Drivers and their problems

Given drivers increasingly seem to ignore them, will they notice the difference anyway ?

How depressing. I find it hard to believe that the police are doing anything other than talking about it though. A driver can say 'I didn't see it' or 'I don't remember', and that's the end of that. Or if there's video evidence of you carelessly running one over, some tiny fine and tiny driving ban which is waived due to 'hardship'.

giff77 wrote:

It's a tough life when 20mph zones stop you visiting https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-11-27/tourist-says-never-again-to-vi...

Great!  Another barely competent driver (clearly normally too busy appreciating the scenery) won't be appearing on Welsh roads!

ITV wrote:

Writing to Cornwall Live, the man added: "The 20mph speed limit in previously 30 limits is horrendous. I spent so much time checking my speedo I am sure I was a danger to pedestrians and errant drivers. My wife was glued to the satnav reminding me whenever I was approaching 20 and couldn't appreciate the view."
"My vehicle - my Delica 'Deli' - is hard to keep down to 20, even with my cruise control"

So there you have it.  Cars just don't want to do speeds lower than 30.

No wonder they keep bolting and crashing into houses.

Looking at the shaddows, I feel the Sun must have been in the car drivers eyes.....

David9694 wrote:

‘Dangerous’ roads prevent New Milton councillors backing London Tube-style cycling network plan

Mayor Cllr David Hawkins said: “I don’t want to pour water on the programme, but to me it’s like suicide taking a bike out on the roads here.

https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/news/new-milton-roads-too-dangerous...

I can't quite work out what the proposal is - is it purely signposting?  I ride on that "too dangerous to cycle on" road on a fairly frequent basis.

ktache wrote:

Anyone else noticing the joy expressed on those smiling faces of the morning windscreen scrapers?

Has anyone else noticed how many people seem to think that they don't need to actually scrape their windows clear, for so long as they drive along with windscreen wipers furiously- er - wiping?

Re: the Air Balloon.... my father in law got some funny looks when he just said that he was sad about the loss of the pub as it was: "A nice place to stop before a dogging session..."

Based on the look of my MIL face, I feel he may be sleeping in the car tonight!

(A hobby-horse of mine) We have set ourselves up for quibbles like this.  In fact - for total mess and visually noisy streets in the UK.  This is the product of our mindset (and policies) favouring the motor vehicle.

In the UK parking is mostly "everywhere except when marked AND signed (and there are further caveats / get-outs like 'loading' and 'dropping off'...)"

In NL it's generally "parking is ONLY allowed where marked".

As excellently spelled out by Robert Wheetman in this article (see the "Parking is handled completely differently" section):

Robert Wheetman wrote:

[in NL]...parking feels like it is off the carriageway. There is usually a different surface material, or at the very least a change in the pattern of the street bricks. There’s commonly a broken dividing white line along the carriageway edge – helping to mark the narrow width of the carriageway even when there are empty parking spaces.

But what’s also worth noticing is that it is assumed that parking is not allowed unless a space is provided for it. That means that there are no yellow lines along road edges marking where parking is prohibited.

Let me emphasise that last point, because not many people notice this…. There are no yellow lines marked along the edges of Dutch streets for controlling parking.

OnYerBike wrote:

A learner driver who failed the theory test 59 times before passing has been praised for their "amazing" commitment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67610152

Why is this person being "praised"? They clearly have either no ability or no desire to learn the rules of the road, and will be a liability behind the wheel. I only hope they never pass their practical (and with current waiting lists, if it takes them 59 attempts to do that then maybe they never will).

I was surprised that you only have to wait three days between tests (although I imagine that it's hard to book one that quickly).

While I think people should be able to retake tests, maybe there should be a better control than three days. I propose that each time you fail, the length of time to the next test doubles. So three days after the first test, six days after the second and so on. By ten tests you have to wait 8.4 years and by the fifteenth it's only 269 years.