National Bad Driving Day?

What was up with everyone today?

There was the minor stuff like the stop start car in the stop start traffic in Colliers Wood who thought no-one could see him continually looking down to text on his mobile. There was the usual stuff like the idiot cyclist who came across the lights on Victoria Embankment just as The Stig, a Taxi and myself came out on a green light. There was some dreadful motorcycling, like the two bikes who just had to get past the slow moving car on Albert Embankment by diving into the gap between it and a bus when they had to only wait two seconds to legally and safely overtake on the right. But what took the biscuit was the stupidly dangerous driving I saw today.

On the way home I was nearly killed by a man in a small hatchback who decided to pull out in front of me on the A3 as the Roehampton ASDA. There was plenty of space to pull out behind me, but this driver had to get out and overtake the other hatchback in front of it regardless of the consequences. He therefore dived out of the accelerator lane and tried to overtake the car in front only to find that the car in front was pulling in front of him. The two got in a mess avoiding one another and the result was I in turn had to take evasive action. It could have been much worse, but at least no-one was hurt!

The same can't be sad of what I saw in the morning. The Stig and I were riding up the A3 through Stockwell when we saw a Burger with Italian plate taken out by a silver grey car. The first I saw of this was as I rounded the left of a white van turning right. I checked it was safe to pass, and looked forward to see the Burgman, flying at right angles across the road. The bonnet of the car that hit him was sticking out of the stream of the queue of traffic. It appeared to be trying an unannounced U-Turn and hit the Burger without crossing the centre line. The Burger was only doing 10-15mph at the time and the queue of traffic was stationary.

Fortunately the rider seemed to not be badly hurt as he got straight up and didn't appear to be in particular pain or distress. The Stig and I didn't stop as we didn't have a very clear view of what happened as there was a pack of scooters between us and the incident, and the pack had stopped to assist, as had several car and van drivers, and a wagon full of Police!

Today there was a lot of talk about how dangerous bikes are and how they should be fitted with speed limiters to make them safer. Maybe they should put limiters in cars so they can't do U-Turns without signalling?