Lol. I passed my test 20 years ago with 6 inches of snow on the ground from falling overnight. The hill start was fun as the car was sliding backwards with the handbrake on Down south, I actually find in bad weather people are more likely to drive within their limits, shockingly low and slow that may be...
Some of the farmers, in the area where I grew up many years ago, had hefty scaffolding tube bumpers front and rear, the front almost like cow-catchers.
Passed my test 44 years ago and I agree the standard of driving seems to have gone down not up, I know a woman who's been driving 20 years and she still wont drive if it's raining
I know I have only just passed but i know people who have been driving for 10+ years and wont drive in Birmingham city center nor go anywhere near a motorway?!?!
I like both these people. Drive within your limits and know when not to drive. I lived in Swindon a while back and knew people who would go several miles out of their way on a daily basis to avoid the 'magic roundabout' Wish they would make stuff like that part of a time limited simulation test, to require people to have the ability to understand a potentially complex scenario that they may encounter on the roads. Hell, I hadn't heard of it when I first drove onto it and had to work out sharpish what I was supposed to do...
City centre driving can be daunting for most people including experienced drivers, so imagine what it must be like for new drivers with; poorly painted road markings, confusing signs, one way systems, bus only lanes, pedestrians crossing all over the place, poor parking, lack of parking, motor bike couriers, cyclists, buses not in their &$%£ing bus lanes or simply pulling out in front of you, lots of distractions, and sat navs loosing signal. Wouldn't it be nice if all drivers were at least exposed to this before being handed a license?
This might make it clearer. As an unexpected thing to happen upon it's a test of your ability to apply the rules of the road you know. But it is counterintuitive to take the 'pro path' since it takes you the wrong way round the central point. I think it's a good way to see if people can apply what they know to a new scenario - a better indicator of ability to drive that whether or not someone had memorised or can recite rules.
See that however for the average driver you can see it would pose issues....add in drivers who aren't confident ...boom Does this form part of an area of new town. It smacks of that
The thing about this is - and I reckon probably a lot of unsure drivers/new drivers probably think about it as a much bigger thing than it is, just think about everything step by step, and "the next step" - it's all written on the road in front of you, you just have to read it and put yourself in the right lane.
Exactly how it should be approached, step by step. The issue I wanted to articulate is that people don't know how to think this through in real time when faced with it (you don't get the aerial view and can't see as clearly but it is just the same as any other series of roundabouts. This is the sort of ability to apply knowledge that should be tested. There's a simpler scenario in Hemel Hempstead Having said all that, my experience is that people have no understanding of (or just don't care) how lanes on roundabouts work Edit: ninja'd by Fuus. Didn't know of the Colchester one.
Back to parking. Some moron down a narrow lane parks every day with their front wheels turned out and the nose of the car pointing about 2ft from the kerb. I am going to put a note on it the next time I see it. It's so annoying and it's also dangerous as it forces you into incoming traffic.
The Colchester one has very little road markings left people park over the mini round abouts and block traffic flow. First thing in morning and home time it's a nightmare that for most people can't be avoided
