Poor driver awareness when overtaking

[kps70]

I was travelling up the A34 yesterday in the inside lane. There was a guy in the outside lane catching me up by about 10 mph. I suddenly noticed a broken down car in the inside lane ahead with his hazards on and signalled to move out as he was in a bloody dangerous position and I could see two legs round the front of the car (the bonnet was up and he was working on it!!!! yes on the inside lane!!) I could see the guy overtaking was also not concentrating so I gave him time to wake up and brake to allow me in. As you can imagine, we were approaching the broken down car pretty rapidly so I had to make the decision to pull out in front of the overtaking car. He went apoplectic so I used my hands to suggest he should wake up and look ahead of him in the road in future. If he had braked, even by a small amount then there would have been a massive gap to allow me in.

You might be thinking, why did I not brake? The position of the car was such that I might just about have been able to emergency stop on the inside lane when I first saw it, but my first thought was just to overtake it. I'm afraid the diesel I was driving did not have the power to allow me to accelerate into the gap and I was still aware that I might have to slam on the brakes.

Anyhow, you won't believe it, but a few miles further along just before Newbury, there was another broken down car on the inside lane but this time the overtaking driver was courteous and awake enough to slow to allow me to overtake this one safely.

At least things only came in twos that afternoon!

 

[JumboBeef]

Tell me about it! 99% of drivers drive with their eyes closed!

 

[HR17]

Its happened to me a number of times. There are plenty of people out there who really are very stupid, or perhaps too arrogant to be bothered about others.
I was in the RH lane of a dual carriage way recently when I saw an ambulance coming up behind me. I indicated, checked mirrors etc and started to move into LH lane. Chap behind me in that lane didn't want me in front of him so accelerated to try and block me. Fortunately he stopped before hitting me, then realised why I was pulling in. The sirens came on and he saw the lights. I think he was just about to give me the finger when his lady wife slapped him. He gave me an apologetic flash and a wave as I drove off. Moron!