CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

Today's rubbish driving...

(11251 posts)
  • Started 12 years ago by Stepdoh
  • Latest reply from neddie
  • This topic is sticky

  1. crowriver
    Member

    "Negligence or malevolence, which is easier to live with?"

    Assuming that (hopefully) one is still alive following the consequences of either.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  2. Frenchy
    Member

    Whilst waiting to turn right from The Murrays onto Lasswade Road, a Dominos driver wasn't able to wait even five seconds before deciding he was going to drive around me to get out of the junction first. As he did so, a gap appeared so I started to turn right. When he realised he wasn't going to be able to undertake me as we turned, he instead overtook me by going the wrong side of a traffic island.

    Still not the worst driving of my commute home.

    EDIT: Wasn't going to post about the driver who actually nearly hit me, but the camera apparently wasn't working, so I can't report it anyway:

    I was filtering past the queue at temporary lights at Howden Hall crossroads, when the driver alongside me got fed up of waiting, and turned left. Wrong way down a one way street, as well. Luckily I was going slowly and managed to stop before they hit me.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  3. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Widget

    Posted 5 years ago #
  4. Stickman
    Member

    This evening on Russell Road, cyclist in strong primary. Driver of a white mini begins what Coyle have been textbook overtake, crossing well into the opposite lane. Unfortunately she ignored that I was driving straight towards her. I swerved into the side and stopped: I doubt she would have stopped and would probably just have forced the cyclist off the road.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  5. chdot
    Admin

  6. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    The Mound entirely blocked by motor vehicles downhill. Delivery drivers in the 'cycle' lane, tour buses and taxis in the rest of the carriageway.

    'World Heritage Site'.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  7. Juanito
    Member

    @IWRATS I was cycling up Broughton Road yesterday morning before 8am and it was similar. Down to one lane all the way up due to the amount of parking. Including in the bus stop.

    Also, some eejit just decided to get his lorry stuck under the bridge at Cameron toll again. Joys.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  8. wingpig
    Member

    Completely blank expression from the passenger in an unmarked white van at which I shouted my usual "can you not just wait five seconds?" when its driver tried to squeeze it past me despite there not being space between me and the oncoming traffic going down Blackford Ave past Observatory Road. I do believe they ended up at least ten vehicles behind me at the Cluny/Morningside junction, but fear their expressions would have been similarly blank at this realisation.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  9. Stickman
    Member

  10. Stickman
    Member

    After my pleasant spot of kids on the WoL path this morning I was brought back to reality by having to haul on the brakes twice at the Roseburn junction. First was a driver who decided to pull out from Russell Road across me. Then as I turned right a <rule 2> in a 4x4 jumped the lights on Roseburn Terrace to turn across me.

    Immediately prior to that someone had sped out of Russell Road and jumped the lights to turn left.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  11. ejstubbs
    Member

    @algo: Would those 'sightline issues' have anything to do with the persistent and blatant double parking that seems to be endemic on Roseneath Street and Argyle Place? I can only assume that CEC doesn't bother carrying out any kind of parking enforcement on those two streets, based on the fact that there is always at least one vehicle double parked on each street when I go up that way on the 41 bus.

    Last time I caught the bus from the Roseneath stop in to town there was a white Luton van parked at the projecting bus stop for the whole ten minutes or so that I was waiting. Although the van was unmarked, the guys going to and fro to a property next to the greengrocer's were carrying DHL paperwork. It certainly didn't appear that they were delivering anything particularly heavy or bulky during the time I was watching them. In fact paperwork seemed to be all that they were dealing with. And anyway, weren't things like, oh, I don't know...perhaps trolleys and barrows...invented precisely to assist with the movement of bulky or heavy items - or are delivery persons actually physically incapable of using any assistive technology that isn't motorised? (Come to think, it might be worth sending the photo I took of the offending vehicle to DHL with a suitably robustly worded covering e-mail.)

    Posted 5 years ago #
  12. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @ejstubbs

    Most delivery drivers are on piecework. Their lives are twelve hour days of a hand-held terminal screaming at them to make 50p deliveries. In their shoes I'd probably do what they do.

    Their behaviour is a classic instance of private profit from socialised costs. I'd bet they'd love to have the time to park up, load the barrow, have a chat with the recipient and so on. But our pension funds won't let them.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  13. algo
    Member

    @ejstubbs - the sightlines are actually often also tricky because of the bins on the corner. But yes double parking outside the fruit and veg shops (e.g.) is an issue.

    It's easy to criticise the delivery drivers, but IWRATS is right - they have little option. I have certainly behaved similarly in the past when working in jobs which involved driving vans. It would be lovely if such deliveries were done on cargo bikes more frequently (for example) and delivery employees were not constantly berated by their targets. I genuinely don't know how to achieve that ...

    Having said that, I have less sympathy with the vans that are double parked for long periods - sometimes all day without apparently going anywhere

    Posted 5 years ago #
  14. lazycyclist
    Member

    Bearded fellow in a Porsche Macan, around Duddingston area (Cavalry Park Dr), decided to enforce the single-lane protocol by swerving onto my side of the road as I was coming the other way. Probably letting me know I should use the passing bay. Fair enough, really. Fortunately, I have rubber on the end of my handlebars in case there was any contact. Wouldn't want to ruin his paint job.

    Also, I just joined the forum! Yay!

    (Maybe I'm a rubbish cyclist.)

    Posted 5 years ago #
  15. mgj
    Member

    At Roseneath and Argyll Place it is the same drivers every day, and many of them double park outside spaces. Have seen triple parked vehicles on Roseneath on occasion. There is no excuse. It is a business model based on SMIDGAF

    Posted 5 years ago #
  16. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Dear Phoilis na h-Alba,

    One of your civilian employees nearly killed me on Forest Road , Edinburgh at 09h56 today. Coming from Teviot Place at the wheel of a white low-emission van SN61 CFL he went through the lights gesticulating with his left hand and proceeded to cut straight into the left hand lane without giving way to me. I was on a bicycle and therefore a vulnerable road user. I had to stop to avoid a collision. Your driver was, at my guess, exceeding the 20mph speed limit when the incident happened.

    I spoke to him thirty metres later and he was rude and dismissive before driving off down Candlemaker Row. The gentleman in question was in his late fifties or early sixties with thick white hair and a local accent.

    The junction is a tricky one - cyclists coming from Middle Meadow Walk on green have to merge with traffic coming from Teviot Place, but your driver's conduct fell below that I would expect of an employee of Phoilis na h-Alba. Can you possibly have a word with him about both his manners and his road craft on my behalf?

    Thanks in advance,

    IWRATS

    Posted 5 years ago #
  17. gembo
    Member

    @iwrats are you able to estimate the percentage gammon of this civilian polis?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  18. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @gembo

    He was of that five foot six working class Scottish stock, quite trim and tanned but a bit florid? Air dried ham?

    Posted 5 years ago #
  19. glasgow megasnake
    Member

    Mentioned to a bus driver as I hopped off that he may want to leave a bit more space behind the cyclist in front next time (he tailgated one about 2 feet distance for 30-40m on the approach to the bus stop). He got a bit annoyed and said there was plenty of space. I said there wasn't. He said there was. Loop for a while. "Well you weren't driving and I was and so it's ok so..."

    Bad humaning all round as well as bad driving. Not a good start to the day. Better to not get involved I guess.

    Lothian buses say that all their drivers are going to get a go on a bike.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  20. miak
    Member

    I wish their was a 'like' button on the forum .... I think the sun does something to edinburgh drivers but huge thank you to the lovely driver of a VW beetle who having witnessed me being side swiped twice by the same central cab driver rolled down her window and said 'well done' for me shouting at him and flat palming his passenger window. at Tollcross and the meadows...I will need to replay the video but she was basically assuring me that he was driving appallingly. Always nice to get support ...

    I wish taxi passengers would give their drivers a hard time when they drive badly.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  21. jdanielp
    Member

    I finally got around to my traditional post-PoP lap of Arthur's Seat (it counts because I still have a PoP flag attached to my bike). Three drivers came up behind me on the road around the back but were all quite patient, waiting to pass until I pulled over into the next parking bay. In fact, the only issue I had was approaching the roundabout behind Pollock Halls at speed as the driver of a black SUV very slowly joined from Holyrood Park Road. They hadn't indicated, but given the low speed I assumed that they were about to turn left up the hill so I didn't bother braking, only to then realise that they weren't going to turn left after all so then had to brake heavily to stop at the give way line. The driver gesticulated at me in passing as if I had done something wrong. They proceeded all the way around the roundabout and back up Holyrood Park Road. Not terrible driving but not great.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  22. Frenchy
    Member

    Not terrible driving but not great.

    I had some of that nearby earlier too. Heading towards the park on Holyrood Park Road, I heard sirens behind me, so pulled in to the Scottish Widows car park exit to let the fire engine past. I shouted at a driver coming out of the car park to stop them pulling out in front of the fire engine. They might have stopped themselves, but I don't think so.

    The fire engine was then driven along Queen's Drive at 25mph without any sirens/lights.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  23. Ed1
    Member

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/remote-control-parking-to-be-legal-from-next-month-1-4740787

    Remote control parking already be used in private drive. It may be useful in car parks but as many people in the uk drive over a pavement to park then may be hazard if someone walking pavement. Some systems could be quite crude. People cross pavements and use pavements as extension of drive if using a crude system on key fob would not be able to see if someone walking by.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said: “Connected and autonomous vehicles will transform our lives, with the potential to reduce up to 25,000 serious accidents and create more than 300,000 jobs over the next decade.

    I'm not sure autonomous vehicles will lead to a net increase in the number of employed people.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  25. Ed1
    Member

    A car drove out the currie coop car park with someone hanging on the roof

    Posted 5 years ago #
  26. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Today's rubbish driving was brought to you by every single motorist in Stafford. They are completely mental.

    The pedestrians have clearly never seen a recumbent bike and it blew their minds.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  27. Snowy
    Member

    I had a bad day on Gogar Station Road not that long ago.

    Sadly most of it is fairly common - this just packed a lot into 2 minutes. Starts slow but watch till the end.

    https://youtu.be/iYsaB67hVIQ

    NB My camera is left side of handlebars - the cars were actually touchable!

    Posted 5 years ago #
  28. Ed1
    Member

    I have riden that road quite a few times sometimes it is nice sometimes less so.

    Posted 5 years ago #
  29. jdanielp
    Member

    Triple whammy this morning: the driving aspect was the person in black Mercedes SUV K600 DOC who was presumably incensed by my passing them in the traffic queue on Tarvit Street and my then not cycling fast enough along Gilmore Place so they decided to hoot their horn before overtaking close and fast with oncoming traffic, cutting across my path as they did so. Given that the surface of Gilmore Place is not great, as soon as I heard the hoot I decided to start drifting left from primary just in case... If I hadn't, I could have easily slapped the side of the car (and possibly ended up off my bike).

    Posted 5 years ago #
  30. crowriver
    Member

    Lots of speeding drivers yesterday evening in the Leith Walk and McDonald Road area. Some doing ridiculously dangerous speeds. Don't they know it's a 20mph limit?

    I can only assume that the the unusually quiet roads tempted them to floor it.

    Posted 5 years ago #

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