Bad traffic enforcement

[AlterEgo]

The question is, why is tailgating not an offence? It's getting ever easier to provide evidence of it happening

Well quite. It really ought to be a specific offence and is extremely dangerous.

Can you imagine pilots…never re-tested?

I have some news for you about private pilot licensing.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

This is where I prefer the speed bumps that only cover the middle of the lane (i.e. you have to straddle it). Comfortable at 30 mph, but the risk of getting it wrong increases with speed.

My driving instructor told me to never straddle those but to ride over them with one wheel on, one wheel off them. The reason being that the edges of them, if you straddle them, wear the inner edges of your tyres excessively and it's very difficult to spot that this is happening as most people only check the outside edges.

 

[Shrop]

Meanwhile middle lane hoggers should at the very least get the death penalty, right?

Sarcasm isn't a great way of discussing something that killed over 1600 people last year and seriously injured another 28,000. Do you have a genuine point to make?

 

[35B]

Sarcasm isn't a great way of discussing something that killed over 1600 people last year and seriously injured another 28,000. Do you have a genuine point to make?

Serious point here. There’s a lot of focus on people who drive fast and aggressively, which is fair. Yet bad and unobservant driving, blocking others and raising the stress of other drivers, is often allowed a pass. That’s middle lane hogging, sitting at a flat 40mph regardless of road condition, and a wealth of other bad habits.

 

[bramling]

Serious point here. There’s a lot of focus on people who drive fast and aggressively, which is fair. Yet bad and unobservant driving, blocking others and raising the stress of other drivers, is often allowed a pass. That’s middle lane hogging, sitting at a flat 40mph regardless of road condition, and a wealth of other bad habits.

There’s a variation on middle lane hogging which seems to have become increasingly prevalent in the last few years, which is people who sit in the outside lane when the other lanes are empty and make zero attempt to move in if someone is approaching behind. I find on a typical motorway journey it is now commonplace to encounter this numerous times. Would definitely like to see some enforcement action on this.

I can guarantee when driving home from London in the evening on the A1(M) there will be several of these, just sitting in the outside lane at 50-60mph completely oblivious to surroundings.

 

[edwin_m]

I don't see middle lane hogging as a big issue when the road is quiet but there is a slower vehicle in sight a head - anyone who wants to overtake (and is probably therefore speeding) has an empty lane to do so. Obviously more critical when the road is busy and they are holding up other traffic.

To avoid middle lane hogging it's sometimes necessary to pull in to the left hand lane then, when needing to overtake, pull out into a smallish gap in the middle lane traffic. Some people don't like this and it does sometimes result in being very close to the vehicle that's just passed in the middle lane, before dropping back to create a safe space. In that short time it could look like tailgating.

 

[The exile]

Well quite. It really ought to be a specific offence and is extremely dangerous.

But quite difficult to prove unless there is continuous observation or film . A photograph doesn’t prove responsibility (car in front has pulled in dangerously close to the car behind a split second before the photo, for example).

 

[bramling]

I don't see middle lane hogging as a big issue when the road is quiet but there is a slower vehicle in sight a head - anyone who wants to overtake (and is probably therefore speeding) has an empty lane to do so. Obviously more critical when the road is busy and they are holding up other traffic.

To avoid middle lane hogging it's sometimes necessary to pull in to the left hand lane then, when needing to overtake, pull out into a smallish gap in the middle lane traffic. Some people don't like this and it does sometimes result in being very close to the vehicle that's just passed in the middle lane, before dropping back to create a safe space. In that short time it could look like tailgating.

It isn’t an issue when overtaking multiple vehicle, and indeed the HC provides for this. However a lot of people stay in the middle lane when in no way are they overtaking, or quite often when traffic in lanes to their left is actually flowing faster.

I see it all the time on the A1(M) at Welwyn, where on the southbound side two lanes increase to three, with the additional lane appearing on the left. So people in lane one have a choice of continuing in lane one or two. If I had a pound for every time I see a vehicle in lane one with nothing in front choosing to continue in lane two… I don’t really understand why the road is laid out like this - indeed it used to be the case that the extra lane started on the right-hand side, which worked so much better.

 

[35B]

I don't see middle lane hogging as a big issue when the road is quiet but there is a slower vehicle in sight a head - anyone who wants to overtake (and is probably therefore speeding) has an empty lane to do so. Obviously more critical when the road is busy and they are holding up other traffic.

To avoid middle lane hogging it's sometimes necessary to pull in to the left hand lane then, when needing to overtake, pull out into a smallish gap in the middle lane traffic. Some people don't like this and it does sometimes result in being very close to the vehicle that's just passed in the middle lane, before dropping back to create a safe space. In that short time it could look like tailgating.

It’s not my job to drive in a way that enforces a speed limit; if someone is tearing along, their speed is their matter.

I’ve had plenty of occasions where I’ve been in the left lane and been unable to pull out before being slowed down by a vehicle ahead. It’s a pain, but the answer is not to pull into gaps that don’t really exist - if it looks like I’m tailgating then I’m too close. I find it’s usually better to identify the gap and indicate early so that the car behind eases off; that creates a sensible gap.

 

[bramling]

It’s not my job to drive in a way that enforces a speed limit; if someone is tearing along, their speed is their matter.

I’ve had plenty of occasions where I’ve been in the left lane and been unable to pull out before being slowed down by a vehicle ahead. It’s a pain, but the answer is not to pull into gaps that don’t really exist - if it looks like I’m tailgating then I’m too close. I find it’s usually better to identify the gap and indicate early so that the car behind eases off; that creates a sensible gap.

It’s increasingly the case that people feel it’s their right to move to the right into gaps which don’t exist, or which force vehicles already in that lane to have to brake. It’s so common to see the usual scenario of brake lights come on, on comes the right indicator, pulls out to the right straight into the path of established traffic. Not sure if it’s arrogance or ignorance.

 

[AlterEgo]

But quite difficult to prove unless there is continuous observation or film . A photograph doesn’t prove responsibility (car in front has pulled in dangerously close to the car behind a split second before the photo, for example).

There’s loads of dash cams on the road now, and plenty of rear facing ones too (we have both and this is not unusual).

 

[Sun Chariot]

It’s increasingly the case that people feel it’s their right to move to the right into gaps which don’t exist, or which force vehicles already in that lane to have to brake.

Yes, it's one of the main causes of multi-vehicle Road Traffic Collisions along the A3 south of Guildford. The vast majority of junctions, exiting and joining, are short and sharply-curved. I see drivers joining a 70mph flow at 20-30mph, pushing into gaps which do not exist. The junctions' "give way" signs and road lining, seemingly don't apply to them...

 

[Acey]

The question is, why is tailgating not an offence? It's getting ever easier to provide evidence of it happening, and it is responsible for huge numbers of deaths and injuries.
Then there is the driver capability issue. Driving requires an examination which is bizarrely valid for many decades.
Can you imagine pilots, train drivers, hgv drivers etc being given a licence, and then never re-tested? And yet car drivers are given carte blanche for life, often even after they have proved their incapability beyond doubt by driving into other vehicles.
There's something quite sinister about the hold that cars seem to have over people's lives.
It's curious how people will defend their own driving, and yet their views about it all can change massively if they, or a close friend or family member suffers serious injury caused by the bad driving of a stranger.

"Driving requires an examination which is bizarrely valid for many decades"
Simple answer,the lawmakers also drive !

 

[Tetchytyke]

I don't think drivers' situational and spatial awareness is any worse than in times gone by, it is just that the roads are so much busier now.

Everything on this thread all links into each other.

My experience is that if you drive properly, and move in when you've overtaken, then you will struggle to get back out of that lane. People won't let you move across. So either people just sit in the middle lane or people end up forcing themselves into gaps that aren't really there.

The people sitting in the middle lane mean that everyone overtaking only has one lane to do it in, and so someone genuinely overtaking at 65mph will get in the way of someone doing 70mph+. That leads to frustration and that leads to tailgating. Playing silly buggers and deliberately slowing down when someone is behind you just makes everything worse.

As for technology, it simply isn't good enough yet. My car has lane assist and there are certain stretches of road here where it thinks it has detected a white line and beeps at me. It hasn't. Others I know who have more modern lane assist find that their car tries to pull them into the hedge because of this phantom white line.

My car has brake assist and there are certain stretches of road where it thinks it has detected a hazard and puts the brakes on. There's one stretch of road where every time I drive along it my car, without fail, detects a bus shelter as an imminent collision and slams the brakes on.

My car also shows me speed limits on the dashboard. Of course the car manufacturers understandably don't have bespoke rules for the Isle of Man and so it thinks the black diagonal stripe on a white circle means 60mph. It doesn't. Here it means end of speed limit. So the sign on my dashboard is flashing for a speed limit which doesn't exist.

There's also one 5mph sign, for a side road into an industrial park from a 40mph road, which the car seems to pick up about 50% of the time. Again it's not an issue as it is just advisory but imagine if the car decided to overrule me and slow down to 5mph on a 40mph road.

 

[Brightonboy]

Personally, I believe that the standards of driving have deteriorated since COVID, although whether that is because drivers 'forgot' how to drive well or because poor drivers were less compliant with lockdown rules and simply got used to driving on quieter roads and 'misbehaved' more, I don't know. I'm afraid that further fixed cameras have only a limited value in enforcing some of the issues mentioned above (most of which I see regularly too). As others have noted, for example, was someone tailgating or did the vehicle in front carelessly or negligently change lanes suddenly just before the camera? I fear the only way to improve standards is not fixed cameras or even technology in vehicles (which some drivers will choose to ignore or disable) but having more traffic police in both marked and unmarked vehicles that can observe, form judgements and deal with poor behaviour rapidly. Edited to add, I also think that the rise of home delivery services with drivers earning only small amounts per parcel delivered has led to a rise in such drivers being willing to take driving risks in order to maximise their pay.

 

[Sonic1234]

Employers won’t care. Why should they care if you went too fast?

It's a middle class crime. A lot of job applications ask for convictions excluding motoring convictions. They probably would like to know about the heavy stuff (dangerous driving etc.) but aren't interested in someone doing 25 in a 20.

Also if you did have to declare speeding, it would make the managers look bad because they probably have been caught for similar offences, and they don't see themselves in the "criminal" category.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's a middle class crime. A lot of job applications ask for convictions excluding motoring convictions.

And they still would. Because nobody cares about them, for the reasons explored in this thread. It is a cultural thing. Employers simply wouldn't ask about them; they aren't going to be interested unless it is a driving job.

Regardless, as it stands the overwhelming majority of criminal convictions are not allowed to be asked about by employers and under the law applicants may lawfully conceal them. As it should be. The criminal justice system should impose sentences which make the offender repay society for their misdeeds and then as far as reasonably possible, allow the offender to re enter society without the Mark of Cain. Britain has a culturally Victorian attitude to criminal offending which hampers society and contributes to recidivism.

 

[35B]

And they still would. Because nobody cares about them, for the reasons explored in this thread. It is a cultural thing. Employers simply wouldn't ask about them; they aren't going to be interested unless it is a driving job.

Regardless, as it stands the overwhelming majority of criminal convictions are not allowed to be asked about by employers and under the law applicants may lawfully conceal them. As it should be. The criminal justice system should impose sentences which make the offender repay society for their misdeeds and then as far as reasonably possible, allow the offender to re enter society without the Mark of Cain. Britain has a culturally Victorian attitude to criminal offending which hampers society and contributes to recidivism.

Employers will increasingly care about the way their employees drive, as the span of Health and Safety legislation reaches into an increasingly wide range of driving. That doesn't just affect their insurance for fleet drivers, but also their public liability insurance.

I agree on the principles of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, and the permission not to disclose many convictions, but that legislation does also try to balance the interests of society in rehabilitation with the interest of society in making informed decisions as to individuals' characters. The exception for driving offences has, in those terms, always struck me as an anomaly.

 

[Llanigraham]

The question is, why is tailgating not an offence? It's getting ever easier to provide evidence of it happening, and it is responsible for huge numbers of deaths and injuries.

And how are you going to provide the evidence of his "offence"? Are you proposing to get more Police in cars on the road? If so, who is going to pay for them?
And can you cite the evidence that it causes such huge numbers of injries and deaths?

Then there is the driver capability issue. Driving requires an examination which is bizarrely valid for many decades.
Can you imagine pilots, train drivers, hgv drivers etc being given a licence, and then never re-tested? And yet car drivers are given carte blanche for life, often even after they have proved their incapability beyond doubt by driving into other vehicles.

Fine, but since there is already a huge problem in getting even the basic driving test booked because there aren't enough examiners, how do you propose to implement all these extra tests?

There's something quite sinister about the hold that cars seem to have over people's lives.

Really?? I'd love to know your reasoning behind that statement.

It's curious how people will defend their own driving, and yet their views about it all can change massively if they, or a close friend or family member suffers serious injury caused by the bad driving of a stranger.

Quite simple; there is inadequate public transport in much of the country, and especially in rural areas. Therefore a car is an absolute neccessity. I drive at least a thousand miles a month taking people to their hospital appointments as that is the ONLY way they can get to them.
And again you make a statement about a change in attitude but do you have proof that is so?

 

[Llanigraham]

Sarcasm isn't a great way of discussing something that killed over 1600 people last year and seriously injured another 28,000. Do you have a genuine point to make?

Where are those figures from?
Are they directly caused by "tailgating", or are they due to unspecified causes?

 

[The exile]

Personally, I believe that the standards of driving have deteriorated since COVID, although whether that is because drivers 'forgot' how to drive well or because poor drivers were less compliant with lockdown rules and simply got used to driving on quieter roads and 'misbehaved' more, I don't know. I'm afraid that further fixed cameras have only a limited value in enforcing some of the issues mentioned above (most of which I see regularly too). As others have noted, for example, was someone tailgating or did the vehicle in front carelessly or negligently change lanes suddenly just before the camera? I fear the only way to improve standards is not fixed cameras or even technology in vehicles (which some drivers will choose to ignore or disable) but having more traffic police in both marked and unmarked vehicles that can observe, form judgements and deal with poor behaviour rapidly. Edited to add, I also think that the rise of home delivery services with drivers earning only small amounts per parcel delivered has led to a rise in such drivers being willing to take driving risks in order to maximise their pay.

I suspect that the “COVID effect” is more that the abnormal situation lasted so long that we’ve actually forgotten what things were like before.

 

[AlterEgo]

Employers will increasingly care about the way their employees drive, as the span of Health and Safety legislation reaches into an increasingly wide range of driving.

Which new legislation is expanding the already solid remit of employers to oversee the driving standards of employees driving as part of their work? Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 already covers nearly all activities.

I agree on the principles of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, and the permission not to disclose many convictions, but that legislation does also try to balance the interests of society in rehabilitation with the interest of society in making informed decisions as to individuals' characters. The exception for driving offences has, in those terms, always struck me as an anomaly.

Driving offences are not always spent immediately under the Act and are not exempt. It is simply the case that most employers make an exception for them by deciding not to ask about them - because they aren't interested and it's not likely to be relevant (unless it is a job which involves driving!).

If I get banned from driving the conviction isn't spent under the Act until the ban expires. It will appear even on a Basic DBS check. If I am fined by a court for a motoring offence then the conviction becomes spent after a year - and in some cases 30 months. It will also appear even in a Basic DBS check.

Fixed penalties are just that - penalties, and not convictions, and aren't part of this sub-discussion. You can't ask people about them directly and they will never be disclosed. You can only ask them to declare any current endorsements on their licence, but it is only legal to do so if you can demonstrate driving is fundamentally linked to their job role and you have a proportionate reason to know that the employee is licenced to drive, able to be insured, and competent. If someone gets caught speeding and they take the speed awareness course instead of the points, you'll never know about it.

You cannot legally ask about the driving licence or endorsements of, say, your receptionist who drives to work and parks in the car park but does not drive on business or in a fleet vehicle for their employment. There is no lawful basis for employers to demand all of their staff have "clean UK driving licences" unless they drive as part of their job and if this is happening (which I suspect it is *not*) it is not legal. It would certainly not be proportionate to ask for this data under GDPR and would also open the employer up to indirect discrimination claims because of a similar proportionality principle.

 

[edwin_m]

It’s not my job to drive in a way that enforces a speed limit; if someone is tearing along, their speed is their matter.

I’ve had plenty of occasions where I’ve been in the left lane and been unable to pull out before being slowed down by a vehicle ahead. It’s a pain, but the answer is not to pull into gaps that don’t really exist - if it looks like I’m tailgating then I’m too close. I find it’s usually better to identify the gap and indicate early so that the car behind eases off; that creates a sensible gap.

As far as I'm concerned if someone wants to break the law in relation to speed then they should show some consideration to those who don't, including that they might have to change lane more often than they might consider necessary. I got the full horn, headlights, middle finger from a Range Rover not so long back when another issue distracted my focus from moving out of the middle lane for a little longer than I should have, but when there was no other vehicle preventing them overtaking.

 

[Shrop]

"Driving requires an examination which is bizarrely valid for many decades"
Simple answer, the lawmakers also drive !

And therein lies the problem, the lawmakers cannot cope with their own capabilities being questioned, in case it exposes their own weaknesses.

Or to add to this, they believe their votes depend upon giving carte blanche to drivers even after they have caused accidents. In other words they would rather leave someone who might be a proven risk to others on the road, at liberty to continue to drive, rather than risk losing their vote by imposing stricter standards on driving.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Apr 2026 ==

It isn’t an issue when overtaking multiple vehicle, and indeed the HC provides for this. However a lot of people stay in the middle lane when in no way are they overtaking, or quite often when traffic in lanes to their left is actually flowing faster.

I see it all the time on the A1(M) at Welwyn, where on the southbound side two lanes increase to three, with the additional lane appearing on the left. So people in lane one have a choice of continuing in lane one or two. If I had a pound for every time I see a vehicle in lane one with nothing in front choosing to continue in lane two… I don’t really understand why the road is laid out like this - indeed it used to be the case that the extra lane started on the right-hand side, which worked so much better.

You're absolutely right and when I worked in road traffic, we considered it a dereliction of duty to produce such appalling traffic management as this.

When a 2 lane road become a 3 lane road the new lane should ALWAYS commence on the right hand side, otherwise it actively encourages lane hogging. I would be interested to hear from anyone who disagrees.

 

[35B]

And therein lies the problem, the lawmakers cannot cope with their own capabilities being questioned, in case it exposes their own weaknesses.

Or to add to this, they believe their votes depend upon giving carte blanche to drivers even after they have caused accidents. In other words they would rather leave someone who might be a proven risk to others on the road, at liberty to continue to drive, rather than risk losing their vote by imposing stricter standards on driving.

They don't believe it, they know it. Politicians who stand up to the road lobby know that they will face serious heat, regardless of the merits of what they are doing. The exception is the ever ramping set of penalties on causing death by dangerous driving and similar offences, where the standard "if it's not working, make the sentences stiffer" logic is at work - missing the point a) that many incidents are morally neutral and b) that being caught is often as important as the penalty.

You're absolutely right and when I worked in road traffic, we considered it a dereliction of duty to produce such appalling traffic management as this.

When a 2 lane road become a 3 lane road the new lane should ALWAYS commence on the right hand side, otherwise it actively encourages lane hogging. I would be interested to hear from anyone who disagrees.

If memory serves me right, the widening in question (at least northbound) coincides with an on slip road, as the A1 approaches the Hatfield tunnel. That seems to me a reasonable deviation from the normal standard. The southbound addition of a lane before J6 is less obviously justified, though it does at least support exiting traffic and leave space for traffic joining on the hill.

 

[Shrop]

They don't believe it, they know it. Politicians who stand up to the road lobby know that they will face serious heat, regardless of the merits of what they are doing. The exception is the ever ramping set of penalties on causing death by dangerous driving and similar offences, where the standard "if it's not working, make the sentences stiffer" logic is at work - missing the point a) that many incidents are morally neutral and b) that being caught is often as important as the penalty.

It's a very sorry state of affairs. The roads lobby functions on the basis that they don't need to carry any responsibility for driving standards, and of course they would claim to justify such an argument, but it's nevertheless directly related.

As for being caught, my last penalty a few years ago was for exceeding 70mph on a completely clear motorway (the M54) at 9.00pm in June when it was broad daylight. I had left the M6 a few minutes earlier where vehicles were doing 65mph less than a car's length from each other, cutting each other up etc as they merged in from the M5 around 5 miles before the M54 starts.

But despite seeing all this and being genuinely concerned for safety, they all did this with apparent impunity despite the presence of many cameras, because cameras don't seem to be used unless there has actually been an accident, or for enforcing speed limits, rather than for enforcing against dangerous driving.

If memory serves me right, the widening in question (at least northbound) coincides with an on slip road, as the A1 approaches the Hatfield tunnel. That seems to me a reasonable deviation from the normal standard. The southbound addition of a lane before J6 is less obviously justified, though it does at least support exiting traffic and leave space for traffic joining on the hill.

There are exceptions where lanes join, but this is certainly not always the case. The A55 eastbound (North Wales Expressway) a few miles east of St Asaph is a classic example of 2 lanes splitting into 3, with the road sign and the road markings clearly showing the new lane starting from the left, and this is nowhere near a junction. I really would like to know how this can be justified!

 

[blimmo]

I don't think drivers' situational and spatial awareness is any worse than in times gone by, it is just that the roads are so much busier now.

Everything on this thread all links into each other.

My experience is that if you drive properly, and move in when you've overtaken, then you will struggle to get back out of that lane. People won't let you move across. So either people just sit in the middle lane or people end up forcing themselves into gaps that aren't really there.

The people sitting in the middle lane mean that everyone overtaking only has one lane to do it in, and so someone genuinely overtaking at 65mph will get in the way of someone doing 70mph+. That leads to frustration and that leads to tailgating. Playing silly buggers and deliberately slowing down when someone is behind you just makes everything worse.

As for technology, it simply isn't good enough yet. My car has lane assist and there are certain stretches of road here where it thinks it has detected a white line and beeps at me. It hasn't. Others I know who have more modern lane assist find that their car tries to pull them into the hedge because of this phantom white line.

My car has brake assist and there are certain stretches of road where it thinks it has detected a hazard and puts the brakes on. There's one stretch of road where every time I drive along it my car, without fail, detects a bus shelter as an imminent collision and slams the brakes on.

My car also shows me speed limits on the dashboard. Of course the car manufacturers understandably don't have bespoke rules for the Isle of Man and so it thinks the black diagonal stripe on a white circle means 60mph. It doesn't. Here it means end of speed limit. So the sign on my dashboard is flashing for a speed limit which doesn't exist.

There's also one 5mph sign, for a side road into an industrial park from a 40mph road, which the car seems to pick up about 50% of the time. Again it's not an issue as it is just advisory but imagine if the car decided to overrule me and slow down to 5mph on a 40mph road.

I agree that the cameras are insufficiently reliable to be used for enforcement. But I would really like the ability to set a speed limiter / cruise control at the speed the car thinks the speed limit is (at the time I press the button).

roads don't make roads dangerous.

I disagree, well designed roads will mitigate the dangers of poor driving. Conversely poorly designed roads absolutely can be dangerous regardless of the care taken by drivers.

 

[The exile]

I agree that the cameras are insufficiently reliable to be used for enforcement. But I would really like the ability to set a speed limiter / cruise control at the speed the car thinks the speed limit is (at the time I press the button).

Given the number of times my car picks up the speed limit from the road parallel to (or under) the M-Way, this sounds like a recipe for chaos.

 

[35B]

I agree that the cameras are insufficiently reliable to be used for enforcement. But I would really like the ability to set a speed limiter / cruise control at the speed the car thinks the speed limit is (at the time I press the button).

My car (25 plate X-Trail) has adaptive cruise control, and it is very easy to set cruise control* for the speed of the road. The car also advises me if the speed changes**, and gives me the option to do a single click speed change. The issue is that, if the road is busy, the adaptive control doesn't respond brilliantly and it is often more pleasant to retain control.

* - I believe the speed limiter function responds identically, but I have never got on brilliantly with them, so don't use it.
** - this isn't always reliable, for example failing to distinguish between mandatory and advisory speed limits (and before anyone tells me, I know that advisory speed limits outside schools matter. Just not on a Saturday when the school is very visibly locked closed!).

 

[Tetchytyke]

Everyone always thinks that they're a good driver and it is just all the other bozos who are the bad drivers. And people will always justify their own bad habits to themselves: that person is driving far too slowly for the road and so giving them a gentle nudge along by tailgating is OK, or the road is clear and it is sunny so no harm in driving at 85mph instead of 70mph, or I was only looking at my phone for five seconds, or whatever.

I get properly wound up by the duffers in their Honda Jazz who drive everywhere at 37mph but they'll be sat there wondering why that oik is so desperate to overtake yet slows right down at the next village. Everyone is in their own little bubble, convinced that they're right. And everyone makes mistakes too.

My issue with driving legislation is that prosecutions and punishments are incredibly outcome dependant. Death by careless driving- a brief moment of inattention and you don't see the cyclist when pulling out of a side street- will see you absolutely clobbered in court. But if you are fortunate enough to avoid killing or injuring someone then even outrageously dangerous driving will see you get nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

That said, I genuinely don't think driving standards are any worse than before. The real issue is that there are way more people on the roads. People mention Covid: in 2019 there were 31m registered cars in the UK, but in 2024 there were 34m registered cars in the UK. So just since Covid the number of cars has gone up by 10%.

But I would really like the ability to set a speed limiter / cruise control at the speed the car thinks the speed limit is (at the time I press the button).

I think that would be a bad idea. My opinion is that it is safer for the driver to have to consciously set the limit rather than the car decide for itself.