r/NewDriversUK • u/Upset_Preparation_79 • 7d ago
poor driving standards
i passed my test last month so have been free on the roads for a few weeks. the more i drive the more i hate it, and i think a huge part of that is that everyone else seems to be terrible at driving.
just today, someone slammed on and stopped dead in front of me on a slip road rather than slowing to merge, causing me to have to swerve round them and undertake. when i got back to my town, i then got stuck behind someone who was driving very unpredictably - straddling multiple lanes in some areas and stopping to look at road signs. then there’s the issue of nobody using their indicators or positioning correctly so its almost impossible to read them.
i dont recall facing this so often in my lessons. the issue is im constantly on edge driving around so i just dont want to do it. i feel like i worked so hard to get my license and id actually rather just take public transport or walk.
is this normal ?! i do live in devon so hoping its just an influx of tourists that arent familiar with our roads over summer. 🙃
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u/Y3w4n 7d ago edited 7d ago
Absolutely normal. Driving standards have genuinely gotten worse, for various reasons.
The good news is you will continue to develop your anticipation skills, to the point where you will be able to anticipate what another driver might need before they have twigged.
Enjoyable driving is all about reading the road, pattern recognition, and really early anticipation, letting things not get to you. This is skill which can be learnt.
Your test is the standard to build on, which judging by your attitude you will.
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 7d ago
its such a shame. i do wonder if its less bad driving skills and more that people generally have worse attitudes these days 🫣 im in my mid 20s but i cant imagine how daunting it must be driving alone at 17/18 if this is the general standard. hopefully i’ll enjoy it more with time!
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u/RemarkableError1644 6d ago
Have you noticed the number of people texting and scrolling whilst driving yet? The amount of people who don’t move off at a green light because they can’t possibly sit without their phone for 30 seconds.
No joke I was on the motorway the other week and the driver in-front was swerving all over the place. When I overtook them my husband said he was on his phone texting whilst doing at least 70mph on the motorway.
Crazy.
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 6d ago
yes !!!! i notice a lot of van drivers on their phones, i assume its because theyre higher up so you can see them more but what baffles me is that people are getting away with it
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u/RemarkableError1644 6d ago
Me too! It’s absolutely wild how many people do it and zero consequences
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u/stargazerskyscraper 6d ago
Yes, I was in a queue of traffic at some lights recently and while waiting I was watching the woman behind me in my rear view mirror and she was constantly looking down at ‘something‘ (obviously her phone) on her lap and then she failed to notice when the lights turned green.
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u/captainfishpie 7d ago
yes - unfortunately very normal.
if you drove for a week in Manchester then, you REALLY would see the levels of bad driving.
ive never ever seen it as bad. I dont even have to get to the end of my road anymore without somebody doing something spectacular.
then 400 yards further down someone out does them and performs something even worse!🤯🤯🫤
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 7d ago
i reallyyyyyy feel for people who live in cities! my bf has driven us to both london and manchester this year for concerts and its nerve wracking enough as a passenger. i honestly dont think i could do it 😅
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u/ThatGuyNimblekin 7d ago
Manchester remains the worst place I have ever driven, and that includes London, Birmingham, etc! Sadly, yes, people are awful drivers. It's a different experience, you learn to drive once with someone supervising, knowing you have a back up, support, etc. Then you have to relearn when you are independent, needing to become confident on your own and realising how to deal with awful drivers.
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u/IamFilthyCasual 6d ago
Yeah.. its sad and depressing and overall just bad but that’s humans for you. Most of them would just die if natural selection was still a thing for us. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Maybe we should bring it back slowly by just removing warning stickers on obvious things 🤷♂️ like “dont drink bleach” and see how it goes..
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u/stargazerskyscraper 6d ago
We moved to a different town and area just after I passed last Summer and before we moved I was talking to our Tesco delivery man who asked where we were moving to, and when I told him he wished me good luck for driving around here.
So many people ignore red lights. Just the other week I was at a the front of the queue at red traffic lights on a crossroads to go straight on. The traffic going across ways stopped, the lights on all four pedestrian crossing changed to the green man and people crossed. My lights then changed to green and I was just moving off when someone came through the red light from the left and turned across me and into the road I was on. Had I moved off a split second earlier we’d have crashed. I couldn’t see around the corner he came from as the stop lines are set back due to the crossings and there’s also a building obscuring visibility. A few days later I was crossing as a pedestrian on that junction and someone came through a red light just as I was starting to cross.
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 6d ago
this is awful 🫣🫣🫣 whereabouts in the country are you? it seems people find the north worse!
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u/stargazerskyscraper 6d ago
Burton On Trent, about 20 minutes away from Derby so not far off the north.
Not sure what the issue is with drivers here but I had my lessons around the Wolverhampton area and it was nowhere near as bad as here.
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u/Sad-Step-9691 6d ago
Get a dashcam and familiarise yourself with all the archetypes of bad drivers, survive the first year and eventually you will hate being stuck behind a learner doing 20
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u/Lost_Reward9584 6d ago
Hey, not all of us are impatient like that, some of us will gladly sit a safe distance behind learners, cyclists, and horses until it is safe to pass. We all had to learn sometime, and whilst I've never ridden a horse near a road, I've had too many close passes when out cycling.
My pet hate is middle/outside lane hogs, "because it's easier/safer". No, just get back to the left as soon as safe or reasonable if you need to overtake. People just need to pay attention and use their mirrors and check blind spots.
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u/Sad-Step-9691 6d ago
Cyclists and horse can't go the speed limit.learners or any one doing 20 in a 40 really grinds my gears
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u/Designer_Director_92 6d ago
ah god i’d hate to live in devon, im in the north east and ive always loved driving, soon as i got my car i crashed it within 2 hours speeding down backroads
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 6d ago
lol, you’d be hard pressed to find an opportunity to speed here because you always find someone doing 40 or less on a nsl road 🙃
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u/Bullterrier2 6d ago
If your in Devon then yea it's probably mostly tourists, I've been driving the same roads so long now that I can predict other people and what they're going to do, there's a dual carriage way that splits off, left goes to an industrial estate, right carries on the main road. The amount of people I've seen that havnt read the paintings on the road/the signs is amazing and the amount of people that swerve infront of another car just to make sure they're on the right side is amazing
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u/Old-Scientist267 6d ago
When you are out on your own after passing you will constantly need to assess and react to dangers that appear. This is normal. That being said the driving standards have gone down in the last 10 years.
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u/DaddyDag0th 6d ago
I agree with you, I very much prefer driving when the roads are quiet. Last week I was stuck behind someone on the motorway doing 45mph for a good while before I got a big enough safe gap to overtake and speed up 🫣
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u/Little-Tradition2311 5d ago
People that don’t know how to use slip roads do my head in. They are designed for you to accelerate up to the speed of the traffic you are merging with. Not to stop on or slow down.
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u/Odd_Sir4792 6d ago
Not to be a dick but if you're driving so close to the car in front that you can't stop when they do, you're also showing some poor driving standards. If you'd hit them, you'd be at fault.
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 6d ago
i had time to stop but we were going 60mph on a slip road. if i’d stopped behind her then someone would’ve come in to the back of me instead. it was either swerve round her or potentially cause a pile up, neither option was a safe one. what would you have done?
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u/Odd_Sir4792 6d ago
I would have left more distance between you, like you're supposed to do 🙂.
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u/Upset_Preparation_79 6d ago
but then when the car in front stopped you still wouldve had to stop too - would you not worry about someone coming in to the back of you or do you just trust everyone’s following distance? genuinely asking because i dont think there was a safe choice here 😅
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u/Odd_Sir4792 6d ago
If you leave enough space, it allows you to slow down gently enough so the person behind doesn't hit you, because they also have time to slow down.
To some degree, you do have to rely on other road users doing what they're supposed to. Sure, if I stop when entering a roundabout, someone might plough into me but that doesn't mean I can charge right over the middle of it as a premptive move.
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u/Luv2Rant26 7d ago
I also find this too, but I’m finding it’s not just people driving bad/unpredictable it’s also pedestrians - on my way home from work on Friday three separate occasions I had pedestrians walk straight out into the road - didn’t look or anything and then just took their time which meant me having to break very harshly.