Road Rage

[curly]

Hi

We have to pull out of our driveway at breakneck speed into oncoming traffic.

My wife and I are well into our 70s so we are not very savvy about where we stand with this.

We live just outside of a beautiful part of Plymouth, we have live here in our home for well over 20 years, it is on a very narrow 'A' road, where there is no pavement or footpath, from the entrance/exit to our drive, as we pull out the road bends around to our right 100 yards further down the road where it becomes a blind bend.

The road is designated 40 MPH, going through a small hamlet of about 5 houses, with curves and bends all the way along,

When we pull out we frequently find that suddenly something has come around the corner, they drive fast right up to our back bumper, making no attempt to take their foot off the gas, flashing their lights, making hand gestures, shouting vile abuse and making threats, and of course they know where we live, as some of them will shout.

The culprits appear to have an attitude of ‘that’s my space your in’ and ‘how dare you pull out of your driveway slower than breakneck speed'.

My wife has become so frightened with this that she wont go out unless I stand in the road looking down it to wave her out, and for me I just get all this abuse.

Can you help with some sensible ideas please, because it is not funny.

Thank you.

 

[DSK]

Sadly this is the modern self righteous way, who think they are gods gift to our roads but, in fact are utter idiots with zero roadcraft or common sense.

Most will also speed up to you and you even see it all the time on dash cam videos where, a vehicle ahead pulls out and then the car with the camera then speeds up….

Other than complaining to some local authority i don’t see what else you can do?

Make sure you have a good reliable front and rear dash cam should the worst ever happen because, people will lie but, the camera, your irrefutable witness won’t!

You are not alone. Others will have similar or identical issues all over. For example I live on a main road with speed bumps and a 20mph limit but, most go over over the bumps at 40mph smashing their leased sh!t boxes to pieces and how dare if anyone slows down to look after their car or turn into their driveway.


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[curious]

Would you achieve a better view with a mirror on a post on the other side of the road?

 

[s5tuart]

As a long term approach I'd advise getting in touch with a local councillor or even an MP and get them to come to see the problem first hand.
Then hopefully a speed limit might be imposed.
In the short term a couple of mirrors on posts to give you a better view may help.
Worst case consider parking further down the road where it's more visibility.

Good luck.

 

[00slk]

You're not alone with this issue,about 6 years ago where we lived in a village our drive was 4 metres from a blind bend, though it was (30 mph only for sensible people) and (45 mph for brainless people) we came so close to having our car tee boned and if we were reversing the trailer in, that was fun. I did have great joy in calling out 'try slowing down for a dangerous bend dickhead' Had one response. 'that is stupid of you to be reversing into the driveway'......Women driver that time.
I would contact the local council and see what they have to say about the situation, but in all honesty they wont be too interested, and neither would the police. As already mentioned dash cam front and rear would be invaluable if worse should happen.
Campaign for 15mph speed limit, and speed humps, oh, that'll be another waste of time.
There is only one option that would totally sort the problem, dare I say it, moving. We did and live in cu-de-sack.

 

[M80]

Sounds like a speed camera could be justified, for once.

 

[bladecrazy]

I had the rage last week in my w123, i was doing 35 in a 30 and some a£se is trying to get by but couldnt because of oncoming traffic, i stopped at the lights and got out the car to have a quick chat, windows went up then he went through the red light ? i was going to be nice as well.

 

[TimC-SL]

2 x s5tuart - call up/ write to the local authority highways dept and write to your MP, or go to see them at their surgery as a start point

 

[sl500amgsport]

You could buy my SL500, instant fix 0-30 in under 2 seconds. We are also in a country hamlet, main road with bends and road outside just dropped to 40mph from 60.

I know when my son in law returns from work, cars always bib him for turning into our drive as he forces them to slow, but again I bet he last minute indicates just to wind them up for tailgating...

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[Frontstep]

It's probably not what you want to hear but is moving out of the question?

I get the "why should I argument" but..............

A friend had similar problems and laid open their frontage for maximum visibility, installed mirrors etc but still had problems and wish they had done it years ago.

The irony is the people who bought their property ended up buying an adjoining property that solved the problems but it was an expensive fix.

 

[curly]

I believe there are laws in place that are supposed to protect us from harm, with road rage as it is would this not be a good way of bringing in revenue if the culprits were prosecuted, named and shamed in their local newspaper.

These road rage incidents are getting worse, there was nothing like it when we started driving 60 years ago, we know people who will not drive any more because of it and have sadly sold their cars.

Perhaps a special Court could be set up to deal with just this kind of thing and just ‘wheel’ them in, fine them heavily and take their driving licence away for 6 months, that will cool them down and make the road a safer place.

Coming back to our original topic, I believe permission has to be obtained from the relevant authority, but the people I have spoken to who have installed mirrors say this added to the problem they already had, with idiots who think it is funny moving the mirror so that it is not focused on the right area, morons who use it for target practice with catapults, pellet guns and suchlike as they drive passed.

The... ‘is moving out of the question’.... is always a tricky one and can be quite insulting to the victims, it belittles and diverts away from the trauma that is suffered by the victims.

Personally, we would not move for this reason alone -

Would you let road rage terrorists dictate to you where you will live.

 

[DSK]

Sadly the criminals and idiots get away with it, the law screws the innocent. People’s mentality is totally horrific and it’s only going to get worse. Common sense, patience, understanding, appreciating mistakes, compassion etc have long gone and been replaced with a self centred, the big I am, 2 finger salute everywhere you look. It won’t get better.

I’m glad other members have stated writing to the suitable authorities to see if a reduced limit can be enforced with cameras/speed humps/mobile speed cameras etc. If you have cctv perhaps supporting your argument with that would help.

 

[Frontstep]

I believe there are laws in place that are supposed to protect us from harm, with road rage as it is would this not be a good way of bringing in revenue if the culprits were prosecuted, named and shamed in their local newspaper.

These road rage incidents are getting worse, there was nothing like it when we started driving 60 years ago, we know people who will not drive any more because of it and have sadly sold their cars.

Perhaps a special Court could be set up to deal with just this kind of thing and just ‘wheel’ them in, fine them heavily and take their driving licence away for 6 months, that will cool them down and make the road a safer place.

Coming back to our original topic, I believe permission has to be obtained from the relevant authority, but the people I have spoken to who have installed mirrors say this added to the problem they already had, with idiots who think it is funny moving the mirror so that it is not focused on the right area, morons who use it for target practice with catapults, pellet guns and suchlike as they drive passed.

The... ‘is moving out of the question’.... is always a tricky one and can be quite insulting to the victims, it belittles and diverts away from the trauma that is suffered by the victims.

Personally, we would not move for this reason alone -

Would you let road rage terrorists dictate to you where you will live.

Uphill battles consume the soul,
I have met more than a few people who have lost significant portions of their lives blighted by circumstances out of their control that they "dug in" over.

We used to have a quite magnificent property that had intractable neighbour issues, I wasn't looking to change the world, I wasn't well and the future looked a bit doubtful.

So I flattened it and one we owned next door, I can't tell you how much better I felt, life is sometimes too short to fight for pyrrhic victories.

I watched my own father consume some of his last years locked in crazy problems over a fence and a drain.

 

[Snake Charmer]

Try a small one of these on your rear window, no additional messages needed as the image is often enough to introduce doubt and better behaviour from most road bullies. It will not deter the complete tattooed **** wits but may help reduce the problem cheaply.

 

[curly]

We contacted the local council and asked for a reduced speed from 40 mph to 30 mph and or cameras along that 200 yard stretch of road to help the problem and listed some of the incidents of excessive speed and road rage as below.

It read in part:

I would like to draw your attention to just a few incidents I have witnessed on this short piece of road, I am sure there is far more that I haven’t seen.

1. A driver hit a parked car in the lay-by and drove off.
2. A rear ender whereby the back of a 4 WD was completely smashed out as they were pulling onto the lay-by opposite us.
3. A mains electricity power timber pole was smashed down by a speeding car driver, resulting in the road being closed off and all the power to local homes being cut off for some time until it was repaired.
4. A hit and run involving two cars in opposite directions of which I supplied a video to the police.
5. Bollards at the entrance to my drive are smashed off or bent over regularly, I supplied a video of it to the council.
6. I was attacked outside my home by a road rage man who didn’t like me driving within the speed limit, police were called.
7. A road rage man pulled across a lady driver and was trying to get her out of her car to assault her.
8. A head on car crash between a Jaguar and a Mini which resulted in the driver of the Mini was pronounced dead at the scene literally out side our front door, I supplied video to the police of this.
9. Endless road rage in both directions.
10. A motorbike rider ran up the back of a car and was taken to hospital by paramedics in an Ambulance.

Coming from our right as we pull out from our drive:

11. Two cars coming off the ****** roundabout racing each other using both sides of the road where the two lanes go into one as we are trying to pull out with the danger of a head-on with us.
12. Vehicles trying to overtake us and pull around us as we are signalling right and slowing down to pull off the highway onto our driveway.