Are Drivers Getting Worse? 27 Jul 07
I don’t know about anywhere else, but here in Belfast, I believe there’s been a noticeable deterioration in driving ‘standards’ over the last few years.
Since when did red lights become ‘Give-Way’ (or ‘Yield’) signs? The first time I saw this it shocked me – the driver of the car beside me, at the red light, glanced both ways and then drove on through the junction. (Unlike in the US, there isn’t any situation where that’s legal here, for non-emergency vehicles.) Now it seems to be a fairly regular occurrence and I’m sure some of the drivers don’t even look to see if any thing is coming the other way.
Then there’s the drivers who purposely take the ‘wrong’ lane because either there’s less traffic in it or its the inside lane on a corner, making it ever-so-slightly shorter. At the last minute, they dive across the lanes, nearly taking out some other cars along the way, to get to where they actually should have been all along.
When pulling out of a side street, rather than judging whether or not the approaching car is far enough away to let you pull out safely, the new rule seems to be to either judge whether or not the approaching car has enough braking room so that it won’t actually hit you when you pull out right in front of it or just not to look for approaching cars at all.
I’m not even going to start on the guy I saw creating his own lane, by driving with 2 wheels on the road and 2 on the footpath…
Of course, there’s never a police car about at the time to catch these idiots in the act and the more they get away with it (or see someone else getting away with it) to more likely they are to do it. But, what’s the big rush? These people are literally risking their lives, all for the sake of gaining a car length or two on the road.
All this is really making me think its time to start walking to work again.
Posted by Nev in Transport with tags car, driver, driving, transport
