SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the youtube-dashcam-accidents-guaranteed-for-years-to-com dept.
Sunday Times Driving reports under 50% of surveyed UK drivers know what a roundabout sign looks like, and only 68% knew what the speed bump sign means.
The survey was conducted by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, with 1,000 participants.
Only 32% of drivers knew you should allow at least a two-second time gap to the vehicle ahead when driving on a dry open road. It appears many motorists are conflating this with two car lengths in distance, as 53% of those surveyed responded with that answer.
[...] Younger motorists were the most likely to answer incorrectly, with 17 to 39 year-olds having the lowest correct answer percentage rates in 14 of the 23 questions, but older drivers didn't do very well either.
The Sunday Times article has an embedded googleforms survey, so you can test your knowledge of UK road rules.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday October 22 2018, @10:59AM (1 child)
I just tried the test, and have no quibbles with most of the answers I got wrong, but I would say one of the quiz questions is incorrect:
You can park on the right-hand side of a road at night:
1 in a one-way street
2 with your sidelights on
3 more than 10 metres (32 feet) from a junction
4 under a lamp-post
It claims the correct answer is (1). However, the answer is (3), because the question does not state in which direction your car is facing (with or against traffic flow). (3) applies at all times (day and night), whereas you can park either side of a road at night, so long as your car is facing in the same direction as the traffic flows on that side of the road.
Also the sign which is named 'T-junction with priority over vehicles from the right' is a misnomer. If you examine the painted road markings, there are no solid or dashed lines across the carriageway when you are on the priority route, which means that from your point of view it is not a T-junction. It is actually 'just' a junction where a minor road joins a major road on a (very) sharp bend - there also exists a separate sign for a junction on a less sharp bend as well. The geometry of the road layout might make it look like a 'T'-junction, but the road markings (not the signage) are unambiguous in showing that it is not a 'T'-junction from the point of view of the driver who sees this sign. It's actually quite a dangerous road-layout, as many drivers will exit the minor road onto the major road without looking. You could argue the sign is warning you about this - but then it really ought to be called 'Warning - possibility of inattentive drivers coming from the right'.
The answer I did not know was the not driving in the right-hand lane of a motorway with a small trailer. My excuse is that I don't drive with a trailer, and if I did, I would have read up on the applicable restrictions. I've certainly seen that rule broken often. But, as they say, ignorance of the law is no defence.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday October 22 2018, @12:29PM
I think the question makes the reasonable assumption that "right-hand side" means your right when you are driving forwards on the traditional side of the road.
Of course the realistic answer is "if in doubt, don't" - because you don't make good drivers by trying to get people to memorise all the possible mistakes they could make for a one-off multiple choice test. Plenty of stupid, dangerous places to park that aren't listed in the code, loads of situations in which driving at 2mph below the posted speed limit is dangerous... Memorising lots of simplistic rules leads to the illusion that, if there isn't a rule against it, it must be OK.
If a large percentage of people can't remember the pages and pages of the Highway Code then the solution is to make the Highway Code fit on one sheet of paper. There's probably half-a-dozen road signs that you really, really need to know as long as you treat everything else as "red triangle with exclamation mark".
Well, that's if we're talking about a world in which the vast majority of adults are expected to drive cars - rather than one in which only professional drivers with a level of training higher than airline pilots (because there's more things to hit on a road than at 30,000 feet) are allowed to take charge of a ton of metal hurtling along at 70mph.