Silly season for drivers?

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

Has anyone noticed a deterioration in driving during the past few weeks?

 

I have seen some crazy stunts on the road...everything from tailgaiting, passing on the left, impatience and speeding...just all round bad driving with little patience and lots of aggression.

 

When I moved here I thought that the driving was great...it's all relative. There was totally anarchy on the roads in the city that I used to live in..but we are getting there!

 

Is it just me...anyone else noticed it?

[Blossom]

No. It's always terrible.

[NicF]

I never really noticed the driving in Adelaide that much as I used to walk or catch the bus pretty much everywhere. Then we stayed in temporary accommodation for a few weeks while our house was being fixed up and I had to drive more often and further to get the kids from school and to clubs etc and I really began to notice the poor driving. Not everyone is a poor driver but there are certainly a fair few who are. The thing that really got me was that people seem to drive like the obstacles will get out of the way before they get to them and don't slow down just in case. It's particularly scary when you are in the road waiting to turn right and a car behind just keeps coming towards you without slowing down.

[snifter]

Heh, I tend to agree with Blossom, its usually rotten.

 

In the past week I've had a few cars cut in front of me without any indication.

 

One tried to do so when I was alongside her and I had to pull sharply to my left else she'd have hit me. I hit the horn a lot and she realised what she had done and braked hard and dropped back, then put her foot on the gas and pulled in front of me only to sit at the red light 100m ahead while I was swearing at her a lot as she looked into her rear view mirror. She was a P plater.

 

Another went to go straight on over a large roundabout without looking to her right at all as she came in to it. So missing I was in the lane and coming toward her as she carried on and shot out. I had to break and we didn't miss by much.

 

I counted 3 cars going through a clearly red light at a major intersection. This doesn't just happen daily but happens at practically every set of lights. For some reason amber means gas it and try to get through. Even if its been amber a while and you clearly should be breaking to stop, not accelerating to break the speed limit.

 

Tail gaiting is my pet peeve. Why do people feel the need to sit 3 ft of my bumper when its a 60 zone and cars are turning left, right and slowing down constantly. Just back off, the lights will be on red even if you get ahead of me.

 

Then there are the people who text when driving. Or as I call them, armed and dangerous and potential killers. So many times I see people texting when driving, at 60km ph or so, often veering across into the bike lane to their right (and lo, often there is an unsuspecting cyclist ahead) or into the middle of the road or toward another car. I loathe those people. I've no time for people who have their phones out when driving. Surely you can go half an hour without looking at your phone. Or pull over if you have to make a call or check a text. Telling your OH what to get for dinner or your friend what time you'll be at the place you'd already arranged to meet at at 7pm isn't worth someone else's life.

 

The stupid people who for some reason all want to be on the inside lane when coming down the hill in the morning. Ignoring the other lane or two to the side of it or they could take the outer lanes and then move over later. No, lets all take the inside one and go through an amber/red light and then sit blocking the middle of the intersection therefore blocking ALL the cars wanting to go straight up the hill as they can't get round or past (cars turning right in the other lane). We'll just sit there and pretend not to notice the irate drivers unable to move during their lights being on green.

 

Best one recently was the large truck that did a U-ey at a very large intersection one morning in rush hour. He was in the right lane to turn right (2 lane wide main road coming off of 3 lanes). Of course, he then proceeded to stop in the middle, reverse back, forward, back again and then was eventually facing the way he wanted to go (back the way he had come) and then carried on. Ignoring that his doing so was a) illegal and b) held up not just one direction of traffic but 2 during that change of lights and meant no one had been able to go from 2 different directions because he had taken up the entire road.

[Blossom]

Tail gating drives me mad! On my way home from work today on port Wakefield road some idiot kept a couple of foot off the car infront. The right hand lane was clear! GO ROUND IF YOU MUST SPEED!

[zebedee]

I am currently on a trial which tracks driving styles, as a result I am being extra cautious about sticking to speed limits, smooth driving, avoiding hard breaking, etc and I can tell you that it's a nightmare because of the impatience of other drivers. I think I will feel safer when the trial is over and I can go back to trying to fit in with the norm again. It's utter madness and I seriously don't get how such nice people can turn into such monsters behind the wheel of a car. The trouble is, the police focus on the speed issue but it's the underlying attitude of having to get to places in a hurry that's the problem - hence the tailgating, red light runners, etc.

[scooterdan]

Nope....it's always crap!

[Tamara (Homes Down Under)]

It's strange things that are becoming more common...parking on zebra crossings to pick people up outside shopping centres, ignoring people on crossings and looking the other way, overtaking when two lanes filter into one in a dangerous aggressive manner.

I have been doing more driving lately so maybe it is the increased exposure.

I had camper van force me off the road as they were heading straight towards me, people pulling out of side streets and roundabouts...just a general increase in bad driving and poor manners IMHO!