I have been driving up to Nottingham once or twice a year for the last 5 years without too much trouble. This weekend however i saw 5 separate instances of drivers swerving along at extremely high speed, using all the lanes including the hard shoulder. In one case I had to take evasive action to avoid being rammed from behind, and I was doing 70, pulling over into the middle lane having just overtaken a car. I've never had a journey like it, and will probably go back to using the A1 next time instead of the M1. Has this type of driving suddenly become commonplace or was this a freak journey?
Since my change of job three years ago I no longer make many long motorway journeys, but I do a 50 mile round trip around (or occasionally across) London every weekend to visit family and get to the Valley on home match days. Driving at weekends I find is usually a different experience from weekday driving - not just because of the volume of traffic and the general flow of it - but the number of erratic drivers. There are usually more of these on Saturdays or Sundays and it is wise to keep an eye out for them and give them a wide berth. Some are fairly harmless, like cars that travel at 40mph in the middle lanes of 50 or 50+ dual carriageways. People doing turns at roundabouts from the wrong lane and then hitting their horns when everybody else fails to know by telepathy what the hell they are doing are a bit annoying. Tailgaters deserve to have their fronts caved in - I wish it was legal to have rear bull-bars to allow this to be done at will. Drivers of lorries that tailgate should be tied to the fronts of their own lorries Mad Max style for a few weeks. But drivers of powerful high-end sales fleet type cars or road versions of rally cars, who think it is fun to weave through traffic cutting everybody up, are the worst. And when you get two of these who have decided to race each other, their idiocy defies belief. Every now and then more of these twats than usual seem to be out on the roads. Such occasions I have nicknamed 'drive like a c*nt' day. And as soon as I recognise a drive like a c*nt day I remain extra vigilant on the roads for the rest of that day. Cannot honestly say that I have noticed drive like a c*nt days becoming more frequent, but as I mentioned earlier I don't do as much motorway driving as I used to. However I can certainly believe you FHB if you wonder whether bad and stupid driving at speed is becoming more common. Sadly with the introduction of legal use of hard shoulders in some areas and times to combat congestion, the long-held sense among motorists that hard shoulders are not to be mis-used seems to have been eroded. Hard shoulders are there for safety reasons. In my opinion using them as a cheap method of relieving congestion compromises that safety wherever they exist, not just on the stretches of motorway where they are actually used for that purpose. PS: Strangely enough, I think I read in a survey somewhere that follically challenged hard brexiteers with a dislike for Australians, Belgians and 3rd division winning ex-Charlton managers are often prime suspects when it comes to auditioning for a future slot on 'Police Interceptors'. But of course I don't believe everything I read in surveys.
I'm sorry to say it wasn't a freak journey, FHB. I also drive to Nottingham (well, West Bridgford to be exact) on a fairly regular basis. I go via the M11, A14 (thank God for the road widening near Cambridge), and the A1(M), but then I come off and go through Oakham and Melton Mowbray, which comes as a welcome relief from the myriad imbeciles on the larger roads. Such is my disdain for driving nowadays, I took the train last time I went up to Notts, in August. P.S) Did you see the magnificent robins dotted about the city. I took a selfie with each one.
I now understand why the motorways are so often closed due to accidents. I've seen this sort of thing before, but 5 times in one return journey is pretty scary. The imbecile who was doing 100mph along the hard shoulder (no exaggeration) took the biscuit.
Are there any concessions on the £25?.... say for the unemployed? …. or perhaps for amateur human beings?
