Close call... Again

General Discussion Forums Life, The Universe and (almost) Everything!
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Apologies, felt like I had to put this up, I’m manning an office alone and need to vent! Is it just me or is it becoming very dangerous on roads these days? Its almost to the point I question if I even enjoy driving still. Its only because I love my MX-5 so much I still drive it out, it used to be driven daily but the commute has become unbearable in my area. They have built hundreds of houses, and the roads are now clogged and very dangerous. Swindon have no idea when it comes to road planning and think its a good idea to have main traffic routes turned into tiny housing estate roads (but that’s another rant!), a 25-30 minute journey now takes over an hour to drive 12 miles.

Three years ago my old mk1 was written off (miss that car very much) when a truck pulled out in front of me at a T-Junction crushing her front end in, I was very lucky and came out with a broken wrist but otherwise ok. I now have a mk3 and not long after being back on the roads someone nearly smashed into me head on whilst overtaking a van. Anyway three years later to now, and yesterday someone in a car park started reversing their BMW out of a bay without looking in their mirrors almost hitting my mx5. And this morning someone driving a KA decided to pull across the road to go down a junction to my left without stopping to check if the road was clear… They were following a van and their view of the road for oncoming traffic (me) would have been blocked! So rather than stopping they continue on at 50mph (they can go this fast because the turn off is angled and not sharp for their direction), cutting in front of me and missing by only inches. I had to swerve onto the wrong side of the road narrowly missing another car that was behind him, luckily he was driving slower and was a bit further back!

So twice in two days I have come close to having an accident due to other drivers not paying attention, today was a particularly nasty near miss but I was very lucky. How are others experiences on the roads these days? This happens almost weekly to varying degrees of severity for me, hence one of the reasons I now daily an old Toyota Yaris. Today it was sunny and weathers been good hence the mx5 being used more! But its getting to the point where it is crazy in mornings, and people are perfectly willing to get me killed just to get to work a few minutes earlier. If it gets worse the day may come where it feels completely pointless having a nice car like an mx-5 :(.

Luckily that day is not here yet, sorry for rant but this morning was a close one… Boomer the MX-5 is a very lucky car this morning, and her agility probably saved me from a nasty accident.   

 

 

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Simply put, the roads are grossly compressed, “kettled” if you will, and we are all at the mercy of those who, when they get in their car, adopt the attitude they own the road.

Ask any Police first responsers. They clean up daily after these automotive retards’ efforts and do the “Death Knocks”. Drugs, drink, unlicenced to kill…they are all out there now waiting to take someone out.

Think of it…there are 38 million cars in UK ,a small island you could fit into Victoria State in Oz a few times, and 19 million or so in the whole of Australia, which is a bigger land mass than the USA.  

My point is compression means you will statistically meet “drivers”…or rather brain-dead steering wheel operatives… on a daily basis, depending on where you are unfortunate to live, who could care less about your welfare & safety.

You just need to do your best to drive defensively and see them coming.

I do…as a result of being written off (no blamers) 3 times in 45 years.

Been there, got the T shirt. The last one was my near fatal in 1991…which is why I now need, for the most part, and Auto Roadster.

So, I kinda know what I’m referring to.

 

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Yes, I have to agree with you, too many drivers are not paying attention and too easily distracted. You only have to see the bus crash on the Isle of Wight yesterday, a Mini Cooper driver pulled out of a side road in front of a Double-decker causing the driver to swerve and hit oncoming traffic. How could you not see a huge green double-double deck bus? only if you weren’t paying attention.

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The day will come when you are forced to get a SUV ! Sadly cars have become much bigger. Although death rates have fallen this is more due to the cars being safer. Swindon has changed out of all recognition. I remember as a small boy in the sixties they were just finishing the M4 ! They have turned the outskirts of Swindon into  massive housing estates. We own a flat there which we rent out. Sadly the locals no longer speak with an accent such has been the influx of new residents. I can only suggest that when driving the MX5 you have the headlights on all the time in an attempt to make yourself look bigger

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Quite.

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Same here, only make it written-off 3 times in 15 years, and my near fatal (and fatal for the other driver) was in 2004.  So, there’s too much traffic driving too fast, too close with the drivers distracted by too many other things (gadgets?).  So chopper I know how you feel and you have my sympathy!

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Good point about the headlights, I am getting into the habit of turning them on most of the time! Unfortunately as you say with cars getting bigger and people not paying attention, they just don’t see a little MX-5, especially ones like mine that are dark colours… Or Buses apparently! Scottishfiver BTW love your V-Spec its similar to the one I used to have :).

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Thank you.

I’m not quiite loving it myself at the moment but perhaps in a week or so…I may again.

https://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/yaf_postst113734_-93-BRG-restoration.aspx

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Totally agree! However, it doesn’t seem to be just 5’s that get caught out? Generally, my experience anyway, in 5’s and other vehicles, driving is appalling these days. We  have quite a stringent test regime although not sure how it compares to other countries? Once said test is taken, a lot if drivers seem to just do what they want, ignore mandatory and advisory signs, have zero respect for others safety on the road including pedestrians, etc, etc. I also believe that these drivers, who have probably not experienced an accident such as those referred to by others here, or the consequences, feel safe and cocooned in their particular tin box, with all the added “safety” features they have around them. They are invincible! Or so they think.

Barrie

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My MX-5 is Galaxy grey - so dark it is almost invisible in some lighting conditions.  I’d only had it for a week, when somebody pulled across in front of me at a road junction - similar situation actually to one of Chopper’s near misses - he or she was driving behind a Transit-sized van, and just didn’t see me.  Following a couple of other near misses, in similar circumstances soon afterwards, I decided that I should make myself as visible as possible, and now drive everywhere with headlights on, even on sunny days.

 

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I feel your pain! The roads now are unfortunately as stated above full to bursting point with idiots who should never have been handed a license (and those who think they don’t need one.)

I had a run in on Saturday when reversing my mini out of the drive. Our drive comes out from the side of the house onto a narrow side street, whereas the front of the house is on a very wide, busy road. For the past few months there has been a young idiot ripping up and down the main road on a dirt bike. He has no number plates, no insurance, no mot and judging by the look of the bike (brush painted red, all lights ripped off, no exhaust) no V5 for it either. He constantly sits on the rear bumber of cars travelling up and down the road, and often races up the road on his back wheel. The junction where our drive is is notorious for serious crashes, and there have been a hella lot. When trying to pull out, you can’t see up or down the road due to parked cars, so it really is dicing with the enevitible each time you try and pull out the junction.

Anyways, I reverse out, then pull forward to drive to the junction (a matter of feet) when the idiot comes pinging it round the corner to go into the scheme. He has to brake as I’m just moving out of the way, and starts mouthing off big time. I spotted it was the idiot with the dirt bike so shouted back about insurance and then went to reverse my car back to park so I could get out and have a word with the idiot. Seeing there were already cars coming, I’d be blocking the road so pulled out to the front of the house and parked up. Next thing he turns bike around, comes pingning it out of the junction (without even stopping/looking to see if there was any traffic coming) and goes past me revving the tits off the bike to make as much noise as possible. He then pulls into an opening, turns, then again pulls straight out infront of a car coming down the road and one going up the road causing them to both brake. He then slows down opposite me and starts shouting and swearing again that he’s “going to effing kill me”, pointing and screaming at me! I walked back down towards the drive as my wife was waiting on me there to go out in her car. He drives past the driveway heading into the scheme again, then stops in the middle of the road still shouting and screaming that I’m and arse and he’s going to effing kill me and pointing towards my car implying it’s getting done in. So I said “right, had enough of this, not having this arogant mouthpeice shouting the odds when he shouldn’t even be on the road!” and walked out the drive and made my way to where he was sitting. Meanwhile, my wife has taken photos of him and called the police. I walked down and got within 20 feet of him and he sat there revving it and shouting. I asked him to turn it off and get off the bike, he then took off again!. I walks back to the driveway, and speaks to the wife who is still on phone to police when again he pulls up outside the drive and revs the tits of the bike, pointing and shouting at me. I shouted either get off the bike of **ck off! He then took off.

 

Police couldn’t come till 1pm (this was at 10:30am) so I said we might be back by then might not. They then called back to say they would come at 6pm. At 6pm we got a call saying they weren’t coming until the next day. I advised them that to be honest it would be a pointless paper exercise so not to bother. At the end of the day, he’s on a bike, theyre in an astra and he isn’t going to stop for them anyways as he had made clear he wasn’t at all fussed that the police had been called.

 

The things that bug me are:

  • He shouldn't even be on the road on his illegal bike
  • When he does cause a crash, the poor driver who's involved will have no come back on insurance as he doesn't have any, so the driver will need to put a "fault claim" on his insurance which costs him more at renewals, through no fault of his/her own.
  • The main road he is constantly riding dangerously on already has a problem with accidents.
  • The main road also has several kiddies nurseries (one which my own granddaughter goes to every day) so there is a high risk of children being hurt when he does eventually crash. As usual, he will likely walk away from it same as the little joyriding scum do, but it's where the bike goes once he's came off. Loads of mums/dads walking their kids to school/nurseries.
  • Due to cut backs and lack of staff, Police are powerless in this case. They don't have the available officers to have someone sit and wait on him, and even if they did, he's on a bike so can easily escape down the many alleys etc.
So yes, there needs to be something done about the amount of drivers on our congested roads, and something needs to be done about the level of perception/skills of some of these drivers. There also needs to be something done about the amount of illegal drivers on our roads.

Where to begin? Make the penalties for causing a crash much more severe. Have less tech in cars that distract the driver. All these new cars seem to be geared more towards about how the car works with your phone, or how the car can make all the decissions for you such as auto brake/auto lane assist etc. It makes drivers concentrate less on what they are meant to be doing…actually being in control of the car and paying attention to everything that’s going on around them on the road.

 

 

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

And if anything happened to/or because of said bike moron his “tribe” would suddenly appear to sing his praises - “He’s a lovely lad, wouldn’t hurt a fly, he’d do anything for anybody, etc. etc”.

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I wondered when someone was going to be brave enough to bring up the subject of technology in cars these days !

Yes, I agree with you Chillax - far too much technology, which is obviously distracting for drivers.  TV ads these days are simply littered with cars that are more like X-Boxes.  With all that stuff going on, no wonder people are not concentrating on actually DRIVING !  CAN anyone on here operate their sat-navs whilst driving ?  DOES anyone on here TRY to operate their sat-navs whilst driving ?  Surely that has to be as illegal as making a phone call !

 

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DfT data shows since 1979, year on year, the absolute number of accidents per year has fallen, despite an increase in traffic volume.

Based on reported injuries, the total number of accidents has fallen from over 250,000 per year in 1979 to under 130,000 in 2019.

Even if only slight accidents (in terms of injuries)the number has continued to decline since 2013; 117,728 slight accidents in 2017, 105,772.

I expect when looking at accident stats, the mix of injuries will change.

For accident rates, a number of factors besides car design come into play (we have better tyres, better brakes, better lighting now). Road signage, surfacing, street lighting etc all play a role.

As for non-locals (however you want to interpret that) I recall attending an RUC meeting on mobile speed camera campaigns in Northern Ireland; at the time, the RUC only operated two fixed cameras, both of which were subject to regular vandalism and boobytrapping. So the Force used mobile camera tactics. Their findings was that locals were involvwed in most accidents, and they ascribed that to over confidence, leading drivers to ignore the weather etc. Non-local drivers were generally more cautious, or at least slower, because they were more uncertain of their surroundings.

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Chris, I suggest you check out the thread - Modern Cars - Pet Peeves - you’ll see.

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Yes, I remember that thread Countryboy - from only a few weeks ago wasn’t it ?  I posted a few comments myself at the time, but I can’t find it now ! 

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OG’s thread:

https://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/yaf_postst113188_Modern-Cars---Pet-Peeves.aspx

Tsk, modern technology eh (internet search, forum search). Some can do, some struggle.

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I think it will be worth it when its finished, The V-Special is my favourite mx-5, and its a classic now worth looking after. The one I had the accident in was rot free bought for only £1000 in 2012. Was gutted when it was written off. Last year I managed to get another one which I briefly ran alongside the mk3, Unfortunately due to the reason above (crazy drivers), plus it having a lot of rust and making a strange noise from the transmission I decided to sell it and buy the yaris For daily commut. I just fixed some rust on mk3 along the boot lid a weak spot on the nc, luckily the arches and sills are ok as far as I can see.

 

 

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Its sad you have to deal with this kind of situation, unfortunately there are too many of these kinds of idiots. Recently the local farmer had someone go up under his tractor because he was driving recklessly on a super bike, needless to say that did not end well for the bike driver.