Inevitable…..

I think if I wrote about how badly people drive these days (especially in London, UK), I would probably have racked up 5 million posts by now. My most recent post on this described how irritated I get with people not doing simple things properly.

Take the case where there are specially marked boxes on the road, for when you want to turn into a side road; these boxes are big enough to park an SUV – but what do people do? They place their car in such a way that the butt of the car is still on the road, and there is space for 2 more cars in the remaining space. It drives me even more crazy that the size of the car looking to turn is this….

And the space on the road is for a vehicle this big…..

Either ways, what ticked me off this weekend is that I had a minor collision on a roundabout. What made me even more mad was that the passengers of the other car came out and started screaming at me for not driving properly. Let me explain what happened.

I was on the inside lane of the roundabout, sticking very close to the roundabout, and traveling at a relatively low speed because of the traffic. All of a sudden I see this car coming off one of the exits heading straight into the position where I will be in in 2 seconds (literally). So I slammed the brakes, and hit my horn – I was actually off my seat while doing this. Now, because I had a full car, momentum would play a part in the car stopping. My ABS ended up working overtime, locking my tyres, and momentum took the car forward the remaining 5 feet.

In all of this, the driver of the other car just looked and stared at me as they drove into my lane, with no attempt to brake, or slow down, or correct the position of their car to avoid mine. You can almost say that that rabbit caught in the headlights. The end result was a low impact collision in which the side of my bumper ended up being scuffed, and the side panel of the other car getting a little damage. Mine is the black car, and her is the green one. (Ignore the positions of the car in the pic because we had to reposition the cars to open my passenger door and her driver side door).

Her dad, or whoever the guy in her car was, jumped out and started screaming at me – “why didn’t you stop?” I starred at him in amazement and had to explain to him the concept of the roundabout, and the fact that I couldn’t stop on a roundabout, especially when I was on the inside-most lane of the roundabout. The fact that you enter the roundabout when it is clear and safe to enter, went past him totally. Because it was so busy, the driver and I swapped details, and agreed to get it dealt with through our insurance companies, because I know there is no point arguing, I had a picture of the incident and I was in the clear. the fact that the side of my bumper was damaged as I was going away from her also proves that it’s not my fault.

A couple of hours later, the driver of the car called and enquired if I would be calling my insurance company; I told her that I had scratches on my bumper and I could repair those myself, so I wouldn’t claim for it. I guess she was worried because she was a new driver (see the green P on her hood), her insurance would go sky high on renewal. We ended up agreeing that we wouldn’t call our insurance companies, and that was that.

I guess what is important is that nobody was hurt, and as much as my dad and the other older guy were “arguing” about the incident, us younger folk sorted this out. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the driver; maybe inexperience played a major part in the incident, but she should have only got on the roundabout if it was clear enough for her to go where she wanted (which was in my lane). Unfortunately, experienced drivers do the same things.

Tagged as: Automobile, driving, Insurance, London, Motor, Recreation, Sport utility vehicle, United Kingdom