What would you have done in this situation?

[onlyoneunited]

I was driving back from work and as I pulled into my town the road goes from an a-road with a national speed limit of 60mph, to a b road of national speed limit of 60mph.

About a third of the way down there's a slight turn in the b road ( not much, there's lots of cars who maintain the speed they were going when going through the turn) and after the turn I saw  an old pick-up van going slowly not too far ahead of me, when I got to him and slowed down to about his speed he must have been doing  30mph, 35mph at most. I was going about 45mph as I went round the bend and usually accelerate to around 55mph as the road becomes a straight road.  

It seemed like a very straight forward over-take, I'm not sure why the van was going  slowly.

I slowed down to the van's speed (I didn't indicate and pull out to overtake in one go as there is a slight hump in the road so can't fully see if there is any cars on the road on the other side). I stayed behind it for a couple of seconds until we could see over the brow of the hump and then I indicated and went to overtake. I drive down this road every day on my commute home so know it well and felt comfortable overtaking there.

I pulled out to overtake and increased my speed, I didn't floor it or anything, but I increased my speed to about 50/55mph in a pretty normal way if you were overtaking a car. 

The van then started to accelerate as I did, it obviously sped up from the 30/35mph it was doing before as for a while it was almost alongside me for what felt like quite a long time. A lot longer than you would expect to overtake a vehicle that was going the constant speed it was doing before anyway. Surely it's very dangerous to suddenly accelerate in that way as someone is overtaking you, especially so that they almost match your speed? 

I then accelerated further to 60mph to fully overtake, which I managed to do but as I returned to the other side of the road the van started flashing its lights at me. It also was now driving at my speed and close to me which continued for a little bit down the road.

The combination of having him tail-gate me and flash his lights, I slowed down a little and  gradually, we were coming up to a 30 mph speed limit later down the road anyway so would have to slow down for that. I started by easing off the accelerator for a few seconds to about 50mph, still was tailgating, so then I gently slowed down using the break to about 45mph..... still tailgating and then went past me and accelerated as we were going to the 30mph area.

I slowed down to the 30mph in advance, no idea what speed he was but was going ahead of me and away from me.

There's a roundabout you go straight over at the end of the road, and then a highstreet. There's traffic calming measures on the road so I ended up catching up with the van. 

The van then drove  slowly down the street, going about 15mph, the road speed limit is still 30mph. I don't know if this was deliberate or not but I just went down the road at the same speed.

We both end up going to the shop in town, though as he turns into the car park he goes against the one way system (I've seen a few cars do this) and he gets tooted at by a car he almost went into.

I go the proper way into the car park, and as I go round I go past his car, he points at me to open my window so I slide it down. He's starts pointing to his car and saying he's got a camera and was getting angry at me. He got out of his car and was talking pretty irate, I just stayed calm the whole time and just asked why did you do that? literally as calmly as I could.

He said he's going to send the video to the police and was saying I shouldn't slow down in front of him. I was waiting for a break in him going over about the camera and police to ask him why he accelerated as I was overtaking him and why he was flashing his lights at me. He walked off as I got half way through the first sentence so I gave up. A few people stared at him as he walked off.

I didn't want a confrontation with him in the shop so I just didn't get out of my car and I drove home and did my shopping later.

 

Surely he won't take it to the police? Part of me wants him to though because as I feel his driving was dangerous.

He went on about me slowing down after I overtook him. If I'd have break-checked him or hit my breaks hard then I understand but I didn't do either of these!

What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stoney871]

That was blatant dangerous driving and you should have reported him for such.
If it all occured as you say then his camera footage would have dropped him in it not you.
Are there any overtaking restrictions on the stretch of road you were on?
If it was a safe and legal manouvre then he wss fully in the wrong.
If he'd done it to me I would have arrested him and put his video in as evidence, but obviously most don't have a warrant card in their pocket like I have.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

[onlyoneunited]

10 minutes ago, Stoney871 said:

That was blatant dangerous driving and you should have reported him for such.
If it all occured as you say then his camera footage would have dropped him in it not you.
Are there any overtaking restrictions on the stretch of road you were on?
If it was a safe and legal manouvre then he wss fully in the wrong.
If he'd done it to me I would have arrested him and put his video in as evidence, but obviously most don't have a warrant card in their pocket like I have.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk
 

I tried to describe it exactly as it happened so I could gauge people's opinions on it. I just couldn't understand why he was so aggressive. I'd have asked him why he accelerated and then flashed his lights if he wasn't so agressive just to see what he said but I didnt want to get involved in an argument.

I guess my main concern was what people's thoughts were on me slowing down after the overtake.

No overtaking restrictions at all, its single dashed white line down the road. I just double checked on google maps.

[jmurray01]

Sounds like a complete fruit and nut case to me!  I'd have done what you did, except maybe taken his number plate and reported him to the police.

Maybe he was trying to imitate the truck driver from Duel?

[DEVSR2]

Fair play for keeping your cool mate, not many would 👍 

Ignore him and forget it. Karma will come around , let's hope he gets caught by someone like @Stoney871 in the future.

[Nick Y]

3 minutes ago, onlyoneunited said:

I tried to describe it exactly as it happened so I could gauge people's opinions on it. I just couldn't understand why he was so aggressive. I'd have asked him why he accelerated and then flashed his lights if he wasn't so agressive just to see what he said but I didnt want to get involved in an argument.

I guess my main concern was what people's thoughts were on me slowing down after the overtake.

No overtaking restrictions at all, its single dashed white line down the road. I just double checked on google maps.

He was just being a complete tool. You were perfectly right to overtake and then slow back down. 
As Stoney has said, I very much doubt he would send the footage to the police because he was the one committing various traffic offences including tailgating, inappropriate use of lights, intimidation, speeding and contravening a one way system causing other road users to take preventative action. 

If he did send the footage to the police, it would probably be edited so that it doesn't show his actions and he'd probably get laughed at by the police as you did nothing wrong. 

[onlyoneunited]

Thanks for the responses. Glad I'm not losing the plot!

[Lenny]

Sounds like he's having a bad day or had a rough with the wife and is taking it out on other people, 

The pick up truck job wouldn't be the best of income and the sale of scrap has dropped in the past few days aswell as the value of the pound which would immediately impact on his industry.

I'm sure the police are well used to people like him if he was to bring it to the police and if it's a reasonable good dash cam; then it will display his speed which will hang himself straight away showing his speed increasing as your overtaking.

[zain611]

I wouldn't worry about the police sending something to you if he would submit his dash cam clip as I'm sure they'd question him more on his driving. Sounds like he might of not been used to driving on that particular road hence his speed but lacks the sense to control himself / justify your actions. No offence but I hate it when someone overtakes me on a one way road but that's mainly because the person who overtakes me is doing way more than the legal speed limit and these roads are mainly 30mph urban roads. You did nothing wrong overtaking as he was going really below the limit. 

Also please don't worry too much about it 👍. 

[TomsFocus]

The police won't care about his actions or yours, they don't have the resources to follow up this sort of thing unless there's an injury or damage to property...  

I don't know what it is about pick up trucks but I seem to find they're often driven by angry old men at half the speed limit who don't like being overtaken...   I had a similar one to you last week...although it was on a short stretch of dual carriageway that merges to a single lane...they clearly accelerated just as I came alongside them so I had to boot it to get in front and back across before the merge.  Unfortunately for them I was mid-DPF regen and as I used full throttle the biggest plume of black/grey smoke I've ever seen from a DPF equipped car blanketed their car and they suddenly decided they didn't want to stay close behind anymore...   I hate that sort of incident though because I constantly try to work out whether I'd done anything wrong, as you are with this thread.  The dashcam footage helps prove fault in most cases though.

You'll find the majority of drivers, particularly over a certain age, don't understand even simple road rules such as overtaking or giving way and genuinely believe they're in the right, there's nothing you can say to make them change their mind even if you point them towards sections of the highway code...  So all you do is end up upsetting yourself and ruminating about the event for months and they've forgotten about it by the next day.   

[Guy Heaton]

What always cracks me up with this, and I've been on the same end as well.  You do something that they think is wrong.  They then proceed to break all the rules of the road, but that's OK because they are doing it to teach you a lesson.  It never seems to enter their tiny minds that what they are doing is just as wrong as what they think you've done.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

There's a roundabout near me which is counterintuitive in that the left lane is left turn only, and the right lane is for straight ahead and turn right, both clearly marked. I normally go straight ahead so right lane. Lost count of the number of times someone has tried coming up the inside and flashed, hooted, waved fists, you name it, as if I've tried to cut them up, just because they've ignored the lane markings. There have been a number of accidents there, but other than watching your nearside mirror and being prepared to take action, there's not a lot you can do.

[zain611]

5 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

So all you do is end up upsetting yourself and ruminating about the event for months and they've forgotten about it by the next day.   

Exactly what happens to me and I wish I wouldn't dwell over it. I remember watching someone on YouTube talking about how it's in our DNA / evolution to remember more about the bad things then good. It's something to do with us assessing how an improvement could have been made. 

In terms of footage you never know. One of my uncles got a fine through a letter as someone submitted a dash cam footage to the police of him cutting in front of them. In my area also the police put up a board saying if anyone spots any dangerous driving in this particular dual carriageway to send it to a website. On Facebook the police have stopped a lot of people on that road especially someone clocked doing 110mph.

[auldreekie]

22 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

You'll find the majority of drivers, particularly over a certain age, don't understand even simple road rules such as overtaking or giving way and genuinely believe they're in the right, 

Over what certain age are you referring to? 

[TomsFocus]

1 hour ago, auldreekie said:

Over what certain age are you referring to? 

As I say, it is the majority of drivers in my experience, but over retirement age the number does increase... 

I'm not saying all old people do this, which I think you may be taking offence to?  But it is a large number of them...at least once every drive I'll have to take evasive action because they couldn't be bothered to wait for a few seconds at their give way lines or give way to the right on a roundabout, preferring instead to ruin traffic flow and cause a domino of braking back down the main road.  They are often the same ones who drive at half the speed limit but then flash and beep when you safely & legally overtake...  Having lived here a while, you get used to the same cars making the same ignorant, oblivious manoeuvres so it's not just a mistake either.  Funnily enough I was at a classic car meet recently (so I was the youngest there! ) and overheard a group of guys in their 50s/60s complaining about exactly the same thing.   Some of which were bikers so it's even more of an issue for them when people fail to give way as they should.  I don't know why it's such a difficult concept to understand...if there's a car coming...just don't pull out...it's not only much safer for both parties, it reduces the stress of driving if people could just follow the rules.  I guess the issue is, there was much less traffic on the road when they learnt to drive so giving way wasn't a regular occurrence.  

I personally believe there should be a regular driving check, imagine a gas or electricity engineer passing a test as a teenager and being allowed to work for the next 70+ years with all the modern systems having to never be checked again...  I don't think retesting is necessary, just a short drive in your regular area with a driving instructor to point out any issues for you to work on...giving way, lane discipline, roundabouts, observations, allowing safe overtakes etc...  How will they ever know what they're doing wrong otherwise?  I'd also be open to doing this myself having been driving over a decade now...I don't think I'm doing anything wrong regularly, I certainly don't ever pull out on people, which is why it frustrates me so much when it happens to me daily, but I may be making other mistakes by now...

 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

27 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

As I say, it is the majority of drivers in my experience, but over retirement age the number does increase... 

You do keep raising this point Tom.

I'll begin by agreeing with you to some extent, everyone should get some extra training at some point in their driving careers, if only to keep up with changes in road signs, vehicle specific speed limits and so on. People with a vocational licence (LGV etc) need to do 35 hours of classroom based training every 5 years to keep them up to date, something similar for everyone would be a good idea I feel, and make a bigger contribution to safety than the current obsession with speed limiting.

Similarly, I've had an eye test every two years since I first got a licence, so I know my vision is spot on - I suspect that's not the case with everyone, irrespective of age. Also spent a fair bit on advanced driving courses, skid courses, etc over the years.

On the age thing, yes, you're always going to be able to point the finger at poor driving and say it's because they're old, but have you considered that they may always have been poor drivers and have just got older? I used to work with a guy (in his 20's at the time) who was an utter nightmare. His route home took him the same direction as me part of the way, and I often used to come across a tailback with him at the front, even though he used to leave  earlier than me. To add insult to injury he had an XR2!!

My personal observations are that the two groups who seem to get most stick - young drivers and their grandparents - are pretty good on the whole, people in the 30-50 group seem to me to be the ones who haven't a clue about roundabouts, crossroads etc, perhaps because of work/family preoccupations which they ought to leave outside the car. As we all know though, that's sometimes easier said than done!😀

[Guy Heaton]

Hmmm.  I might say the biggest problems on our roads are caused by young males with too much ego and too little sense 

[auldreekie]

Quote

It sounded like you were tarring all all drivers over a certain age with the same brush (which age you still didn't answer). I agree some drivers well past retiral age should realise when to hang their car keys up but that goes for younger drivers too.
It's worth noting that drivers under the age of 25 cause 85% of all serious injurt accidents, data released by Gov.uk last year (2016), that drivers aged 20–29 pose the most risk on our roads. With dramatically higher figures than any other age group, drivers in their twenties were last year involved in 20,841 road incidents of all severities – considerably higher than any other age group and drastically greater than road incidents of all severities involving drivers aged 70–79 (3,254) and road incidents involving drivers aged 80 and over (1,939.)

I drove buses for 30 years before retiring and yes there were some frustrating moments behind the wheel, old & young drivers, but as I always said to younger drivers it's not worth getting upset about it and getting the blood pressure up. Unless you are going to physically haul the other driver out of his vehicle and kick ten bells ot of him/her then a simple sigh shake of the head is enough.

 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

1 hour ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

I've had an eye test every two years since I first got a licence,

Update - just seen a news item suggesting that compulsory testing for those over 70 is currently under consideration. Still think it should apply to all: they do the nameplate reading thing when you have your driving test but that won't show up conditions like glaucoma which can lead to tunnel vision** and it still means you could possibly drive for 53 years without an eye test. 

**One of my relatives had to give up his licence because of this some years back. Unfortunately he'd not had an eye test for years and was told that if he had, it would have been spotted early enough for treatment.

[zain611]

1 hour ago, Guy Heaton said:

Hmmm.  I might say the biggest problems on our roads are caused by young males with too much ego and too little sense 

I'm not one of them 😂. Just today saw some stupid guy in a BMW m4 of all cars pull off quickly at a set of lights in the right lane to go straight across. The right lane markings says to turn right. I wish the government could do something about this for example put cameras up or even raising bollards in a certain way to stop people going straight in that lane. 

[TomsFocus]

5 hours ago, Guy Heaton said:

Hmmm.  I might say the biggest problems on our roads are caused by young males with too much ego and too little sense 

See, I very rarely have any issues with young drivers at all...  Maybe it's because I'm only out during the day and they don't get up until dinner time?  When I do have issues with them, it's usually lack of observations due to a phone or earphones rather than speed...which again, I don't know why people can't just leave thier damn phones alone...another very simple rule that can't be followed!!

With regards to age above, I said retirement age because it would be a bit awkward to ask them all thier ages...   You know what I mean though. And as Roger points out, they were probably poor drivers in thier earlier years (I did touch on this mentioning less traffic etc) so I'm hoping it's a moving age that will eventually fizzle out...

 

 

[jmurray01]

On 7/31/2019 at 4:30 PM, Eric Bloodaxe said:

There's a roundabout near me which is counterintuitive in that the left lane is left turn only, and the right lane is for straight ahead and turn right, both clearly marked. I normally go straight ahead so right lane. Lost count of the number of times someone has tried coming up the inside and flashed, hooted, waved fists, you name it, as if I've tried to cut them up, just because they've ignored the lane markings. There have been a number of accidents there, but other than watching your nearside mirror and being prepared to take action, there's not a lot you can do.

There's one like that in my local town as well!  Stupid idea but if you read the road markings it isn't that difficult...

[Guy Heaton]

Auldreekie's graph seems right to me, 60-69 is the safest time, you still have your faculties but you've lost the rashness of youth and you've less responsibilities.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

9 hours ago, Guy Heaton said:

Auldreekie's graph seems right to me, 60-69 is the safest time, you still have your faculties but you've lost the rashness of youth and you've less responsibilities.

There's lots of interesting information on driving licences currently issued on data.gov.uk. You can download various spreadsheets showing how many people of every age have a licence, whether it's full or provisional, there's also one showing no. of points for each age. @TomsFocus might be concerned that there are apparently 37,475 with a licence in their 90's, but after that it seems to drop off a bit (can't think why?😀) and there are only 90 people with one at 100 plus, the oldest 107. I'm aiming to keep going a bit longer than that, if only to frighten Tom!😱

[TomsFocus]

2 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

There's lots of interesting information on driving licences currently issued on data.gov.uk. You can download various spreadsheets showing how many people of every age have a licence, whether it's full or provisional, there's also one showing no. of points for each age. @TomsFocus might be concerned that there are apparently 37,475 with a licence in their 90's, but after that it seems to drop off a bit (can't think why?😀) and there are only 90 people with one at 100 plus, the oldest 107. I'm aiming to keep going a bit longer than that, if only to frighten Tom!😱

Only 90 people over 100 with a licence?  I'm sure there are more than that as there was a whole program about '100 year old drivers' last year lol...  Some of which were not safe to be on the road...including one that reversed out of her drive at full throttle with the assessor in the car... 😮 Her car was covered in dents and scrapes but she'd somehow avoid any major accidents...  Needless to say she was asked to just give up driving!  But there were a few that were fine, and they were getting a check as I suggested above, just to let them know areas to improve etc.  

You're all missing the point about age though...it's one that my 80 year old Nan misses as well...it's not about the figure on your birth certificate, it's about what you are still able or not able to do, how good your health is, eyes, ears etc, brain processing and reactions...

My Nan hasn't driven for years (she want a good driver back them either!) but since losing my grandad and living in the stick she is really isolated.  She could easily afford to buy a mobility scooter but even she knows she wouldn't be safe on one sadly.  The problem is, a lot of older drivers don't seem to have the same insight into their own abilities...