Common disregard for rules and regulations

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I tend to drive a little closer to the car in front of me nowadays. If I leave a gap say 15m then someone will always dive in and leave me with only 5m. If I leave a gap of say 8m, nobody takes the chance.
There is also something quite satisfying about slowly rolling up at traffic lights along side the idiot that just overtook you doing 1 squillion mph.
 
Soldato
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I tend to drive a little closer to the car in front of me nowadays. If I leave a gap say 15m then someone will always dive in and leave me with only 5m. If I leave a gap of say 8m, nobody takes the chance.

What does it matter if someone changes lanes in front of you, really? It's how driving works. Just ease off and create the gap again.
 
Soldato
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I've seen some complete ***** on my travels to work this week, 1st was a car tailgating a scooter in a 30mph road, scooter was going the speed limit car behind must have been about 2 metres behind him.
Next 2 cars on a 40mph stretch of road in the middle of the day seemed to be racing, approaching traffic lights very fast, both undertake a load of cars, one narrowly avoiding me as he cuts in front of me, then they both race into the left hand turn at the lights on red, both then cut back into the lanes going straight on.
 
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What does it matter if someone changes lanes in front of you, really? It's how driving works. Just ease off and create the gap again.
Yeah, I used to do this but the problem is that when you back off and leave a gap again, some other scrote dives in there too. It's just easier to guard my road position.
 
Soldato
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I think a lot of people are oblivious to the reality of driving. I don't think they fully appreciate the speed of the vehicles. I used to see this mostly with truck drivers, like a big delivery van. They zoom around like they are driving a car, when in reality if someone pulls out in front of them they won't stand a chance where a car might be able to stop just in time.

I always drive defensively. I always expect other people to be idiots, most are.

I remember years ago I was at some traffic lights and they turned green. The other side was supposed to stop in the middle of the junction to turn right as they were cutting across my lane. But I saw these two women chatting, and I just had a feeling they weren't concentrating. So when we both pulled in to the junction the driver was still turning her head chatting to the passenger and cut right across me. Luckily I already had my foot on the brake and I hadn't set off quickly. But I pressed the horn as they were in front of me. The driver looked shocked. If I had set off from the lights following the rules of the road we'd have had a head on crash, because she wasn't paying attention.
 
Caporegime
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I see this mostly with driving, people cutting over multiple lanes, not stopping at lights as they are changing etc, but why do people flagrantly disregard rules and regulations that are in place? Another place I see it is with fire alarms at work where people seem to have enough time to wander back to their desks to get bags/coats etc, whereas I am up and out of there and I’m nearly always the first one out.

what is it with some/many people?

I don't know ask the Grenfell Tower victims, they followed the rules and regulations in place by not evacuating the tower and it killed them, sometimes the rules and regulations are wrong and they can't cater for every single variable that might be present at the time. You can't have simple rules for complex situations and an infinite in number of variables. If you want to live your life like a robot then fair enough but others might see them as counter-productive and if they want to run a red light to save 5 secs on a journey then let them run the risk of a fine, if they aren't putting anyone in danger who cares apart from the jobsworths whose job it is to dish out fines.

If people think they have time to get their bags and belongings when a fire alarm goes off it's a decision they've made by weighing up the risks, unless there are fireballs engulfing the room it's hardly a big risk.
 
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Caporegime
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I don't know ask the Grenfell Tower victims, they followed the rules and regulations in place by not evacuating the tower and it killed them, sometimes the rules and regulations are wrong and they can't cater for every single variable that might be present at the time. You can't have simple rules for complex situations and an infinite in number of variables. If you want to live your life like a robot then fair enough but others might see them as counter-productive and if they want to run a red light to save 5 secs on a journey then let them run the risk of a fine, if they aren't putting anyone in danger who cares apart from the jobsworths whose job it is to dish out fines.

If people think they have time to get their bags and belongings when a fire alarm goes off it's a decision they've made by weighing up the risks, unless there are fireballs engulfing the room it's hardly a big risk.
But why do most people obey red lights?

I'm guessing for most people it's not done begrudgingly, or from some fear of being caught.

I suspect most people realise that you need traffic lights to govern the flow of traffic, for the benefit of all road users. Because traffic chaos and gridlock would not make driving better for anyone.

The people who run red lights are the thoughtless type, who can't put 2+2 together and get 4.

In many (most) situations running a red light *does* put someone in danger. Whether that's a pedestrian crossing the road, or another road user seeing a green light.
 
Soldato
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I don't know ask the Grenfell Tower victims, they followed the rules and regulations in place by not evacuating the tower and it killed them, sometimes the rules and regulations are wrong and they can't cater for every single variable that might be present at the time. You can't have simple rules for complex situations and an infinite in number of variables. If you want to live your life like a robot then fair enough but others might see them as counter-productive and if they want to run a red light to save 5 secs on a journey then let them run the risk of a fine, if they aren't putting anyone in danger who cares apart from the jobsworths whose job it is to dish out fines.

If people think they have time to get their bags and belongings when a fire alarm goes off it's a decision they've made by weighing up the risks, unless there are fireballs engulfing the room it's hardly a big risk.

Not putting anyone else in danger by running a red light?

What a ridiculous assessment of risk.
 

mrk

mrk

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I'm a patient driver and never use my horn or road rage etc. If someone gets all up in my chuff, then the first moment the road opens up they're being overtaken in a ruckus of power and noise. Safely of course.

Compulsory retest every 5 years for all drivers.
Anyone over 70 its every 3 years
Anyone at fault in an accident (however serious) and immediate retest.

... the retests will also be far harder than the standard driving test - after all you should be a much better driver after ~years of driving than a fresh newbie.

Of course a government will never do that, folk will not vote for a party wanting to take away there cars.

Full retest are a pointless waste of resources. Just a competency test is all that's needed and a person's driving competency can be determined in about 10 minutes easily on a busy stretch of road.
 
Soldato
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with driving I try to think the 'disregard for rules' is 1/3rd ignorance, 1/3 arrogance 1/3rd numpty...so there's no point getting bothered about it


it's probably more like 60% arrogance tho :eek:
 
Soldato
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I'm a patient driver and never use my horn or road rage etc. If someone gets all up in my chuff, then the first moment the road opens up they're being overtaken in a ruckus of power and noise. Safely of course.

Eh? If they're behind you too close, how are you overtaking them?
 
Soldato
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Driving standards are horrendous, most dont care because a car is just a means to move about for them. Proper drivers though will want to improve there skill and should be doing much better.

Is the correct answer.

2 second rule only applies in urban sub-30 areas.

Not actually true, though I'd be interested in where you sourced it (you're an ADI iirc?). The Highway Code (rule 126) states:

Highway Code said:
allow at least a two-second gap between you and the vehicle in front on roads carrying faster-moving traffic and in tunnels where visibility is reduced. The gap should be at least doubled on wet roads and increased still further on icy roads

and Roadcraft further quantifies that one ought to adhere to the 2 second rule on 40 limits and up. In fact on slower roads the HC specifically advises (Rule 151) closing the gap somewhat where traffic is present.

Highway Code said:
In slow-moving traffic. You should
  • reduce the distance between you and the vehicle ahead to maintain traffic flow.

To be clear, I'm certainly not advocating tailgating. Two secs is the minimum for me, and like you I'd generally increase that on faster or more hazard rich roads. I'm just curious how you came to the conclusion that the 2 second rule is 'only for urban sub-30 areas' when the HC and Roadcraft both state the opposite.

To answer the other replies more generally, I'd strongly support three-yearly retests and mandatory further training (and since I do both myself, as well as teaching, I'm not being hypocritical about it).
 
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