New Traffic Lights, Cutting Corners and Parking Lights

OK this is a general rant to cover 3 areas to do with driving:
1. Has anyone noticed that if you stop on the white line by some of the new lights, you can't actually see the lights without sticking your head out or ducking down? The worst seem to be at the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of St Julians Ave. What genius designed these? Probably another expert or consultant from the UK.
2. I am constantly having to stop short at filters or junctions to prevent people cutting the corner from going into me. :x The Ville Baudu/Sohiers Rd filter and yellow line coming from the Vale Church into the Military Road appear to be examples.
3. I have never understood why people just put on their side lights ( or parking lights - clue in the name!) when it starts getting dark. What then often happens is that they continue driving over lighting up time, forgetting they still have only side lights on, technically illegal I believe. Do they think they're saving their battery? ( shouldn't be the case if your charging circuit is working). Perhaps someone can enlighten me. There also seem to be far too many people riding pushbikes without lights, or bells. Now when I was a lad, a bike came with lights, bell, pump, and perhaps a saddlebag. Now these all seem to be extras costing as much as the bike again!

Go Bouzat, go - if I wasn't getting up early to visit crapaudland tomorror I would add and how!!!! - but my bed is calling me LOL

Don't encourage him karma,he's got another 20 yrs or so before he's aloud to be so grumpy.

...and another thing - every traffic queue seems to have at the front of it someone on one of those silly little BMX bikes or whatever they are - they seem to be completely non-street legal with no lights, bell, or anywhere to put them, no gears and possibly no brakes either! So they can only go at about 1 mph, even with the rider with his knees up by his ears!

( I'm working on it bug1! Perhaps I should change my Forum name to Victor Meldrew. " I've had a bellyful of it I can tell you!" )

Chill,Bouzat,Chill or you'll never sleep tonight

I will throw in some more driving moans of my own: -

Indicators - why do so many people not know what they are for and use them?

Fog lights - why do people drive around with their fog lights on, do they think it looks cool?

Hazard lights - These apparently give people, more often than not delivery drivers and posties, the magic ability to stop in any dangerous position but switch the flashers on and that makes it all right!

Talking on the phone whilst driving - See it all the time, but also people drinking cups of coffee, eating sarnies! Are they in proper control of their vehicle? Think not!!

Oh dear, started to get into a bit of a rant on a Monday morning - not a good way to start the week!

Don't get me started Dell! Not using indicators, or using them too late, at roundabouts is another pet hate. Turning right on the Bridge or going up St Julians Ave. are particularly bad.

I'm sure it's illegal to have spotlights wired so they come on other than on full beam, and there are also restrictions on where you can mount them, but no doubt someone will know.

I know of someone who drove his van into the back of a car because he was talking on his mobile while eating a pastie, with a cup of coffee balanced in his lap.

Mange tout, mange tout Rodney!

So its not just me that is irritated with those non-users or improper-users of indicators. Praise be..... I thought I was on a lonely crusade!!

you boys have pointed out my pet hates.mind you i hate cyclists who insist on riding on the road when there is a cycle path holding up all the traffic behind them.very old peeps who should obviously not be driving.peeps throwing cigarette ends out of the window.headlights on full beam all the time.one light on full the other one on dip cos they cant be arsed to get them sorted out. lavender carts and bus drivers who think they own the roads.

I must say i have to agree with most of the previous posts .

Another is roundabouts , it seams to me people find them very complicated and don't even start me on speed-humps. Also people who are obviously allergic to their side of the road :coco: .

Sunday afternoon drivers who drive like that every day of the week..... ahghhhhhhh....

...and another thing ... road signs depicting "road narrows" when the only thing apparently making the road narrow is the sign in the middle of it!

You have got me started.......I live on a one way street......to all vehicles, with the exception of the cyclists!!!!! I used to be terrified I'd kill one coming up the middle of the road towards me....now I'm just scared that one will knock me down as I try to leave my front gate, not for the first time as I have commented previously, I ended up in A&E through being ploughed into by a cyclist one morning and lost days off of work due to injury!!!! no insurance, no comeback (the cyclist apologised and went on his way) ......the police should be ashamed of themselves....or has all the 'Green Talk' persuaded them that being knocked senseless by a
a 'non-toxic' vehicle should be considered a priveledge???? 'im indoors could and will add to this thread when he calms down enough

bicycle owners should have to pay insurance ias they are riding on the public highway

Ride a cycle and suddenly all the traffic laws do not apply to you anymore!!

What is needed? Registration of cycles? Insurance cover? A 'cycle' licence? Training? Ediucation? More powers for police to issue 'on the spot fines'? Tougher sentencing by the Courts?

those are the best suggestions i have heard in a long time.one of the fines could be for not riding on a cyclepath when one is available.soon fill the black hole eh

I have to have a tax disc and insure my mobility scooter which barely does 8 MPH. So bikes, which can do 20 MPH and more, should also be made to have the same.

Last time I suggested that (2 weeks ago) I got told I had a 'down' on cyclists......which is untrue - I have a down on being harrassed by cyclists on the pavement and also doing shopping on the Bridge and dodging them in groups driving towards you on the pavement !!!! When I was younger we had to pay 2/6p per bike for a licence disc which had to be displayed - this was issued by the Douzaine the same way that dog 'licences' are issued - no idea why it was scrapped - but I'm sure someone will be able enlightend me - but at least you knew the licence number of the cyclists who are making it bad for the ones who are not reckless and the police would be able to do something about it!!!! (says she tongue in cheek)

I once saw a motorbike riding along the pavement in the Vale Road cos he was fed up of waiting in the queue! He just missed a woman with a buggy coming out of one of the lanes. I was so amazed I didn't get his number - or think to take a picture with my phone ( now there's an idea for a thread - pictures of stupid drivers...)

We do have a thread like that on the other site I belong to......lets give it a go!!! (presuming that when I am flat on my back on the pavement outside my house with a cyclist running over me I'll have the nous to aim and shoot

Not just cyclists ignoring the traffic regulations tho is it! Cars parked in dangerous positions & on corners, or people stopped at junctions to talk on their mobiles holding up all the traffic whilst they have a gossip, buses taking up the whole width of the smaller lanes and not being allowed to reverse, people in 4x4 monster trucks taking up more than their fair share of the road, parents parking illegally and dangerously at school drop off and collection times..... and so it goes on! Could be here all day raising my blood pressure!!

Wow.... just spotted a kosher marketing potential here Rodders, mon amie winehouse, size of the roads, parking problems, lets go to old Honest Ol's second hand car garage and buy a job lot of reliant robins just like ours, soon shift them and we'll be minted! Cushty!!

I agree Del - it's not just cyclists - but to date I have been knocked over twice by these Knights of the Highway - stepping onto the pavement from the safety of my garden!!
But to strengthen your point - I was at the PEH the other day and a car driver backed out right in my path using her mobile phone - I had to toot to halt her progress and she turned round and mouthed an obscenity at me :(

And I am sure that you were far too polite to respond Karma? If you did, good on you! Why have mobile phones taken over our lives? Why do we feel obliged to answer the darn things even when speaking to a loved one / good friend etc? World's gone raving mad!!

Ok here's another one which I'm sure will be controversial - so called "hedge veg" stalls situated in dangerous places for traffic to stop. I like to buy local produce as much as the next man, but some of these are getting ridiculous and turning into mini shops. The idea is supposed to be for growers and gardeners to get rid of their surplus produce, but I wonder who is supplying some of these big stalls - and it doesn't stop at flowers and veg - some of these are more like car boot stalls, selling books, toys, bikes and other junk.

I agree on that one........I sometimes see a stall and want to stop - but realise it would be dangerous and as you say some of the stuff for sale has nothing to do with veg or fruit....one place I stopped for eggs and the eggs were date stamped!!!! with an English lion on them.....no I didn't buy them needless to say :-((((
A friend of mine has had a plot of years and she sells her own fruit/veg and also home made pickles and lemon curd/jams - she is well off the beaten track - but her reputation ensures that people buy from her........without causing a traffic jam.....and her chooks lay the BEST eggs!!!!!!