Posts tagged Road Rant

Just recently I’ve clocked up a few motorway miles, in fact, the last month in my long-term SEAT Exeo ST saw me add over 1300 miles to the odometer, so I’ve been on the road a bit.

And the one thing that has struck me more than anything is the appalling standards of driving on our motorways.

People sitting in the middle lane with no traffic on the inside lane, people refusing to use the outside lane to let you out, people on their mobiles, people undertaking, all sorts. Many people don’t seem to know how to drive on the Motorway, or what lane they should be in.

It’s not an age thing, either. I’ve seen both young, inexperienced drivers and those old enough to have benefited from experience do some really, really stupid things on the road.

The motorway is becoming an increasingly scary place to drive.

I witnessed one woman in a blue Merc C-class undertake and overtake, weaving from one lane to another, all with a mobile phone clamped to her ear.

Why is there never a Police Car around when you need one?

Despite news that the Government intends to clamp down on ‘anti-social driving’ people seem to be of the belief that they can do what they like, when they like once they’re behind the wheel, with seemingly little regard for the consequences.

The fact that cars are becoming easier and safer to drive probably doesn’t help, especially with cars that now brake and parallel park for you. It’s a worrying situation that plays up to the lazy nature of some.

It seems to be a uniquely British problem, too. Drive in mainland Europe, in Germany or France for example and you’ll find there’s a much better understanding of how to behave on a motorway, and you certainly won’t see a German driver doing 100mph on an Autobahn with an iPod rammed into his ears.

It’s not just cars though, HGV drivers can be just as bad, driving with a minuscule gap between each other as they desperately battle to overtake whilst limited to 56 mph. Its not difficult to see how pile-ups happen.

Much is made of the fact that Britain has too many cars for our road-network, well in my opinion, traffic would flow a lot better if the people driving them were better. Motorway training could do just that.

The focus of road safety needs to moved away from speed and onto standards.