Where the REAL problem lies....(Part II)

Following on from the last piece, there has been a bit of a conversation taking place on my bike club website on standards of driving (I say "bit of a conversation" because, although we're a group of bikers, there's hardly ever any talk about bikes - but that's by the by....!). Anyway, the subject was car drivers and cyclists and the gist of the conversation was an observation that when a car driver is confronted by a cyclist riding in front of him/her, they pull out and overtake them taking up half the other side of the road - whether they are on a blind corner, or have a motorbike or another car coming towards them. The thread then turned into a bit of a general moan about driving standards generally and about how cyclists often do themselves no favours by the way they ride.

I think the central point of the thread was well made but I also think it goes much further than a problem with cyclists. Drivers pulling out and around other vehicles (cyclists or otherwise), usually without looking or indicating, is probably the one thing that incenses me more than any other when out riding. Think about it, you're on a normal urban carriageway and a vehicle two cars ahead wants to turn either left or right. What does the car/van/taxi immediately in front of you do? That's right, they suddenly lurch left/right into your path (or a cycle lane) in order to get round the "obstruction". How many times do you see it happening? It's the same at traffic lights - drivers will nip into a right or left hand filter lane to get a bit further ahead in a queue of traffic, realise they're obstructed by people who actually want to turn and then lurch back out in front of you in order to continue straight ahead. That they might take someone else out in the process seems not to be a consideration. And worst of all is that they usually get away with it by forcing people to swerve or break sharply - bikers and cyclists being the most vulnerable in these situations. If there's one thing that gets on my tits about the standard of driving nowadays, this is most certainly it.

So what's behind it? Is it stupidity? Is it lack of awareness? Is it that drivers cannot deal with competing considerations? No - as far as I'm concerned it is simply selfishness, a desire not to be held up for more than a nanosecond and a complete lack of consideration for others. I really do believe that the majority of drivers nowadays simply do not give a flying one for any other road user. And as roads become ever more congested, so this sort of behaviour will become the accepted norm - if it hasn't already. I know that I expect these things to happen regularly so make allowances - but isn't it wrong that we have to?

You might think that our esteemed Government and brave law enforcers might be concerned about what is happening on our roads and the general deterioration of driving standards and common courtesy. So what do they about it? Yep, they decide to make the motorcycle test harder!

You really couldn't make it up!