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Unfortunate incident may or may not involve bad driving.
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Today's rubbish driving...
(11258 posts)- Started 12 years ago by Stepdoh
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Posted 6 years ago #
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Going from Hamilton Place into Stockbridge (R-hand turn), the mini cab behind me decided to drive alongside while tootling merrily. he later sang something out the window about "accidents happening."
well, yes. accidents may happen if you insist on overtaking during a turn.
i have very nearly calmed down enough to report it. (licensing@edinburgh.gov.uk ?)
insult to injury, i couldn't his bumper all the way down the road because my back light fell off.slightly better note: my partner and i had been at the same place and were heading home separately. despite losing the light twice and exchanging pleasantries with the taxi driver, i was only 30 seconds behind him.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@the canuck: non-scientific observations have led me to conclude that most drivers don't realise that they aren't allowed to stop over ped crossings.
I wouldn't disagree with that in the slightest.
However, I would observe that Ferniehill Drive doesn't have any pedestrian crossings in the strict sense of the term. It has three pedestrian refuges but, as Frenchy observed, they are not marked in any way. Not being zebra, pelican, puffin, toucan or pegasus crossings, the laws and rules that apply to pedestrian crossings don't apply to refuges. They're just there to make it a bit easier to cross by providing a 'safe haven' in the middle of the road so you can cross in two goes.
According to the references below, vehicles have priority over pedestrians at refuges :( At the very least it seems to be the case that pedestrians don't have right of way, like they do at zebra crossings. That said, a bit of courtesy and consideration never goes amiss...when someone behind the wheel deigns to exhibit same...
References:
Sussex Safer Roads Partnership
2pass.co.uk* Whether the pedestrian phases of the traffic lights at the junctions with Drum Street and Old Dalkeith Road are 'pedestrian crossings' would be a semantic debate, but probably not a very interesting one.
P.S. What's the best way to train my keyboard to spell "vehcile" correctly? It's 'driving' me mad! (See what I did there?)Posted 6 years ago # -
(licensing@edinburgh.gov.uk ?)
Should work, but occasionally gets lost in the system. You can also directly email the police inspector for taxis in Edinburgh: Keith.Mailer[at]scotland.pnn.police.uk
Posted 6 years ago # -
thank you! i've been replaying the junction, trying to think if i inadvertently did something dangerous, but even if i had, there's no way he should have ended up to the right of me on the bridge.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"They're just there to make it a bit easier to cross by providing a 'safe haven' in the middle of the road so you can cross in two goes."
I never feel very safe in those, partly because the reflective jobbies on either side of them always seem to have recently been run over.
Posted 6 years ago # -
There's nothing quite like a Keep Left sign lying on its side to instil confidence in the sanctity of the refuge.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@the canuck: I never feel very safe in those, partly because the reflective jobbies on either side of them always seem to have recently been run over.
I think those are mostly the result of a thoughtless, selfish, inconsiderate, antisocial, obstructive individual parking too close to the refuge, and another individual misjudging the gap as they try to squeeze through (being as charitable as possible about the second individual as they are the one being inconvenienced - but could probably still do better).
I would refer the honourable member to my posting of 21st March on the "Today's rubbish parking" thread, featuring a UPS driver on Oxgangs Road, as an example.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Almost taken out by a PHC driver who was going 'left' onto the West Approach Road from Dundee St. Thankfully I was anticipating such a maneuver and was able to stop in time.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Video of above incident (loud swearing warning): https://youtu.be/9QGp4IxKW7s
Posted 6 years ago # -
The bin lorry driver, reg VE64AWR, who was so desperate to get through the yellow-, turning red, light northbound on George IV Br, that he decided to tailgate me about 12 inches off my mudguard, leaving me no room for error as I crossed the wet & slippery cobbles at the High St.
Just as well I didn't panic, otherwise I would've been under the wheels.
Posted 6 years ago # -
“
It is believed the car skidded on the road resulting in the driver crashing the car into a tree.
“
Posted 6 years ago # -
My head hurts from trying to see how the car got into that position.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I spent far too long trying to work it out too. Drove along the pavement is the only thing that makes sense.
Edit: I Streetviewed it. I think they must have slipped while exiting a driveway that isn't seen in the pics.
Posted 6 years ago # -
big shout out to the tailgating SUV drivers of edinburgh today
yeah i know, you're still jealous i'm way harder than you
and always will be
Posted 6 years ago # -
Speaking of driving on the pavement. Young lady driving a VW beetle (C21st variety) mounted the pavement to "just squeeze past" a small queue of traffic at the junction of London Road and Abbey Lane yesterday just before 4pm. At a pedestrian crossing too, hence drpped kerb/tactile paving all round. Her impatience was rewarded by sitting in a queue in the bus lane some twenty yards further west. Luckily there was no-one waiting to cross on that side of the road. Really, what is it with some people? Illegal, dangerous. Slow handclap from me.
Posted 6 years ago # -
ridiculously close pass from black taxi #867 at the top of Queen St Grds E, as it pushed it's way passed to jump a clearly red light. I followed suit, chased him down and we had words. Pointless I know, but what else can you do.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@iainmcr have you seen the cyclecam footage of the altercation between cyclist and taxi driver on princes street, taxi shoots off, cyclist continues up regent road and round and down towards abbey hill. Road quite wide, taxi stopped mad old taxi driver standing in middle of road and hooks the cyclist. The cyclist was not chasing him or anything he had let it go.... But the taxi driver was a mad old codger. He has supposedly had his licence revoked but I bet you he is out there.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@crowriver: Young lady driving a VW beetle (C21st variety) mounted the pavement to "just squeeze past" a small queue of traffic at the junction of London Road and Abbey Lane yesterday just before 4pm. At a pedestrian crossing too, hence drpped kerb/tactile paving all round.
One reason for having a dashcam in the car and a Fly 12 on the bike is to be able to dob idiots like this in to the polis. They may only get a talking to but even that's better than wrongdoers going around feeling that they can get away with it and/or that no-one cares about their illegal behaviour.
If only there was an easy way to send the footage to the police. As far as I can tell the only way to do it at the moment (and since the desk at my local cop shop was closed) is to ring 101 and make an appointment for two officers to come round and view the footage. In this day and age it should be trivially simple to set up a secure portal for people to submit evidence of wrongdoing like this.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@ejstubbs If only there was an easy way to send the footage to the police
Several Police forces in England and Wales are doing this already, for example ExtraEyes in Essex and Operation Snap in Wales.Posted 6 years ago # -
I know. It would be nice if Police Scotland could pull their finger out a bit and provide something similar. They could look on it as making up (a bit) for closing so many public counters at police stations.
I'd love to send them the video I took today of the APB Displays van illegally using the westbound bus & tram lane on Atholl Place and then illegally turning right down Palmerston Place.
That was no more than a minute after I'd seen an unmarked white van fail to obey Highway Code Rule 170, driving aggressively and sounding his horn at pedestrians crossing Coates Crescent as he tried to turn in off Atholl Place eastbound.
Walk around the streets of central Edinburgh these days and you see casual abuses of traffic law and the Highway Code every few minutes. The risk of being caught is so small that the laws and guidelines might as well not exist. Which makes life difficult for those who still cling hopefully to the idea that people should be expected to abide by the rules devised to help us all get on with our lives without being at serious risk of injury or death from some selfish, arrogant c*ckwomble.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Going from winchburgh to niddry castle today a car driver waited at an oncoming vehicle priority sign for us to come through as we had priority though the gap was sufficient. I asked team captain Is there a car behind us, he said,no they are just being polite. Stands out as is quite rare?
Posted 6 years ago # -
fairness and decency in casual public human relations seems scarcely visible unless there's an obvious and immediate common shared goal
yet the occasional exception to the rule gives us pause for hopeful anthropic reflection
Posted 6 years ago # -
https://stv.tv/news/east-central/1411939-one-car-collision-on-busy-edinburgh-road/
Let me speculate based on the photo: coming round the corner too fast from Gardner's Crescent, possibly on their phone.
Just another "accident".
Posted 6 years ago # -
Posted 6 years ago #
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This afternoon I was driving on Ravelston Dykes at the 20mph speed limit. An impatient ***** in a wee white van overtook me. He got to the red light at the top of Murrayfield Road a few seconds before me. He was going straight on and had to wait at the ref light while I got the green light at the left filter.
Time saved by him: zero.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I was driving through Duddingston the other day - there was the usual traffic build-up by the Kirk. A blind person was waiting to cross, so I stopped the van and put my magic hazards on and got out to help them cross. The cars that had been irritatedly tailgating me through the park decided this was traffic-flow heresy and proceeded to attempt to overtake leading to hikarious gridlock (through which it was thankfully possible to cross) until they reversed.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Well done @algo.
Spotted someone overtaking a bus at a bus stop earlier, which would have been fine were there not already a bus coming the other way. Car driver, rather than reverse, decided to wait until the bus they were overtaking had moved on.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@arellcat: I'm not sure that driver actually jumped the red light, looks quite likely that he/she/it didn't even see it. All too common in my observation (thankfully not direct experience).
I once saw an idiot drive straight through a red light at the traffic light controlled crossing on Home Street, near Lochrin Place. They were in the right-hand lane southbound and I suspect were desperate to get through the Gilmour Place/Tarvit Street lights before they changed. Scarily, it never seemed to have occurred to this individual to wonder why all the other traffic was stationary. It was sheer luck that a pedestrian didn't emerge from in front of the bus patiently waiting in the left-hand lane as Mr/Mrs/Ms I'm-So-Much-More-Important-Than-Anyone-Else went flying through.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Someone tried to squeeze past me where there really wasn't room as we approached the queue at a set of temporary traffic lights. I held my ground, and definitely did not giggle when I made it through the next set of lights but the would-be MGIFer did not.
Posted 6 years ago #
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