Dark blue BMW being accelerated so twerpishly out of North St. David Street towards York Place that it was travelling sideways. Couldn't tell if it had been stopped at the lights or had had a run-up.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Today's rubbish driving...
(11333 posts)- Started 13 years ago by Stepdoh
- Latest reply from wishicouldgofaster
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Posted 10 years ago #
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Council transit van somehow ended up on the wrong side of Slateford Road attempting to merge back into traffic (in which there was no gap to merge) and thereby blocking the road westbound for all but bicycles.
The vehicle wasn't adjacent to a side road, so I think driver had tried to be clever and come out of a side road thinking he could nip down road the wrong way for a bit before someone would let him in.
In other transit van news, got a wave a smile and a beep-beep at Tollcross from the Murray Moves (a.k.a Recombo's Removals) van.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I averted possibly more rubbish driving by the driver of a Hertz van LM62 ZXR mid this morning, by taking the primary position in South Gyle Access, through the roundabout, South Gyle Crescent exit and the pinch point shortly after. I'll take the horn beep as a positive acknowledgement and if you really think there is enough room to overtake me safely for those sections then you should get your eyes tested.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Today's rubbish driving was the driver of a silver BMW Mini who thought he could occupy the lane to my right as we approached the right turn into Morrison St from Semple St and then move into the left-hand lane during the turn.
Since I was already occupying that particular place, he moved out anyway, which was a slightly rash move considering I was astride 220kg of stratospherically tall armoured enduro motorbike at the time. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to test my brakes and to make sure my horn was working. I was even wearing a hi-viz vest, so I was amused to note that its magical forcefield property was indeed nonexistent.
Then our hero nearly hit the lead car in the queue as the traffic lights at Lothian Road cycled back to red.
(I'm mostly motorbikin' at the moment as a result of hurting both ankles a fortnight ago.)
Posted 10 years ago # -
SF56 NXS taxi driver on phone by Dalry swimming pool Friday evening.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Yesterday with little person on the bike I was travelling north on Queen Street Gardens East occupying the middle (straight on) lane approaching a red light - queue massive scary Audi beeping and gesticulating and attempting to use his car to sweep us over into the left only lane and presumably onto the line of parked cars. "You should be cycling on the left" is all I manage to decipher before he zoomed off triumphantly to the next red light. I'm still fuming about it - the car was literally inches from knocking us off...
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Algo ... what is it about Audi drivers? Of all car types the Audi is the one which has featured most regularly in my experience of poor and, occasionally dangerous, driving.
Do purchasers receive complementary gifts of arrogance and heightened sense of entitlement with their new toy?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Audi estate (silver) almost being non-signalled lane-changed left into me when its driver became frustrated at being at the back of the single-file queue feeding into the pinch point towards the N. Castle St. junction on Queen St.
Wee silver thing which had been buzzing around my rear mudguard all the way along Montgomery Street went over the westernmost raised-platform speed-bump ramp thing at a spring-endangeringly high speed in order try and demonstrate that that was really the speed at which it could have gone along the whole road, speedbumps and all, at were it not for me.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@dg145 the correlation seems to be real, and it is unfortunate. I wonder though whether it is somewhat reinforced as we are all now conditioned to mention "audi" more than any other type of car, just reinforcing the stereotype (see wingpig's post - two cars, one audi, one wee silver thing).... just a thought though
Posted 10 years ago # -
"I wonder though whether it is somewhat reinforced as we are all now conditioned to mention "audi""
There may (now) be some sort of bias. It's not long ago when the 'trouble' was mostly ascribed to 'BMW drivers'.
In a more distant past the ones to watch out for were Volvos - when they were the first to have permanently-on sidelights.
Seemed to be a case of 'well you can see me (even though I am behind you) so get out of my way'.
So (it seems) there is a correlation between types of car (make/model?), their owners, and behaviour (see A9 thread and cars/drivers that thought they shouldn't be held up).
Common feature seems to be expensive/more important.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"It's not long ago when the 'trouble' was mostly ascribed to 'BMW drivers'."
We shouldn't be so hard on them. After all, based on practical assessments of their eyeseight and attention to detail, most of them probably couldn't see what type of car they were buying.
Raging Bike frequently had BMW as the most-popularly-tagged vehicle-make, but then they do have a fairly easily-noticed logo.
Posted 10 years ago # -
This morning about 1050am Grey Range Rover HAR ?? female driver on phone through Murieston and Henderson Terrace, followed by Police van turning left onto WAR from Dundee Street, allergic to using indicator.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Approaching the Gray's Loan/Myreside/Colinton Road lights this evening, waiting to turn right. The car in front of me didn't make it across the ASL before the lights went red, so correctly sat in the ASZ. I sat behind it.
A red sports car of some kind then drew up beside us in the ASZ. This was just wrong. I very nearly broke my policy of not speaking to drivers...
As the lights for crossing traffic went to red, the car beside me and the car in front of me both started moving forward. They'd not realised that there's an extra light sequence for traffic from Watsons, so the car in front of me was fully across and clear of the ASL before we got even an amber light.
They must both have been cyclists, because it's only cyclists who run red lights.
Posted 10 years ago # -
There isn't room for two lanes of cars in the ASL there -(at least not on the grays loan side, and probably not on the others either.
It is a bad intersection design-wise. Only saving grace is that people who use it are very wary of it, because they know how potentially dodgy it is.
I had a bad encoder there this summer with 7yo. Told her to 'go straight across', thinking she knew the intersection well - we always go through it the same way - grays loan to myreside. But she go flustered and the lights changed (they can be very short indeed). Then instead of hugging the kerb, she tried to reach the other side. Cue trauma on everyone's part. Luckily nice bloke who I've seen cycling with his kids in the area came over to see if she was all right.
Lesson is obviously to be beside her as we go through, then drop back behind as we clear intersection.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Tonight, travelling north along Greenhill Gdns from Church Hill, I'd just reached the Strathearn Place triangle when a a large silver "Chelsea Tractor" lurched out from the obscured driveway to my left. The driver jammed on her brakes. Sighing, I carried on, but that wasn't the end of it.
I was obviously a nuisance as she then zoomed up alongside me,(despite me making good speed) and cut in front of me just before the stop signs at the junction of Chamberlain Road. Her manoeuvre forced me to brake harder than I should have needed to, all so she could get there first and turn left. Had she been patient, I would have been out her way anyway as I was going straight on. She had gunned it along a mere 380 feet (115m) - according to Google, to punish me for being on the road when she wanted out of her secluded driveway. Sad.
For the record, her house is directly opposite the triangle, so watch out for her!
Posted 10 years ago # -
I had a really weird experience at the end of last week. There's a section of roadworks between the office and the station. Going home, the approach is downhill so you can see the lights from a long way back. I saw that they were green, and knew that I might get to them just before they went red but that I'd be better off waiting for the next green light as it is then slightly uphill through the roadworks in that direction and I wouldn't have anything like enough time to get clear before the next lot of traffic got a green light. So I was slowing and keeping left so that cars could pass me.
Then I heard something larger behind me. I looked back and it was a decent-sized truck. The driver was, I think, slowing and keeping back, so I waved him on and continued to slow and drift left. The driver started to accelerate past me and then the lights went amber. He went through them (I don;t think he had much choice). "Oops", I thought, "I'd have been better letting him do what he wanted to do. Still, no one is going to argue with a truck..."
That wasn't the weird thing. There were three cars following the truck and they all went through the red light. I cannot work out why. I mean, people amber-gamble, but this was a light that was very definitely red, and people don't usually drive through those. I wondered if I was obsuring the red light in some way (I don't think so, and it was dark enough that the light was still very bright and obvious). Or could it be that they thought they could barge through behind the truck?
Most odd. I was gobsmacked. I'd have liked to have seen what happened when the next lot of traffic got its green light...
Posted 10 years ago # -
"they all went through the red light. I cannot work out why"
I presume you're talking about temporary lights(?)
I therefore presume that drivers assume that there will be a long gap when both lights are red - or know that from previous experience there.
There is also the belief (fact?) that temporary lights aren't 'legal' in the way that permanent ones are.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@fimm - I think that is more commonplace than you might imagine - I see it all the time, and I think the behaviour is the source of the ironic titles to some videos (greenroofer and WC both recently posted I think) entitled something akin to "cyclist jumps lights" which demonstrate such behaviour. I think it is similar to trying to sneak onto the tube for free by walking directly behind them.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Yes, temporary lights.
If I had a headcam I could put together a nice little sequence of drivers overtaking me, as I slow and stop at an amber/red, and driving through the light... it was just that these three were not even vaguely amber-gambling, they were going through a very red light - not just one, but three, one after the other. Almost as if they hadn't noticed it.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I see motorists driving through red lights all the time as well. Often 2 or 3 at each (permanent) light after they have gone red. I also sometimes see drivers waiting at a red light for a while then deciding just to drive through it. Charlotte Square southbound is particularly bad for it though it can happen anywhere.
Posted 10 years ago # -
@Focus, re. your Chelsea Tractor, I think I saw her* the other day.
Heading west on Newbattle Terrace I was going to turn right into Pitsligo, but hung back due to parked cars and a silver Discovery coming the other way. Discovery swung up Pitsligo without indicating - that annoyed me a bit as if I had known they were turning I wouldn't have had to hang back.
I followed them up Pitsligo and watched them easily exceed the 20 limit. They failed to indicate left at the top into Clinton Road and I'm pretty sure they didn't bother indicating right into Church Hill, although I was a bit behind at that point so didn't see clearly.
When I caught them up they were fudging a reversing manouver just by the triangle.
*her? Don't know - didn't see the driver.
Posted 10 years ago # -
ironically enough the other day (while driving) the lights at the Strathearn/Kilgraston crossroads did genuinely seem to stop working. I was at the front of the queue waiting for what seemed an eternity and eventually, the taxi behind me overtook me and went through the red light. I'm ashamed to say I did the same, but clearly they had gone wrong somehow (I'm talking 10 minutes or more).... hard to know what else to do in that situation.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Rule 176 states:
"If the traffic lights are not working, treat the situation as you would an unmarked junction and proceed with great care."
"Not working" for some is presumably interpreted as "causing me (ME!) to have to wait (WAIT!!) for over TEN SECONDS BWAARRRGH" or whatever. Presumably the post-truck sneaks merely correctly assume that no-one trying to enter the other end when it goes green would try and argue with a truck.
Posted 10 years ago # -
thanks wingpig - at what point do you determine they are not working though? As Min says Charlotte Square southbound is bad for it, but maybe the drivers think they are broken? Eventually the ones at which I was stopped must have changed...
Posted 10 years ago # -
"at what point do you determine they are not working though?"
On a bike, when I've been ignored for two full cycles (see King's Road, Milton Road West, West Granton Access etc). In a car, probably about three minutes for every part of the sequence (assuming a sign has been put up declaring three- or four-way-ness) if it's just showing red to everybody or when at least two whole boli of opposite-bound cars have come through.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Waiting in primary position at southbound lights on West Nile St (GLA) at the Suchiehall Street intersection, lights change, car overtakes, pushes- forces me to the left, so they could get into inside lane at Bath St junction all of 282feet(according to Bing, which is at red)
Roll up to the drivers window, enquire what corn flakes packet they got their driving licence out of.
They were totally convinced I was in the wrong by not being in the gutter to facilitate their progress.
Posted 10 years ago # -
I'd like to nominate the grey van that drove up from near Holyrood round Arthur's seat, and then proceeded to drive past the no entry sign and then up the road the wrong way, scattering a couple of cyclists and causing a tourist bus to dive for the kerb.
I got some snaps and texted the plate to the constabulary.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Come on motorists, when it's raining you might recognise that others are suffering more than you selfish sorts with your steel umbrellas. That includes all the motorists who refused to let the 29 bus out of the stop by Dobbies - think of all the passengers waiting at the following stops in the rain (and also me standing in the pouring rain behind the bus to let it out).
Posted 10 years ago # -
Impatient woman in a grey Scenic cutting in front of a right-turning cyclist who couldn't get into the ASL at the end of Seafield Place.
Posted 10 years ago # -
Here's a video of my earlier post about the people on Colinton Road with a different view from mine on what the ASZ is for...
http://www.naden.de/blog/bbvideo-bbpress-video-plugin -->
[+] Embed the video | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOscJB5OYpU" target="_blank">Video Download Get the Video Widget The interesting thing for me is that they are doing exactly what some cyclists do: if the guy in the car on the left was on a bike, he'd have been trackstanding (badly) in the ASZ...
Posted 10 years ago #
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