Idiots driving cars

stickyfiddle

Y'all need to come and drive in the Middle East... 

mellowsun

stickyfiddle;1105627" said:

Y'all need to come and drive in the Middle East... 

Unless you're a woman presumably ?

stickyfiddle

mellowsun;1105705" said:

[quote="stickyfiddle;1105627"]Y'all need to come and drive in the Middle East... 

Unless you're a woman presumably ?

[/quote]

Nah, they're all in Land Cruisers and Infiniti SUVs driving just as badly as anyone else

ICBM

stickyfiddle said:

Y'all need to come and drive in the Middle East... 

I once spent an entertaining evening watching the traffic from the balcony of a hotel overlooking one of the biggest roundabouts in Cairo. It was much more exciting than anything on the TV.

Note, traffic on a roundabout in Egypt goes in both directions at the same time. And straight across the middle for donkey carts .

boogieman

Moominpapa;1105385" said:

Is it just me being an out of tough old fart or are drivers becoming increasingly incapable of doing the right and sensible thing when emergency vehicles are approaching? When I learned to drive (1970s) the rule was that if you heard a siren behind or in front of you you signalled that you were pulling over to the kerb, and you slowed down and pulled over to the kerb thus clearing the lanes for the emergency vehicle. Obviously if you were in traffic lights, you moved through when safe and then pulled over.And everybody did it - as soon as people heard the siren or saw flashing lights they pulled over.



But these days I see people barely slowing down, let alone moving out of the way. They may grudgingly pullover when the emergency vehicle is right behind them, horns and siren blasting, but it's clear they don't think it's their responsibility to make space for them. The other day, when everyone was stopped at a t-junction with traffic lights because an ambulance was screaming down the hill with everything going, I saw a woman decide to make a right turn slowly  through the lights TO GO IN FRONT OF THE AMBULANCE! I couldn't believe it. I was calling her every name under the sun just to relieve my stress at the stupidity i had just witnessed, Fortunately the ambulance driver, obviously knowing what to expect from today's drivers, coped with it well, but what kind of driving instruction are people getting these days that they don't know to give emergency vehicles all the space possible?

The difference nowadays is that if you do go through red lights to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle you're likely to get a ticket from a traffic surveillance camera for jumping the lights. You can't appeal them either, the photo won't show the ambulance, or whatever, coming up behind so no defence on mitigating circumstances.