Your bad driving

[beachBOYken]

With all this rain recently the surfaces are falling apart around here seen 2-3 new potholes forming on my way to work and several where they've patched are going again. Several of them are in hard to dodge places as well

And I'm on 18" wheels with plenty of rubber, wouldn't want to be doing it on 20+ inch with like an inch of tyre :s

Yep, there is a busy road that I use to work where the speed limit is 60mph, it’s used a lot by lorry’s as well. There is some massive craters and bumps all the way along it, some are very dangerous. What annoys me is some of them have been there for months, gradually getting worse, the best they can do is put them warning signs up.

Saw a car broken down on way home last night, that looked like he had hit one of them and damaged his wheel.

Why don’t they fix them in the winter, do they not like working in cold conditions or something?

 

[Diagro]

Gonna put this under 'my own bad driving' but it's something I predicted would happen when they first started appearing.

I am, of course, talking about the kiddie bollards. Creepy little statues outside most primary schools these days. I prophesied that there would come a point that drivers would get so used to seeing them that their brains would start ignoring them except for one day it wouldn't be a bollard, it'd be an actual small child who then sudden darts into the driver's path.

Today it happened to me. Thankfully I was only doing about 10mph having stopped for the lollipop lady and just setting off but honestly my brain told me it was a bollard till it moved.

And this is someone who needs their license revoking. Lol

 

[Resident]

Yep, there is a busy road that I use to work where the speed limit is 60mph, it’s used a lot by lorry’s as well. There is some massive craters and bumps all the way along it, some are very dangerous. What annoys me is some of them have been there for months, gradually getting worse, the best they can do is put them warning signs up.

Saw a car broken down on way home last night, that looked like he had hit one of them and damaged his wheel.

Why don’t they fix them in the winter, do they not like working in cold conditions or something?

Local highways management told me most potholes start because moisture gets trapped and then freezes in colder weather. The ice expands the gaps in the tarmac and weakens it. The weather warms enough for the ice to melt then car drive over the weakened tarmac causing it to break away.

Repairing them in cold, wet weather just repeats the cycle so they end up going out and repairing it again

And this is someone who needs their license revoking. Lol

 

[LuckyBenski]

And this is someone who needs their license revoking. Lol

I dunno, whinging about getting a penalty for exceeding temporary speed limits Vs making a mistake and admitting it...

 

[Shadowness]

Local highways management told me most potholes start because moisture gets trapped and then freezes in colder weather. The ice expands the gaps in the tarmac and weakens it. The weather warms enough for the ice to melt then car drive over the weakened tarmac causing it to break away.

So how come this doesn't happen (to anywhere near the same extent) in cold countries? Scandinavia for example.

 

[tonys]

So how come this doesn't happen (to anywhere near the same extent) in cold countries? Scandinavia for example.

Their weather is cold and dry for the most part where as ours is cold and wet.

 

[LowEndTorque]

One for myself here.
This morning when waiting at a junction to merge on the main road. I was waiting to turn right, this is a sharp right hander with a curved main road. Say you see the approaching car on the right and then it disappears for a second and then is back in your sight.

Normally, one of the cars turning into the road where I was will give me a pass to merge in. There was one car that needed to go straight but it was waiting for me to merge. On my check to the right I saw cars approaching so I waited. I was expecting the waiting car to proceed since I couldn't merge but it didn't move. Once those 2-3 cars passed I was stupidly fixated on the waiting car and I moved ahead, not by much, just couple of inches. The mistake? I should have checked right again. A LR Discovery was bombing ahead fast (30 mph zone, was clearly more than that on an incline) and I missed it by a small margin. I missed to see it because of the angle of the road as mentioned at the start, the only thing that saved me was I don't just gun it when merging. Got a massive beep from the Disco driver (needless).

I reversed a little bit to correct my encroachment to get beeped again by the Yaris behind me waiting to go left. I had noticed the car but obviously they were not aware of that so fair.

P.S. - I have never liked that some drivers prefer to honk first than take an evasive/cautionary approach. Obviously they could see me clearly and saw the car waiting for me and should have been more cautious. I don't honk unless I have to or if I have time to do so, first instinct is to always slow down and control the situation.

 

[bazzabear]

I was driving along here the other day:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

maps.app.goo.gl

And caught up to a cyclist on my side of the road. Stayed behind him around the corner (behind this view) and then continued to do so here because of the blind brow. Waited until I was absolutely certain that there wasn't enough hidden road space for there to be a car there (probably the next frame on from this view from the google car - but of course his camera is much higher than my view was), then started to overtake - at which point a car appeared and I had to abort.

No harm done, I was able to pull back in behind the cyclist. But it proved I had misjudged. And I guess I'd have only had to misjudge by an additional second or two for it to be far more serious - stuck on the wrong side of the road alongside the cycle.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Got into a VERY near miss today as a result of poor judgement and frustration. While emerging from a side road I waited for a car coming from the left, but they slowed to a stop then indicated to turn into my road. When I realised there was room for me to emerge (usually people turning in here cut my path off quite aggressively), I started emerging.

I then realised someone had appeared from the right at quite a pace - it's a moderate bend so not great visibility. I realised I had committed much too far to stop and had to boot it to get across and at least avoid a full on side impact. I still thought we'd collide but at least a clip.

I was amazed when I got out of there entirely clear, though my heart was pounding the entire drive to work.

 

[Rroff]

and had to boot it to get across and at least avoid a full on side impact.

One of the reasons I like a car with a bit of torque that'll get up and go if needs be. Nothing worse than sitting there when stuff hits the fan foot to the floor in a nightmare like situation where the car just isn't getting going.

 

[LuckyBenski]

One of the reasons I like a car with a bit of torque that'll get up and go if needs be. Nothing worse than sitting there when stuff hits the fan foot to the floor in a nightmare like situation where the car just isn't getting going.

For sure - there were about three slow-motion stages to this incident, from "Oh **** I'm too far out" to "At least I won't die" to "Wow we missed"!

 

[LowEndTorque]

Had my brain fart moment today. Was returning from Formby beach and on the way back decided to take a break at Starbucks.

From the linked image I thought the left lane was a service one to get into Starbucks however it was just a lay by sort of to the entrance of the car dealership. I ended up driving on two lanes as it tapered off both on width and my brain size. An Audi A1 was following up close which I avoided getting hit by. The passenger dude was visibly very annoyed and kept looking back angrily through the B pillar as his partner drove by (this was funny for me). Thankfully, I got a chance to correctly rejoin and gave my apologetic hazard lights flash to the next car.

We all keep learning.

Scaffold Lane

 

[Diagro]

Put my foot down to get out of a junction before oncoming car reached me.

Seems... my new Limited slip diff decided it was time I learnt how to drift.
Turns out, I don't like drifting.

 

[tom_e]

Had a LWB transit slowing down to take a turning the other day for some reason I decided to do something I never bother with for exactly the reason below.

Van had committed and was most of the way round the turn so I moved wide and committed to going past it, van then stopped, car hidden on the other side of van started to pull out
Luckily I was only doing maybe 30 in a 60 and they were very slowly inching out so no real issue but it could have been and is exactly the reason I learnt not to do it when I became a biker and I'd carried that thinking through as I started to drive.

 

[Rroff]

and is exactly the reason I learnt not to do it when I became a biker and I'd carried that thinking through as I started to drive.

When I was a kid saw that go wrong in the worst way possible, so I try to avoid it - sometimes get beeped by impatient people for it but just isn't worth it.

 

[dvinell]

This was mostly my fault.
Start with a queue of cars lined up to join a really busy roundabout - it takes me a full 10 minutes to get to the entrance to the roundabout.
There are traffic lights as you go around the roundabout, but not to join.
I sit there at the entrance to the roundabout for what seems like ages, probably only a couple of minutes - it is super busy and full of cars.
Finally I see a gap.
There is a Peugeot on a mission coming around from the right, but not exactly close, and I reckon I can launch into the gap.
I launch into the middle lane towards the set of traffic lights actually on the roundabout, which immediately go Orange.
Matey boy in front of me pretty much does an emergency stop in front of the Orange, which means that I have to slam on the anchors too.
Peugeot approaches rapidly from behind and swerves to the left - he didn't want the middle lane anyways, and and an unhappy arm comes out of his window.
Apologies to the Peugeot: this was not the plan.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Leaving my work car park today, which enters a one-way, 2 lane road:

I am sitting in the car park entrance/exit which is across a pavement. A car in the near lane indicates, suggesting they may pull into the car park (so I'm blocking them but they will turn before they reach me). I want the far lane so I take a moment to assess the car in the distance of that lane, and satisfy myself the indicating car is slowing to turn. I move off and as I look back to my right for my forward path, a pedestrian was JUST reaching my car, within arm's length maybe. They might have already clocked me rolling slowly and decided to go behind, but I had been fully unaware and almost jumped to see them next to my face as I emerged.

The worst thing is they were wearing a full length hi vis jacket! It's been bothering me all night that I missed them.

 

[Rroff]

The worst thing is they were wearing a full length hi vis jacket! It's been bothering me all night that I missed them.

One of the reasons I like to have a dashcam so I can review as much as possible what happened and why and see where I can make improvements and/or why there might be factors which reasonably meant I would have missed them anyway. Sometimes things are surprisingly different to what we thought.