal or not.
 
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