UKH

It seems to me that more and more people, mostly in cars, are using up effectively two car widths in order to turn right at junctions. They turn a little left prior to actually turning right, rather than just having to turn the steering wheel more at the point of driving over the line, having lined up almost on the central line of the carriageway.

This means that fewer people are able to turn left alongside the person turning right, whilst the latter waits for a clearer road in both directions.

If these people had to drive a van, they would have to be more at right angles to the flow of traffic, in order to see more fully what was happening on the road which they will be joining.

Do you drive a van? 

Yes and a car.

Yes. I'm kind of with you on this. I even find some folk have to give a little swing left before turning right into a side street. Like they're in an articulated truck rather than a Fiat 500.

There's no pleasure in driving these days. The most important people on the road haul themselves round in massive 4x4s, they take up all the road, can't park, barge up at junctions and blot out your view and generally drive aggressively in narrow roads because they lack the ability to reverse.

If I was Minister for Transport, I'd ban 4x4s, unless you could demonstrate a robust valid reason for owning one. A family of four can get around very nicely in a Nissan Micra, with room for a picnic in the trunk.

Is the trunk strapped to the roof? I can’t see ya getting something as big as a trunk in the boot of a 500 but I guess it kinda depends on just how big your elephant is.

The most important people on the road haul themselves round in massive 4x4s, they take up all the road, can't park, barge up at junctions and blot out your view and generally drive aggressively in narrow roads because they lack the ability to reverse.

Someone would devise an exception for 4x4's in South Kensington, and Chelsea and Mayfair.

Don't stop at 4x4s, I'd bring in an annual driving test, empty the roads overnight (in a year's time) and invest in your local scrap merchant 

Hey! Another of those rare days. I sort of agree!!

Swinging right into the oncoming lane to turn left  (and nearly clipping oncoming traffic) is similar. Worse still is indicating one way and turning the other. Imagine being on a bike amongst such drivers. How do these people pass a test?  ... Maggot beat me to it.

Although why is it that small car drivers always are always the worst at parking in small spaces? I frequently see two small fiats taking up a gap that I could easily squeeze three transits into. 

Could be worse!  When we lived in Ireland we had one local driver who would always indicate left at a junction, when they were  wanting to turn Right!!!  They always preceded the turn by moving a little to the left before swinging around to the right, into the  road junction.  

They'd never taken a test either - they got their licence in one of the driver test amnesties. 

Not annual but I would bring in a 5 year retest. 

I would also limit the amount of re tests that you can do, 2 or even 3 goes at passing is fine, nerves on the day etc but if someone needs 6,7,8 goes to pass I'm sorry but you shouldn't be driving, it was luck on the day that got you through. 

Fail once, a month wait for a retest, fail twice a 3 month wait. Fail 3 or more times, a 1 year wait for a retest. On the 5 year everyone gets a retest plan I would give a 1 month grace period to allow some refresher lessons but carry on driving unless the fail was spectacular. 

Too many people see driving as a right not a privilege. 

I think it's because a lot of folk are too precious about scratching things these days. Wheels etc.

Bumpers are for bumping. I always like to buy a car with a dent already in it. It saves time. And a lot of anxiety 

The old Saab 900s had impressive bumpers. Literally you could bump into walls with no harm done, to the car that is.

Only problem with that kind of strategy would be the increase in unlicensed and hence uninsured drivers out there.

Incentive to reduce that would be if you are caught driving a car when unlicensed or uninsured then car is immediately confiscated and on conviction is scrapped regardless of age/value.

Actually might be better to compulsory sell any above certain value and below certain age (a form of recycling) with profits going towards detecting other unlicenced and uninsured.

I do see that from now and again. I remember my driving instructor many years ago being very clear that it was something not to do.

I also see people who turn right but don't do a 90 degree turn and cut across the traffic waiting to come out of the road they are turning into. Quite a few times I've had to brake while approaching a junction as someone cuts the corner.

Dave

In mitigation I'd like to point out that new cars are getting bigger every year, whereas roads are pretty much the same as they were last year. 

I blame Starsky and Hutch.

Well I'm doing my bit. I'm a Bikeability trainer teaching Yr5&6 students how to ride their bikes, on the road, according to the highway code. It is very scary at times. 

That is such a piss poor excuse, nobody forces people to buy bigger cars - unless you consider social conformity pressures are "forcing".

I agree. Pilots need to keep up a certain number of hours flight time to keep there licence. I have a family member who passed there test quite a while ago (they have one of the old licences where they can dive everything from a steam roller to a F1 car). They haven't driven since I was a child - so that's 20+ years. They are downright dangerous a a back seat driver / passenger as it is, but yet they are still allowed to go out tomorrow buy a car and hit the road - no questions asked. How is that remotely safe. 

As annoying as a retest every 5 years would be, I think it would be good to improve the standard of driving.

At work there are certain coursed we do, they normally take three days with a test day at the end. But once you have passed the course, next time you need to do it you can just do a one day refresh course. 

With driving I would do similar, every 5  (enter your number of choice) years you need to retake a fairly informal test. If you fail it or you go over the 5 year period you need to have some lessons / refresher course and pass a more rigorous test. 

If that is overkill, then I certainly think that as a bare minimum if you haven't driven for so many years (using insurance as evidence?) then you need to resit the test. My family member for example would be a danger to everyone on the road - not to mention the changes in roads / traffic laws since 1999.

A learner in a driving school car that was in front of me the other day performed a classic swing-right-to-turn-left manoeuvre.  At glacial speed.  And with no apparent comment from their instructor.

All the errors which people have pointed out in this thread - swinging left before turning right, swinging right before turning left, and cutting across the right-hand side of the joining road at the throat of a junction - come down to one thing IMO: people being too damn lazy to turn the bl00dy steering wheel just a few more degrees.   Which is ironic in a way, given that most modern cars have power steering of some kind or another.  OK, two things if you include being utterly incapable of grasping the concept of road positioning.  Or three things if you include lack of consideration for other road users.

No-one expects the Spanish Driving School Inquisition.

Isn't that the situation now?

Consumers don't have much of a choice about getting a car the same size as the last one TBH. A "Mini" now is the same width as the original Mondeo, A Fiat 500L is mahoosive compared to the original 500. A Range Rover is a similar size to a VW Transporter. A VW polo now is about the same size as the original golf, usw. 

Plus, if you passed your test in an Austin 7, a modern car is about the size of a charabanc.

I live in a rural area and I don't see many 4x4 drivers who can't reverse.  Out of necessity most of them can reverse considerably more competently than clueless townies in much smaller vehicles, whilst towing a trailer full of sheep.

And no-one needs to do a hook turn unless they do have a trailer or an artic.   

Nice touch correlating the language of your abbreviations to the nationality of the subject matter!

I only really do that in the opposite direction, swinging right before turning left, when putting my van on my driveway, because I need to get it through the rather narrow gate posts swinging around about 120 degrees, but I live on a *very* wide road (wide enough to be four lanes, but is only two.

Unless you drive in Melbourne 

I'd like an eyesight test every two years as well.

The number of people out there behind the wheel who are apparently blind is shocking.

As an example of how easy it is to have poor eyesight - When I passed my motorbike test I passed with 20:20 vision, by the time I took (and passed first time) my car test I required glasses, which I always wear 9even keep a spare pair permanently in the glove box just in case).

How many drivers out there that took their test in their youth with good eyesight are there who are now incapable of even seeing a car number plate at the requisite distance let alone reading it ?

(P.S. - My glasses worn when riding a bike are the "safety" version - to make sure nothing nasty happens if something gets thrown up when my visor is raised)

What's wrong with jail ?

An unlicensed driver is just as, if not more dangerous than a nutter walking around waving a knife or firearm.

I used to drive an Audi 100 Estate - Now that was a big car. Never once did I need to perform this dangerous left to go right (or vice versa) manoeuvre. Car size is irrelevant, they all have steering wheels, and nowadays power steering to boot.

I have a theory on that  - it's actually to block others cars from coming along side. I have a couple of junctions near me that, if you are trying to turn right, and traffic is alongside you waiting to turn left, your view of oncoming traffic from the left is completely blocked. So people may be doing it to keep their site lines open. As I say, just a theory. 

I do a lot of towing and am constantly surprised by the number of people that will try and come up the inside of you while you turn left into a narrow entrance. Signal left, move to the center line, slow down or stop, wait for the oncoming lane to be clear, move over right before a hard swing left and....oh, someone's trying to squeeze up the inside and is about to get squashed! 

Works for me, scrap the junkers, sell the nice stuff and for repete offenders it's some jail time. 

It's not overkill, a refresher every 5 years is fine but it needs to be everyone. 

Your insurance wouldn't work, I for example drive 1000 ish miles a week and don't have insurance. My van is part of a small fleet insured for anyone to drive but I don't have any named insurance except my motorbike insurance but that's sporadic and hasn't been on the road for 12 months. Best way is everyone with a licence. 

I like Fred99s eye test idea too, incorporate an eye test in to the 5 year test. 

This has been a bugbear of mine for a while now.  Drivers of small cars who think they  need to drive like they are in a HGV. Another version of this is when, instead of pulling into a right turn lane, they point the nose of the vehicle into it, straddling both lanes. 

We have a forklift driver at work. He's terrible. Everytime we have a forklift retest he scores higher than anyone else then goes back and is terrible again (I don't entirely disagree with the retest principle though)

And none of the above vehicles are big enough to justify 90% of the 'swing left to turn right' manoeuvres I regularly see.

Most of us have to renew our photo driving licence every ten years (more frequently for the elderly and there will be a few aged 40+ still on paper licences).

I would introduce a multichoice test going through all changes to the highway code, plus a few other 'basic' driving questions to try and ensure drivers are fully aware of the rules. Similar to what new drivers now do before passing their test.

You do currently self certify when renewing that you met the minimum eyesight requirements and that your general health is still sufficient to drive safely. But the basic 'can you read a numberplate' could be done at the same time test.

Or at the VERY LEAST when someone receives the paperwork to renew their licence, include a summary of changes to the highway code since we last renewed and a link to find full details.

Audi 100 is 4.7m long, fiat 500l is 4.4m

To the rest of the thread, I'm not excusing the whole swing left then right thing, just looking for possible reasons why it might happen

I never thought about that, I wrongly assumed that anyone who drives has insurance, but you are right - all our fleet vehicles at work are like that as well. It just so happens that I have my own car as well, but there will be people out there like yourselves that don't. 

With the driving licence it would be easiest to tie it in with the expiry date. i.e. if you have a in date licence, then you also have an in date driving test. Licence out of date - so is your test etc. 

Fred99s idea is good too, I like that. 

That is probably 1 of 2 things. 

1 he is actually good enough to pass but doesn't give a crap at work. 

2 the testing center bend over backwards not to fail anyone because it costs them money.

To expand on point 2, I attend loads of training courses for minor things like working in explosive environments or working in dangerous confined spaces. I have attended courses where everyone passes no matter how much help they need. One of my guys passed a confined space course that I was on but didn't have a clue, I questioned this with the instructor and was told passing was at his discretion and he thought the lad knew enough. I blew my top, my life could literally be in the hands of this lad who apparently was qualified. I now only use trainers who will fail people who should fail. 

The problem is companies don't want their guys to fail, one place I go to has lost hundreds of thousands of pounds per year because a customer took their buisiness elsewhere when they failed too many people on a Compex course (working in potentially explosive environments). I know the guys that were sent on that course and I wouldn't trust them to work in areas like that. 

Yep, it can be very scary indeed.  I did Bikeability training at my children’s school for a few years.  Most drivers were courteous and patient when they saw us out on the road but there were always one or two each session who would come steaming through at speed, apparently oblivious to the road signs, high viz volunteers, loads of kids on bikes etc.

And trying to get kids to look behind them before manoeuvring every single time!  

I've never had vehicle insurance or owned a vehicle, always just been a named driver on family policies. Similar for parents, Dad sold his car before they married so for almost 50 years has only had cover through Mums policy - one car household.

What I would love to see is that anyone who is banned for 6+ months (excl medical reasons) is required to retake their test from scratch. The logic being that if your driving is that bad to earn you a ban, clearly you need to relearn and be tested before you can be deemed safe.

Small cars often have terrible rear visibility. Many SUVs have larger windows or/and reversing cameras 

A lot of newer cars have very large wheels and as a result have a much tighter turning circle.

My lexus has a terrible turning circle so you have to swing out a bit on tight junctions.

Before the lexus I never paid any attention to turning circles when buying cars. I will in the future.

Yeah, I think a lot of people overestimate the turning circles of their cars. Nowadays even minibuses, which I drive once in a while and tend to be LWB Transits, can take quite quite tight turns without needing to swing.

I sort of agree but would substitute 'cars wider than 1.8m*' for 4x4's. There are some 4x4s that are sensibly sized. The problem I see is that cars are just getting too wide. Add that to the way some people can't seem to drive any nearer than 4ft from the verge and you've got a serious hazard coming towards you at speed.

*number chosen a bit randomly but I don't think it's far from a reasonable limit.

That's narrower than a Skoda Octavia which means half of UKC would be without a car.

I've done those sort of courses too. In this case the guy is genuinely excellent doing the course (I've done the course with him and I'm only just passing) At work I'm a safer driver.

I appreciate that car manufacturers do make their "replacements" bigger - "even more leg room" - well of course there is, you've made the car 5 inches longer - like doh! But I also find it quite ironic that the answer to the question is in your answer - A VW polo now is about the same size as the original golf

Similarly, I  drive fairly regularly but using hire vehicles: so no inurance in my name.

I'll refine my limit to 1829mm. Sorted 😁

I have to admit that I've never noticed this swinging right/left to turn left/right thing.

I don't think our loyal Octavia drivers will be happy with this limit. They probably want to keep their wing mirrors I suspect.

There are 40m driving licence holders in the U.K. Say we did the five year retest then that would be a 8m people per year taking them, on top of regular learners (assuming you could equitably space the retests out evenly). We’re talking tens of thousands of retests every day! Organising that would be a major bureaucratic challenge and I suspect the actual improvement in terms of accidents and injuries would be relatively small - you’d probably get far better value for money with a combination of more cameras, more police and more paramedics. 
 

Obviously as a driver I’d love such a scheme to take the idiots off the road, but I can’t see it ever happening. 

£85 for driving test (theory and practical), so not cheap for the driver either. 

Perhaps you have swung too far to the right 😊

Bigger vehicles tend to be easier to park because they have decent mirrors.

I don’t understand this thread. In a few years Google, or some other online platform, will be driving your car for you. All your collective mumps and moans will be sorted. No need for expensive retesting or policing.

Over my dead body

I'm nearly up to a Beatles song so the timing will probably be about right 😁

I've seen it very occasionally but not noticed any increase in frequency.  Perhaps it is... or perhaps this thread is a combo platter of confirmation bias and "old man shouting at clouds".

I saw it 4 times on the way home last night, and 3 more times on the way in to work this morning.

And the journey is 8.4 miles in each direction.

(Plus a Fiat 500 blocking one lane of a bypass that had its' Front completely caved with the accent on the RHS where it either rammed someone up the a$$ or tried to change lanes when someone was already there. I won't describe the driver as it was one of the usual suspects, and I've seen a car & driver answering this description being driven atrociously badly on many occasions before).

Do you have a large enough driveway to turn the van around, or are you ignoring rule 201 of the highway code?

Is that backing in and driving out? Good advice, I see loads of people chancing it by backing out onto the road. Also good for a quick getaway.

There wouldn't be 40 million licences if you had to retest. A lot of people who passed when they were young and don't drive now wouldn't bother. 

 Charge £100 for the retest, £20 per year for the privilege of driving seems good value to me and would pay for the extra capacity to carry out the tests. 

Rule 201

Do not reverse from a side road into a main road. When using a driveway, reverse in and drive out if you can.

The lack of must not, do not, should not etc. means that reversing onto a driveway is not a requirement under the Highway Code. It's a suggestion.

When My eldest was taking her lessons she did that when I was supervising once. When I told her off about it she told me the instructor had told to. That would have been around 17 years ago so it can only have got worse. 

Suggestions that, if ignored, may harm your defence in the event of an accident.

Good point but it’s still going to be millions of retests per year.

It probably would, but remember the extra workers to do these tasks have to come from somewhere, and there may well be more productive things they could be doing than fractionally decreasing road accident rates. And the money spent may well be spent more effectively elsewhere. The point is not “is this a good idea” (in theory it is) but “is this a good idea compared to the other things we could do”. In the later case I’m not so sure. 

With that number of tests and practicing it is certain that a considerable number of accidents would be generated during preparation, journey to and from and during the tests

I am ignoring the rule, because in this particular case it's exceedingly easy to reverse out with full visibility of everything, and the geometry of my drive does not suit reversing in. Once I finally remove the total PITA gate posts, reversing in will be preferable.

Edit: Technically I'm not ignoring it either, since the last three words of it are "if you can".

Edit 2: In all fact I can reverse from my drive into one of the kerbside parking spaces and drive out from there, the road is that wide.

Excellent scepticism! Didn't think of that

Obviously I don't know the layout of your driveway, but I've yet to drive a vehicle where it would be as easy to miss a small child running along the pavement or stepping out from behind a PITA gatepost when sat at the front of the vehicle looking forwards through a windscreen, as it would be from the other end of the vehicle looking over your shoulder through a smaller rear windscreen or using mirrors.... There's a reason we do most of our driving forwards.

You might well be the exception - most people I see doing it have no good reason not to reverse in as far as I can see.

Assume you'd be crossing the path of pedestrians to do so?

I'm also unsure what this swinging manoeuvre is that folk are talking about but I do have very vague memories of being told to move left a bit tiny before moving into the right lane on a dual carriageway - is this the same or something else? Would have been about 12 years ago or so. 

People cutting across my lane to turn into my road happens all the time, though, to the extent that on several roads I'm basically waiting to get hit when I approach a junction.  

Fwiw, personally I'm all in favour of actually having the infrastructure so that it's possible for me to live a life without needing to drive everywhere. It is insane that I live in a city, not far from the centre, and yet even to get to the climbing wall it's not really practical without a car... And when I want to visit my family, eg last weekend when my car was snowed in, it's about a hundred quid by train to go home for the weekend, for what's less than a 3 hour drive each way. Until we provide workable options to not drive, I am sure bad driving will continue.

No, you only have to do that when riding a bike.

it's about a hundred quid by train to go home for the weekend, for what's less than a 3 hour drive each way. Until we provide workable options to not drive, I am sure bad driving will continue.

So you're heading home about 150 miles away?

If you were claiming for travel by car, then that would be approx £70 each way, or ~£140 total. The travel cost for using a car is based on the overall cost of owning a car including insurance, depreciation etc, but is a real outlay. So the train travel does not look bad in the light of this. It is slightly cheaper than the above, but you don't have quite the flexibility at the other end. Nevertheless, you can relax and do other things whilst travelling on the train.

The 44p per mile isn't the additional cost of an additional journey. It's priced so employers don't benefit from fixed costs that their employees are paying.

So if you own a car, you're it saving 44p per mile by choosing to get the train when you can.

This is evident by the reduced mile claim amount to about 12p over 10,000 miles (from memory)

Nah, you bring in a law limiting the maximum width of passenger vehicles to at least 0.5m less, plus weight has to be below 1200kg.

I do have a reversing camera, and reversing parking sensors, and mirrors, so missing a small child running over the pavement is about as easy as when driving forward: You do it by going slowly.

The driveway is uphill, sort, and narrow, you have to use it to get in front of the house instead. The pivot point when reversing makes it very awkward to swing it in front of the house, because it results in the front swinging into the fence. It's not laziness, I reverse cars in, and I've reversed into every other driveway I've ever had and into all parking spaces.

I don't know why people think 4x4 are so big. My Range Rover is only 5cm wider than a Skoda Octavia, or 3cm wider than a Ford Mondeo. What's funny is a Ford Mondeo is actually longer than my 4x4 so arguably takes up more space on the road.

Yet nobody bats an eye at a Mondeo or Octavia because? You tell me.

What makes a car big, is how big it is. Not how many driving wheels it has.

Speed is really the most important factor. My drive way is quite blind due to hedges. If I left the drive by driving forward quickly it would be easy to have an accident as I don't have the visibility around the hedge.

If going slowly, I don't see how forwards or backwards makes any difference. Even if driving forwards, my front end will be across the pavement before I can see, so you have to creep out slowly anyway. I can look side to side, just as well going backwards as going forwards.

I'd love to see them scrapping road tax, but increasing duty on fuel. That way the fixed costs of car ownership would be reduced, but those who drive inefficiently or inefficient vehicles and high mileage drivers would pay more.

Once I've paid to have a car on the road, the cost of fuel per journey (which is what I look at when deciding how to travel) is almost always less than the cost of public transport.

We saw last year that rising fuel costs encouraged car sharing and better journey planning.

It would also be one less thing for our overstretched police to try and keep track of when ANPRing for vehicles that shouldn't be in the road (obviously keep MOT and insurance).

In this case we're talking about a driver moving slightly right just before turning left into a side street. It will give the vehicle a greater arc to follow which is useful if you're driving an Artic but pretty pointless for the majority of small car drivers - My landrover has the turning circle of a football field and I've never seen the need to swing right. I can see it allowing drivers to carry greater speed into the turn which is in itself pretty dangerous. 

I don't think it will make any difference. Fuel is already 50% tax and is the biggest tax cost for road users by far. These figures are a bit old now, but should give an idea of the revenue breakdown that the government receive from what is the £48B car user cash cow. 

• Car tax - 11%
• Fuel Tax (VAT + duty) - 66%
• Car sales VAT - 15%
• The rest being general tax (no idea what this is), tolls, congestion charges, insurance tax etc.

Moving the 11% car tax to the fuel tax won't change things very much. 

I think this is the main reason.

Another, is it does give you better visibility into what you are turning into, especially if there is street furniture in the way, but the the benefits are small.

Since your Landy doesn't like corners, you'll be doing the turn slowly anyway so no need to swing out.

This idea would mean that the well off (with EV's and home charging) would pay absolutely nothing, and those with cheaper (or rented) housing (especially those who can't afford EV's) would pay the lot. Sound more like a Tory Policy.

Don't EVs pay zero road tax anyway? 

As so some petrol/diesel cars.

Apart from vehicles over 40 years of age - which do almost zero mileage anyway - I thought all vehicles had to be paid for currently.

It's not something that should be continued, if only because of the inequality that it involves when the rich are the ones who get away without paying and it's the poor(er) who have to shell out.

I agree that you should drive slowly when crossing a pavement regardless of the direction.

The difference when reversing out of a blind driveway is that everything from your rear end to your B pillar will be protruding before you can see. Obviously I don't know how blind your driveway is and maybe you can see something when reversing, but I don't agree with your statement that it doesn't make any difference (in general, not for your specific driveway).

My point was that this (if what I'm describing is the same thing - I'm not sure it is) is something that at least used to be mentioned by instructors. 

You're also not factoring in the time costs of turning a sub-3hr journey into a 5hr+ - which makes travelling on a Friday after work a no go and therefore actually takes up another half a day; the additional impracticalities (limited luggage etc); accessibility; or just the unpleasantness of having to wait 20 min+ in the town centre late at night, hyper alert to the loud drunks and risk of other abuse around you, for the connecting bus home to deign to turn up. 

I'm not arguing against using public transport. I'm saying that the network as currently stands is not workable to perform ordinary functions.

EVs are currently exempt from VED, but that is changing from April 25 when all will need to pay (some exemption for disability will remain).

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/introduction-of-vehicle-excise-d...

In most vehicles the driver's seat is significantly nearer the front of the vehicle than the back of it. By leaning forwards in the seat you can normally position your head close to the windscreen.

This normally means you can widen your field of view much earlier going forwards than backwards when coming out of an entrance with restricted view.

What on earth are you driving?

Yeah, I got that impression, sorry I genuinely meant that you were the exception, maybe didn't come across that way.

Some semi autonomous cars already have sensors at the rear that will detect and stop the car if any cross traffic is nearby (including at 90°) and this includes pedestrians. These sensors are not normally at the front yet as far as I know though so the driver would have to be further out of a blind driveway going forward to notice pedestrians.

The braking as a result of cross traffic sensors is instant and emergency full braking to a stop until the “obstruction” has passed.

Public transport is quite hypothetical in our village

"My drive way is quite blind due to hedges".

May I ask a simple question - If the hedges obscure your view when leaving your driveway, why don't you alter the situation ?

i.e.

(A) Trim the hedge if it's yours.

(B) Ask the neighbour to do so if it's theirs.

(C) Arrange for some sort of mirror on the opposite side of the road to aid the safety of your egress. (I've seen enough of them in the countryside around where I live, so they must be available to purchase).

Because by driving slowly and inching out there isn't an issue.

Major contributing factors are:

Tone of government and media comms overly affecting the internal narratives of more sensitive people

Safety standards in cars affecting visibility

Volume of cars on road

Lockdown - it will take quite a while to fully adjust and regain the confidence they did have

and finally there are just more crap drivers around!