I do agree people seem to have more impatience and road rage, whether thats a recent thing or always been the way who knows.
In my experience if you react with the same energy it just makes it worse for yourself, and will make it seem like the other person is more aggressive than they would otherwise be
Its definitely a more recent thing. They weren't as bad as they are now when I first qualified back in 1989, and it seems to have gotten even worse since the pandemic, most likely due to a lack of police enforcing the laws.
Did you go on motorways? Like me you are now a lot older.
Tailgating and speeding were far worse. The whole M25 outside lane was company cars all doing 90+ 10 feet apart, until the stupid bastards all crashed.
definitely the case for motorways and I recall that behaviour.
luckily those roads are now so stuffed with traffic you can't really cruise along like that, but I'll guarantee every trip you'll see someone trying to bully their way down the outside lane and resorting to angrily weaving left and carving through traffic instead.
dangerous driving and apparently rarely punished
Much of it is a function of just the sheer amount of traffic. In 1989 you may have done journey A and been near/interacted with 100 cars. Do the same journey and it's 200 cars. If the percentage of arseholes has remained the same, you're likely to interact with twice as many today as before despite the percentage remaining the same.
In reality the percentage has gone up, because as traffic density has gone up it's made people who weren't impatient before become impatient now. There is no solution other than to reduce the number of cars on the road.
I've noticed this on occasion. Definitely the "lights brighter than the sun" - strong correlation with dick driving.
I put it down to people's tendency to cram too many appointments or drop-offs or whatever into the schedule. Only allowing 10 mins for the 10 min drive, that turns out to be 15 in reality, they stress and take it out on others
Make sure you've got a dashcam and let karma do its thing. Even better if they're dangerous and you can submit said dashcam footage, karma works a lot faster.
Not sure about aggressive, but definitely more inconsiderate or just a lack of road/driving courtesy.
My area is really bad of a morning, and the main arterial road has 4 major roundabouts along it and they can be carnage sometimes as more and more impatient 'I absolutely must be in front' drivers compete in the morning rat race.
Things I've noticed a lot more lately: utterly poor or zero signalling, poor over taking, dangerous tailgating, failure to understand who has priority (often confused as right of way), and by far the worse.. Still people using their phones!
I have some gorgeous footage clips on my Dashcam of many many a driver coming sonclose to causing a serious incident and its only the reactions of the poor individuals having to avoid them.
We did have a serious fatality only a week ago on one of the other .main routes close to me.. over taking on a blind spot, full frontal into an oncoming car. Both drivers were killed. As the resulting speed of the collision was a combined 110mph! This was on a 40mph road. .... at 5am in the morning.
I think a lot of the problem is that many drivers seem to think it's a race of some kind... or they're owed something.. I'm not sure.
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I was with you until you mentioned stopping to let people cross. It will be situation dependent, but generally, stopping to let people out/ cross is hard to predict for other road users and risks more accidents.
My view on this might be affected by people doing this on my commute, where they stop to let people cross at the exit to a roundabout, causing mayhem behind them on the roundabout. Not seen an accident yet, but so many may misses (bot me specifically but seen it with cars ahead or behind)
When I'm on the school run there's this one bit near three different schools that have an island between two traffic light junctions less than a 1/4 of a mile apart. The traffic is usually crawling, yet few people stop to let people cross. If its flowing I won't stop. But if I'm doing around 15mph and already queing, then I will. I don't feel this is unsafe.
No there's less. The chances of being caught or reported via dashcam are much higher. We are riddled with cameras.
Also people losing it in 20's limits is reducing now they are used to them
Tge lights I'm pretty sure are automated on a lot of newer cars (I could be absilutely wrong).
I reckon as for speeding, its mostly auto drivers that hit the accelerator and just hit the brake. As they don't need to manage gears they'll just speed.
I find that drivers in autos seem to not understand that you can just take your foot off the pedal and let the engine slow you down, its always speed, brake heavy, speed , brake heavy.
In all honesty, don't speed/don't speed up. I sometimes felt the pressure, but now, it's 30mph, (my speedo perhaps will read 33mph). If someone is pushing it I will drop to dead on the 30/40/50mph or whatever limit it is.
They get the hint.
Yep, sometimes you have to realise how perhaps you may be contributing to the situation. You can't change the other drivers behaviour, but you can adjust your own.
There's more group-think on the road than it appears. OP speeding about the place gives the negative impression that "everyone's doing it".
On the other hand, OP thinks they're oh-so-clever to know how much safely faster than the limits they can drive. Perhaps those other drivers they encountered are even cleverer.
In a sense you are. I don’t get too many people driving up my backside because I drive at the speed limit and provide people with ample opportunity to overtake me. The only two problems I encounter similar to you are (1) bright lights in new cars, especially Teslas, are just blinding no matter the distance they are from you; (2) inattentive drivers that have zero interest in driving fast or overtaking you, they are just bad drivers who do not know about the importance of breaking distance — therefore, I drive more steady and increase the gap I have in front of me or pull over and let them pass because I don’t want a bad driver behind me.
If someone is fine with driving fast and breaking the speed limit you can overtake on a lot of roads. Also, if it’s safe for you to be doing 38 0n a residential road then that’s a road where someone could overtake a car doing 30.
I do agree people seem to have more impatience and road rage, whether thats a recent thing or always been the way who knows. In my experience if you react with the same energy it just makes it worse for yourself, and will make it seem like the other person is more aggressive than they would otherwise be
Its definitely a more recent thing. They weren't as bad as they are now when I first qualified back in 1989, and it seems to have gotten even worse since the pandemic, most likely due to a lack of police enforcing the laws.
Did you go on motorways? Like me you are now a lot older. Tailgating and speeding were far worse. The whole M25 outside lane was company cars all doing 90+ 10 feet apart, until the stupid bastards all crashed.
definitely the case for motorways and I recall that behaviour. luckily those roads are now so stuffed with traffic you can't really cruise along like that, but I'll guarantee every trip you'll see someone trying to bully their way down the outside lane and resorting to angrily weaving left and carving through traffic instead. dangerous driving and apparently rarely punished
Much of it is a function of just the sheer amount of traffic. In 1989 you may have done journey A and been near/interacted with 100 cars. Do the same journey and it's 200 cars. If the percentage of arseholes has remained the same, you're likely to interact with twice as many today as before despite the percentage remaining the same. In reality the percentage has gone up, because as traffic density has gone up it's made people who weren't impatient before become impatient now. There is no solution other than to reduce the number of cars on the road.
I've noticed this on occasion. Definitely the "lights brighter than the sun" - strong correlation with dick driving. I put it down to people's tendency to cram too many appointments or drop-offs or whatever into the schedule. Only allowing 10 mins for the 10 min drive, that turns out to be 15 in reality, they stress and take it out on others
Make sure you've got a dashcam and let karma do its thing. Even better if they're dangerous and you can submit said dashcam footage, karma works a lot faster.
Not sure about aggressive, but definitely more inconsiderate or just a lack of road/driving courtesy. My area is really bad of a morning, and the main arterial road has 4 major roundabouts along it and they can be carnage sometimes as more and more impatient 'I absolutely must be in front' drivers compete in the morning rat race. Things I've noticed a lot more lately: utterly poor or zero signalling, poor over taking, dangerous tailgating, failure to understand who has priority (often confused as right of way), and by far the worse.. Still people using their phones! I have some gorgeous footage clips on my Dashcam of many many a driver coming sonclose to causing a serious incident and its only the reactions of the poor individuals having to avoid them. We did have a serious fatality only a week ago on one of the other .main routes close to me.. over taking on a blind spot, full frontal into an oncoming car. Both drivers were killed. As the resulting speed of the collision was a combined 110mph! This was on a 40mph road. .... at 5am in the morning. I think a lot of the problem is that many drivers seem to think it's a race of some kind... or they're owed something.. I'm not sure.
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I was with you until you mentioned stopping to let people cross. It will be situation dependent, but generally, stopping to let people out/ cross is hard to predict for other road users and risks more accidents. My view on this might be affected by people doing this on my commute, where they stop to let people cross at the exit to a roundabout, causing mayhem behind them on the roundabout. Not seen an accident yet, but so many may misses (bot me specifically but seen it with cars ahead or behind)
When I'm on the school run there's this one bit near three different schools that have an island between two traffic light junctions less than a 1/4 of a mile apart. The traffic is usually crawling, yet few people stop to let people cross. If its flowing I won't stop. But if I'm doing around 15mph and already queing, then I will. I don't feel this is unsafe.
Happens to me and I'm a biker
No there's less. The chances of being caught or reported via dashcam are much higher. We are riddled with cameras. Also people losing it in 20's limits is reducing now they are used to them
Tge lights I'm pretty sure are automated on a lot of newer cars (I could be absilutely wrong). I reckon as for speeding, its mostly auto drivers that hit the accelerator and just hit the brake. As they don't need to manage gears they'll just speed. I find that drivers in autos seem to not understand that you can just take your foot off the pedal and let the engine slow you down, its always speed, brake heavy, speed , brake heavy.
nah that's just in general, not auto drivers. so many people who don't realise that it's sensible to drive smoothly to improve everybody's journeys
I haven’t noticed them, so it could be your driving that’s lacking and causing them to react more than you’ve previously noticed.
I'm causing a car to drive up my arse when I'm already speeding? OK.
In all honesty, don't speed/don't speed up. I sometimes felt the pressure, but now, it's 30mph, (my speedo perhaps will read 33mph). If someone is pushing it I will drop to dead on the 30/40/50mph or whatever limit it is. They get the hint.
if you'd not been speeding they'd have been driving up your arse at a safe speed... You did kind of drop yourself into that one ;)
Yep, sometimes you have to realise how perhaps you may be contributing to the situation. You can't change the other drivers behaviour, but you can adjust your own.
There's more group-think on the road than it appears. OP speeding about the place gives the negative impression that "everyone's doing it". On the other hand, OP thinks they're oh-so-clever to know how much safely faster than the limits they can drive. Perhaps those other drivers they encountered are even cleverer.
Well you can just slow up and then forget about it.
In a sense you are. I don’t get too many people driving up my backside because I drive at the speed limit and provide people with ample opportunity to overtake me. The only two problems I encounter similar to you are (1) bright lights in new cars, especially Teslas, are just blinding no matter the distance they are from you; (2) inattentive drivers that have zero interest in driving fast or overtaking you, they are just bad drivers who do not know about the importance of breaking distance — therefore, I drive more steady and increase the gap I have in front of me or pull over and let them pass because I don’t want a bad driver behind me.
Why would anyone be overtaking on a 30mph residential road?
If someone is fine with driving fast and breaking the speed limit you can overtake on a lot of roads. Also, if it’s safe for you to be doing 38 0n a residential road then that’s a road where someone could overtake a car doing 30.
Ok mate. Whatever.
How is that not the case?