I’m not one for getting up on my high-horse about everything that annoys me in life, but there are a few things that really get on my nerves when it comes to driving. I spend a lot of time on the road and on occasion I find myself getting frustrated about the smaller things I see. There are many things wrong with our roads, and I’m sure that over the coming months I’ll mention some of them. Easytrip released the results of a recent survey they conducted among cyclists and motorists and their attitudes towards each other. The results are completely unsurprising – they don’t trust each other.
Today my mind keeps going back to the crossroads at the Summerhill junction in Dublin 3. There are two lanes for going straight on. One of these can be used for turning left and the other for turning right. This morning I approached these lights in the right hand lane with the intention of driving straight on. The person in front of me was showing no indication that he was about to turn right. What gets on my nerves is that he stops at the lights, still doesn’t indicate right and makes me and everybody behind me sit and wait while he takes the turn. What should have happened here is he should have indicated in advance that he had intentions of turning right, thus giving other drivers who wanted to drive straight on a chance to go into the left lane safely. But no, instead he decided not to indicate thus lessening our chance of manoeuvring into another lane to go straight.
What is the reasoning behind this? I really don’t know, but I’m wondering are drivers like this worried about getting repetitive strain injuries by going through the difficult task of flicking the lever with a finger on their right or left hand? Are these people worried that they’re being followed? Or are these people just not paying attention to what’s going on around them?
Attitudes like this need to go. I’m not here to lecture anybody, but I am trying to say that we all share the roads. By indicating we are effectively talking to each other on the roads. We are communicating to people our intentions. I don’t think that it’s too much to ask that we think about our fellow road users - pedestrians, drivers, cyclists and motor bikers.
Easytrip this morning launched the results of a survey they conducted among cyclists and motorists and they discovered, unsurprisingly, a mutual distrust among the two groups towards each other. 56% of cyclists said that drivers don’t pay enough attention to them, whereas 69% of motorists made the same claim against cyclists.
The three biggest offences motorists make according to cyclists is; Motorists don’t use indicators, they don’t leave enough space by the kerb for cyclists, and that motorists cut cyclists off when making a left hand turn.
A large 95% of drivers, according to this survey, said that they saw cyclists acting dangerously or illegally on the roads. The three biggest offences made by cyclists according to motorists were; Cyclists braking red lights, cycling on footpaths, and failure to wear high visibility clothing in dark conditions.
No matter how you look at these figures they are not good. A lot of these complaints could be avoided if people changed their attitudes to the road even ever-so-slightly. Road users everywhere have to realise that using the road is a luxury and a privilege which has to be approached responsibly. I know we’re not all saints, but really, how much effort does it take to flick an indicator or check a mirror. Unfortunately I think we all believe that we are better drivers than the next guy. While you might be a better driver than the next guy we have to remember it’s not a competition. Those cyclists who bend the rules of the road need to smarten-up too. We want our death tolls on the road to stop, and to take care of things like this we need to pay more attention and consideration to other road users. We need to do the simple things better.
