How would you handle this?

Man of Honour
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I'll keep it relatively short :)

We live in a small gathering of houses which is up a private road. There is about 20ish houses up this road and the road is very narrow and has a high footfall of pedestrians using it as a shortcut into town.

There is a house at the end of this road and the person living there is the source of my gripe.

He drives up the road extremely fast, too fast to be acceptable. It's very narrow with a lot of paths leading onto it with multiple blind corners. Children play along it and most of my neighbours are at deaths door and walk along it. A reasonable estimate of an appropriate speed along it would be 10mph or less.

I have had to jump out of his way on three occasions. My wife was out today with my son in the pram and today was the third occasion she has had to dodge him. He came around one of the blind corners too fast and met my wife with the pram and another lady with a toddler on a bicycle. He almost hit them.

My wife called me in tears today and I've had enough. I'm going to go to his house tomorrow to have a polite word and request that he consider taking it easier along the road. Sounds easy, right?

I spoke to my elderly neighbour who also expressed concern with his driving. She approached him before and he became defensive and abusive. If he was like that to an old lady then I expect he will respond in kind to me. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until then though.

Now to my question. If he does dismiss my request, what course of action should I take? It sounds harsh but would the police be interested? If not, who else would you approach in a similar situation?

I genuinely think he drives dangerously and it's only a matter of time before he takes down a pedestrian.

Oh, and yes I will be bringing my keyboard tomorrow in case I need to go 31337 on his ass.
 
It depends. The OKUK keyboard massive would have you call him outside and murder him with your hands otherwise you aren't a real man.

In the real world with real people in, I would attempt the soft approach firstly and then tell him outright that its not acceptable and you will involve the police. It will depend on your neighbours backing you up however.
 
gather evidence of his driving first, video evidence. then approach him but dont tell him about the video's. then if he refuses to slow down go to the police.

or just go to the police with the evidence.
 
So the default speed is 30 if there are signposts?

I'd just have a chat with him, mention the issue. If he's reasonable all well and good. If he's not then at least you've tried the sensible approach.

You can hardly go to the cops if you haven't even chatted to him first!
 
No speed limit is posted.

I think it's a case of talking to the guy then; as technically speaking he hasn't done anything wrong, just behaved inappropriately. Perhaps something should "appear" to happen to his car next time he passes you too quickly :)
 
I wouldn't even have a word with him i'd just call the Police.

Thing is would they do anything?
The guy would probably take offence and if you lost it and hit him he would take you to the cleaners, usually how it works, but like you say its only a matter of time.
I would confront him, you are well within your rights, and ask him politely, saying your wife was shaken and would you mind keeping the speed down, if it keeps happening then either warn him you will contact the police, or just call the police.
I remember a few years ago, there were a few young lads (around 16 yrs old)by our house that thought it was funny to constantly kick the ball hard at my car to set the alarm off, this got me pretty annoyed and asked them on numerous occasions to stop, in the end I phoned the police and said to them either you can come around ant tell their parents to have a word with them, or I will take matters into my own hands, its your call, they were there in minutes and it stopped there lol.
I know its not the same situation as yours but you have to think from all angles.
 
walk down road and when he drives past throw yourself into the side of his car and roll about in agony.

claim he's a reckless lunatic driving at crazy speeds

massive compo claim from his insurance
 
Simply put a complaint into the Police, if he is consistently driving in a manner that causes distress or without due care and attention then he is effectively committing an offence. Make the report, preferably with the other residents and let the Police deal with it.
 
gather evidence of his driving first, video evidence. then approach him but dont tell him about the video's. then if he refuses to slow down go to the police.

or just go to the police with the evidence.
Whilst that would be nice I don't really have the time to stalk him and wait for him to drive up the road. :p


So the default speed is 30 if there are signposts?

I'd just have a chat with him, mention the issue. If he's reasonable all well and good. If he's not then at least you've tried the sensible approach.

You can hardly go to the cops if you haven't even chatted to him first!
I'm not sure what the "official" speed limit would be. 30mph would be absolutely wreckless along this road given that you could come around one of the blind bends and have many pedestrians 10ft in front of you.
I agree, I don't want the situation to get "dirty" unless it really has to.
 
No posted speed limit so it defaults to 30 then?

If hes not going above 30 can the police do anything other than have a word?

Does the road have pavements for pedestrians? are they forced to walk in the road or just choose to?

Not sure what police will do until there is an accident
 
Speed limits are not necessarily relevant when assessing dangerous or careless driving, whether the speed limit is 10mph or 100mph will not make any difference if he is nor driving to the conditions of the road, especially in a residential area with limited visibility and shared pedestrian access.
 
Do you know if its a private road or has it been adopted by your council?

Speed limit is less than 30mph if its a built up area with street lighting classed as residential under the highway code.

It's a private road. It's not really even a road, it's just there for access to the houses. I think it's an old right-of-way hence the frequent use by pedestrians. There are no footpaths, it's just a narrow lane between the houses for access.
 
Speed limits are not necessarily relevant when assessing dangerous or careless driving, whether the speed limit is 10mph or 100mph will not make any difference if he is nor driving to the conditions of the road, especially in a residential area with limited visibility and shared pedestrian access.

Indeed. Talk to your local beat officer and get your neighbours to do the same.
 
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