Drivers.
Yesterday we saw the first little bit of snow which managed to lie for about 1 - 2 hours, and its like everyone completely forgot how to drive.
I am not under any illusion that I am an amazing driver. I pitch myself as being reasonably average, a little young and eager occasionally, definitely inexperienced, but rarely cocky about my approach. Having passed my test over 4 years ago and living in the north east of the uk the entire time I have experienced driving in snow/icy conditions before as inevitably every winter it has snowed at least a little. With 4 seasons of minimal ice/snow driving under my belt I feel reasonably capable of judging whether or not i think my driving is up to speck with the severity of weather, or whether i should stay home, or just walk/get a bus to work. I do not like driving in snow, it is possibly the most tense my sphincter gets when driving (over all i would say i enjoy driving and find it quite relaxing and recreationally enjoyable)
ANYWAY, return to point, it snowed a little yesterday, a snow covering of less than 1 inch of very wet snow in the middle of the day which melted instantly. Don't get me wrong, it was slippy but nothing like the 4 - 6 inches of snow we got last year, which we got overnight and awoke to find all the main roads completely blocked up and solid with lethal ice and snow.
In the midst of this minimal covering there were 2 major accidents along tiny the 10 mile route i drove, this caused a massive backlog of traffic in which i then witnessed 3 'almost' accidents caused not through the weather but instead through peoples impatience at having to wait in the traffic.
I could not believe that in one afternoon and very short journey i witnessed so much carnage and pure stupidity on the roads. Utter crazy.
I had even tried to make my self slip 'safely' on purpose in the empty car park by hitting my brakes on an area of snow which had not yet been driven on. I found that last year i was so terrified of slipping it really impaired my driving and my focus, but once i'd had a little skid and knew what it felt like and what to expect from my car that i was not as scared, i could judge gaps better leaving myself enough room to slip a little if i had to and such.
My purposeful skid did fail quite pathetically, hit the brakes felt my traction control flicker ever so slightly (although it did not kick in fully) and i stopped instantly without any loss of traction whatsoever. This is actually not what i wanted to happen, i do not want to have too much faith in my modern cars traction control and ABS to save me if i mess up. I would like to think i could catch myself at least a little.
I would like to share with you what i witnessed, not the large accidents but while sat in the predominantly stationary traffic traveling around 1 mile through durham.
1) Sat at traffic lights. 2 sets of traffic lights feeding into the same line of traffic, so more cars were going through the lights than could fit through the junction then when the lights were changing so it was our turn to move no one could go anywhere because the junction was blocked. This was not the major issue of the incident. There were two cars in front of me, the light was green but no one could move as the junction was blocked. The lights turned red, we went no where. The traffic at the junction eased up and mad a gap enough for a few cars to get through from our set of lights, however the lights were still on red. The car in front of me (a little old knackered Clio with quite a burly man at the wheel)who was second in the queue on this reasonably narrow road surrounded by buildings and with very poor visibility took it upon himself that he was not waiting for the lights to go green, nor for the car in front of him to move forward, moved over onto the wrong side of the road straight into oncoming traffic over taking the car waiting at the junction, hurtling through a red light and straight across 2 lanes on moving traffic who's lights were on green. The moment the clio got too far out into his maneuver to turn back a bus came chugging around the blind corner straight towards the side of the little clio, Bus being forced to hit the breaks and missing the stupid clio by barely an inch, it was truly toe curling to witness.
2) Safely through the lights i now found myself in the same queue of traffic, with the Clio only around 4 cars ahead of me despite his hasty and desperate move to try and gain more ground. On this stretch of road there is public parking down the side of the road, a full row of cars line the road down the left hand side of my car. Completely stationary in the traffic I watch as a suit-wearing business-looking gentleman climbs into his big shiny silver executive looking Audi a little behind me, his bonnet was around parallel with my rear passenger side wheel. He started his car, demonstrating its seamless German engineering, put his lights on and started to drop forward until my poor little Panda was dwarfed in the shadow of his Audi which now lined up with my car. To my horror, he then made a move to start to pull out! Bare in mind it was bumper to bumper traffic and i hadn't moved for over 5 mins. He edged slowly getting closer and closer to grazing the side on my little Italian hot-hatchling as if he expected it to melt out of the way to make room for his apparently superior presence on the road. I looked at the guy and gestured that i could not get out of his way (or even allow him to push in front of me) until the cars ahead moved. He ignored me continued to inch forward, such an unnecessary bully tactic which actually gained him less, as when the traffic eventually moved I was so annoyed at my apparent insignificance that i found it necessary to glue myself to the bumper of the car in front forcing the annoying Audi to hit his breaks so as not to scratch his precious paintwork on me as he was that close. Amazingly, had he indicated and waited i would've let him out. I was pleased to see the 2 cars behind me didn't let him in either having displayed such impatience and employed such bully tactics to try and force his way into the queue.
3) Through this traffic and i hit the source, there had been an accident just off the round about ahead, a lane was closed and the roundabout was chocca. A middle aged lady in a large MPV, (all on her own, no children to transport...but thats another blog) pulled onto the roundabout and had to stop as there was traffic. It happened that she had to stop slap bang in front of the junction myself and a ridiculously large Nissan Navaro (again with ONE bloke in, all on his own) This did not bother me as I was wanting to join the same queue of traffic that had caused the lady to stop in this most inconvenient of positions. - so i was going no where anyway! However the Navara wanted to got right around the roundabout, there was no oncoming traffic and nothing on the roundabout exit he wanted to take to stop him from moving forward...except the MPV Lady who was now blocking him in (I do believe it was a genuine mistake, that as she came around the roundabout she did not realize how far back the traffic was and then just had to stop where she was, inconvenient but a genuine mistake nonetheless) Navara man was not happy, honking his horn and swearing at her through his window. He decided to try and squeeze around the back of her in his ridiculously oversized deer-hunters truck through a tiny gap which i could see was too small for my tiny Panda, never mind that thing he was driving. Almost hitting her, he had to stop, now himself poking out onto the roundabout at a jaunty angle. Pure impatience.
4) AND FINALLY onto the next roundabout, which is a traffic light controlled roundabout. It is hideous and confusing, but i fear this Fiesta knew he was risking it by the speed he hurtled through the red light and into the path of oncoming traffic. This happened a few cars ahead of me, but essentially he should've stopped half way around the roundabout at a red light as the traffic from the next junction on the roundabout was on a green light, and 2 lanes of heavy traffic were crossing straight in front of him. He decided to jump the lights and did it a quite a pace causing multiple vehicles in the lanes he crossed to hit the breaks, which almost caused a pile up as you saw the break lights come on like a mexican wave up the line of traffic. Impatience again.
Driving rant over for now.
Keep your wits about you on those roads out there.
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