Bad driving on M25

[BertBert]

I think it's actually basic aggressive driving.
The norm you see on the motorway day in, day out. I presume you defend tailgating on the basis that your speed differential is less when you whack into the car in front?

NGee said:

monthefish said:

It's not a case of 'stopping others from getting one up on you'. It's basic defensive driving

I think you need to do some research on the meaning of 'defensive driving' .

[MrGTI6]

The camera car could (and arguably should) have backed off, but drivers like the one in the Fiesta really wind me up, trying to force their way into a gap that isn't there, expecting and relying on others to give in to their selfishness. Quite satisfying to see someone not giving in to them, regardless of whether or not it was the right thing to do.

Hopefully the Fiesta driver will think twice in future.

[cmaguire]

MrGTI6 said:

The camera car could (and arguably should) have backed off, but drivers like the one in the Fiesta really wind me up, trying to force their way into a gap that isn't there, expecting and relying on others to give in to their selfishness. Quite satisfying to see someone not giving in to them, regardless of whether or not it was the right thing to do.

Hopefully the Fiesta driver will think twice in future.

Unlikely, he would have had more grief if he'd strayed over the variable speed limit by the looks of it. That wasn't on so essentially it was a total free-for-all.

[Red Devil]

Mr10secs said:

Its the same fiesta !!!! Everyone comments but no one reads.

You've been on here for almost 14 years and only just realised that? Sheesh!
It's par for the course on PH.

I suspect the Fiesta driver is one of those who is:

• Totally oblivous to his surroundings.
• Doesn't use his mirrors
• Probably thinks a blind spot is some sort of eye disease..
• Would give you a bemused vacant look if you mentioned a shoulder check.

Everyone else has to scramble to get out of his way so that he can veer in whichever direction he has in mind.
In both clips he uses his indicators far too late. Flick the stalk and go!
I'm not excusing the actions of the other drivers but Fiesta man is a menace and needs taking off the road for retraining
.

[BrassMan]

MrGTI6 said:

Hopefully the Fiesta driver will think twice in future.

I doubt that he's less of a self righteous knob than the cam car.

[dmsims]

Muppetry all round

Has you "mate" read the Highway code?

[yellowjack]

vonhosen said:

Mr10secs said:

OK we are missing the point that there has in fact been contact between 2 cars, what if there is damage to the dash cam vehicle.

They share liability for that.

I'd say it all depends on how both parties and their insurance companies view the footage and any statements made in the process of submitting any claim for repairs. In the end, what counts most in terms of paying for repairs is what the insurance company thinks.

If the two insurers can't come to an agreement, one will likely sue the other to recover their losses. Then a judge may be required to make a decision in a civil court. Usually it doesn't get to that point though, especially if court costs are likely to be higher than just swallowing pride and paying the body shop.

[MorganP104]

Mr10secs said:

Thanks for the input guys. I must say you lot must be the absolute pinnacle of good drivers I feel very privileged to be amongst you.

You, sir, are more than welcome.

If only all PHers were as polite.

[heebeegeetee]

Mr10secs said:

OK guys camera car has joined the forum but cannot post for 14 days, im going to log out and let him post under my name to put his point because he and everyone on our forum is pretty dumbfounded. Ill let you know when its me posting again.

If the driver of the camera car doesn't realise that he's not much better than the other party then he might be in for a shock.

Yes, the driving of the other cars is absolutely awful and I do wish the police would take action against drivers like these, but I imagine their hands are rather tied when the footage comes as it does - ie from someone who is not doing a lot better.

[DaveCWK]

2nd clip:
The fiesta is driving carelessly; piss-poor control, not checking blind spot, not indicating, going for gaps that are ridiculously small etc.
The camera car is driving dangerously; deliberately accelerating into people who hesitantly pull across in front of him.

IMO of course...

[roachcoach]

Without commenting on the other cars (I'd say that's been thoroughly skewered already) the fiesta was not "careless": It was deliberate, calculated and considered. Genuinely careless manoeuvring would have been done much faster imo. There's not a snowballs chance in hell that driver didn't know there were other cars where they were trying to get to. Zero.

[monthefish]

dmsims said:

Muppetry all round

Has you "mate" read the Highway code?

Which bit?

Rule 267
Overtake only on the right. You should:
make sure that the lane you will be joining is sufficiently clear ahead and behind
Check all your mirrors carefully.
When it is safe to do so, signal in plenty of time, then move out
ensure you do not cut in on the vehicle you have overtaken
be especially careful at night and in poor visibility when it is harder to judge speed and distance.

Rule 268
Do not overtake on the left or move to a lane on your left to overtake. In congested conditions, where adjacent lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, traffic in left-hand lanes may sometimes be moving faster than traffic to the right. In these conditions you may keep up with the traffic in your lane even if this means passing traffic in the lane to your right. Do not weave in and out of lanes to overtake.

Camera car didn't flout any of these rules. Idiot in lane 2 managed to fall foul of all of these rules.

[dmsims]

monthefish said:

Camera car didn't flout any of these rules. Idiot in lane 2 managed to fall foul of all of these rules.

There are other rules

[DocSteve]

vonhosen said:

To attempt to stop people getting into the gap in front of you is a fool's game. On roads like motorways, where often vehicles in adjacent lanes are travelling at not hugely different speeds, it's pretty much an impossibility to stop it. A vehicle can physically fit into a gap not much larger than itself. The only way to then physically stop it is to drive so close to the vehicle in front that the gap is smaller than the vehicle wishing to enter that gap or if a vehicle does try to get in when you leave a larger gap than that is to the try at that point to reduce the gap size or drive at that vehicle attempting to enter. Like I said, all a fool's game.

Better to leave plenty of space in front & if something enters that space to try & re-establish your original space rather than get in this silly dangerous game described above. The fear is that by allowing vehicles to do this moving in front that it is delaying you but that fear is irrational. There are vehicles both entering & leaving the lane ahead of you all the way up the road ahead & it's net effect on your overall journey time is absolutely negligible. Instead what people do is have an emotional response to what they perceive as a (in truth non-existent) injustice & behave irrationally. The driver who responds as the camera car did is not much different to the driver who headlamp flashes a car that has just overtaken them.

Stop worrying about the actions of others, other than to maximise your space from them in order to avoid collisions & leave what you perceive as their failings to the Police rather than trying to Police them yourself. If you can adopt a mindset of indifference towards other's failings & concentrate on maintaining your own safety zones it will all become far less stressful.

Leave Policing of others to the Police. If they get away with it this time then hey ho, that's like when you committed an offence & got away with it. They'll get caught at some point if they keep rolling the dice.

amongst all the crap on this thread, this has to be one of the best posts I've seen on PH about modern driving for a while. It's a pity that these points, especially regarding the effect on journey times, is not more strongly put across. I'm convinced if the majority of drivers could actually realise this a lot of motorway collisions would be avoided.

Vonhosen, if only you knew how hard it was for me to say that given my recent encounter with the law resulting from a not unpleasant but ultimately very costly experience at the hands of an unmarked traffic crew on the motorway conducting handheld laser speed enforcement on a lit four lane motorway at night!

[MDL111]

Driving standards were bad when I lived in the U.K., but this looks even worse than what I remember. It seems like angry / unbalanced people playing chicken with 1.5t vehicles. Don’t understand why somebody would not just slow down and stay out of the way of bad drivers, even more so in weather conditions like that - two wrongs don’t make a right etc