[Hirsute]

The last few days as a cyclist and pedestrian have shown the poor standard of driving – close passes, overtakes on blind bends, overtakes just before a junction, left hook after an uphill bit, close passes as a pedestrian.

Judging by today’s walk on country roads – no footways, some drivers are rabbits in headlights and don’t seem to know what to do when they come across a ped. They carry on the same line, don’t slow, veer off at the last second. Range rover drivers are the worst. The one today came from behind and despite the supposed off road abilities, the driver failed to use the mud/gravel wide bit to go past us and did not slow enough.

My tests and retests would involve compulsory trips for drivers as a ped where they are subjected to various close passes and compulsory bike trips where they experience the poor standard of driving in the uk.

And there would be a retest of the HC every 3 years.

Eventually, dash cams will be mandatory and random clips will be selected to verify the ability of drivers. Where the standard is below what is required, they would be expected to improve within 3 to 6 months.

Topic

[mdavidford]

No carnival floats!

No carnival floats!

[AlsoSomniloquism]

Although no vehicles (of

Although no vehicles (of whatver description) is red circle without any slash, when it comes to stating prohibited manouvers, then we use a red circle with a slash. So yes consistency is an issue. 

What I would really like to know is where is this sign needed, and why isn’t it on most urban streets?

 

[AlsoSomniloquism]

When I drove across America.

When I drove across America. I had to learn all the road rules for several states. Also which states allow turns on red lights and individual stuff like turning your wheels into the kerb if parking on hills in San Fran. I’m guessing I probably breached some without realising it still.

[John Stevenson]

andystow wrote:

driving into Bath at all was probably the wrong decision

As someone who lived in Bath for a total of seven or eight years in two stints, I can only concur. It’s a horrible place to drive. I don’t know if recent attempts to implement a congestion zone have helped.

People making excuses for Stewart in the replies to his little whine have pointed out that the symbolic language of UK road signs is a bit inconsistent: red borders round speed limit signs mean ‘don’t go faster than this number’; the red border around ‘beware of low-flying motorbikes’ means ‘no motor vehicles’ and three signs — no U-turn, no right turn and no left turn — have the bend sinister like your truck sign, denoting, as per Sir Walter Scott, that you’re a bastard if you turn left/right/do a U-ey.

Apparently this is all too much for their tiny petrol-fume-addled brains to cope with, even though I just managed to summarise it in a single paragraph. It’s almost like people are proud of being incompetent drivers.

[John Stevenson]

jh2727 wrote:

The AA (and Edmund King in particular) seem a lot better than the RAC.

Low bar, seeing as the RAC is essentially the ABD with royal approval.

I dimly recall at least one post-WW2 UK government deciding to ignore their advice on transport issues as they were blindingly obvious loons. Nothing’s changed.

 

[chrisonabike]

You certainly don’t want a

You certainly don’t want a non-benevolent cycling dictatorship.

[mdavidford]

Eh? But that’s not a large

Eh? But that’s not a large truck. Especially for America.

[brooksby]

I don’t understand- don’t

I don’t understand- don’t these people think it’s in their best interests to understand what the signage used on the roads actually means??  And if they see one and think, “I wonder what that is” then that should be a prompt to go way and look these things up.

(Then they wouldn’t get a refresher and a bill from the council…).

[brooksby]

Which I guess explains the

Which I guess explains the Ghostbusters symbol…

[jh2727]

John Stevenson wrote:

“Good news for new drivers” — an idea that might stop them killing themselves and others has been scrapped.

Motoring organisations are death cults.

The AA (and Edmund King in particular) seem a lot better than the RAC. But yeah, not sure how anyone can say it is good news. It reminds me of the headlines you see in the red tops ‘Drivers could be £x00(0) for <blah>’ where ‘<blah>’ is either something that could get someone killed or something that is not illegal at all*

*  latest example was how people could be fined for not running their AC at all times – because not running the AC == car being poorly ventilated, which increases CO2 levels in the cabin and can cause drowsiness. 1. AC isn’t the only way to ventilate a vehicle. 2. Before you start feeling the effects of drowsiness due to solely the poor ventilation, your windscreen will probably fog up. 3. If you do happen to feel drop off at the wheel, a fine is the least of your worries.

[jh2727]

mdavidford wrote:

Evel Knievel in the vicinity.

Exactly…. when I was a kid, I searched out a copy of the highway code because I wanted to know if it really related to Evel Knievel.

[andystow]

I got one of those from Bath

I got one of those from Bath when I visited the UK. There was a lot to process (really, driving into Bath at all was probably the wrong decision) and I just didn’t notice it.

It is confusing to visiting drivers from the USA that a sign like that doesn’t have a slash through it. Here’s our sign for no large trucks.

[Hirsute]

There was one remark that if
There was one remark that if so many don’t know it, there is a fault with it. Made me pause, but I don’t agree because the basic shape should be known.
Circle with red border, triangle red border, blue square all have distinct meanings.

I learnt most of the HC at junior school.
People are just lazy.

[Grahamd]

mdavidford wrote:

Evel Knievel in the vicinity.

As it’s in the UK surely it should be Eddie Kidd.

[mike the bike]

It has often been said that

It has often been said that we slavishly follow the USA in most things.  That certainly has a ring of truth about it when you consider that, with millions of citizens to choose from, both nations have leaders and opposition leaders of such disappointing quality.

Perhaps it’s time for a benevolent, cycling dictatorship.

[Author]

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