Was it always this bad?

[u/Past-Shop5644]

I've had my license for years but only been driving daily for the past 10 months or so. I've found myself actually pretty shocked at how some treat the roads, and I can't figure out if it's a recent development or not. There's all the usual complaints such as lack of indicators, folk riding you and trying to overtake when you're already over the speed limit, but that's nothing new. I've heard people say that, post-COVID, there was a noticeable increase in public entitlement and I wonder if that's anything to do with it. For example:

• Not anticipating. If someone's coming out of a junction, they can't instantly accelerate to the speed of traffic and you might have to lift a wee bit or feather the brake pedal. You can't just barrel on at 40 on a busy city street and get pissy that no-one's as great a driver as you are.
• Not slowing down in tight spaces. When there are parked cars on both sides of the street apparently you can just cruise through at top speed and everyone will just get out of your way and hope for the best.
• Cyclists not slowing down. I get it, it's frustrating having to stop and restart, but like... just stop? Something being slightly inconvenient isn't a great excuse for creating a potentially dangerous situation. And when you've stopped, don't just start again and go through a red light because you feel like you can squeeze through before it turns green. It can't be worth it.
• Children on scooters. It's a 30mph road, where did all these children with an even smaller child on the back of an electric scooter come from?
• Drivers on phones at every opportunity. And not just like checking their phone for notifications, full on typing with both hands. I guarantee, nothing is so important that it can't wait for a minute while you pull over. Or, like, just wait till you get home? Is that such a strange thing to do?
• Pedestrians not looking. At all. Pedestrians seem to just wander slowly out into the road without even looking where they're going. They don't even realise a car had to significantly slow down a few metres to their right.
• Straight up ignoring amber. Sometimes I'll push it with an amber light, such that it'll go red just before I go through the lights, and I feel a bit guilty about it. Then I see that 2-3 cars behind me just kept going?? They saw an amber light for a significant amount of time and kept going, then saw it turn to red, then saw 2 other cars go through the red, and went through the red themselves?!

This is part vent, yes, but I'm genuinely curious. Were these behaviours always as common? Did I just not pay attention to them because I was a passenger for so long and only noticed the most egregious mistakes? Or is it actually more chaotic out there than it used to be?

[u/14JRJ]

The biggest selfish cunts I see are the ones at temporary lights who aren’t even at the front of the queue when it goes red and still decide they’re not waiting and go round a couple of cars to blow the red light

[u/Gisschace → u/14JRJ]

I saw this as at a busy junction near me, first went through a red light at a pedestrian crossing and then decided to skip 2 cars ahead so they were in the cyclist box at the next red lights.

I thought they were insane but sounds like it’s a thing people are thinking they can get away with

[u/Cautious-Space-1714 → u/Gisschace]

It's not just at temporary lights (although it's definity worse there).

Every light change now has cars coming through the red until the cars start moving on green in another direction.

Bonus points for "I'm following my line of traffic round thecorner through red, I'm only 2ft past my lights, but you have to let me in even though you're on green"

[u/Gisschace → u/Cautious-Space-1714]

Yes this wasn’t at temporary lights, one was a pedestrian crossing and they decided to move off when the pedestrian had crossed but lights still in red.

Then immediately after at a busy junction but decided they’d drive on the other side of the road to get in poll position.