Jon wrote:
I confess, yes, I used my horn again tonight. I was coming off the M25 at Heathrow to join the M4. The car exiting in front of me got slower... and slower.... and ... STOPPED COMPLETELY!!! He'd clearly decided he'd chosen the wrong exit. He totally stopped in the middle of a major exit from the M25, and once I'd passed him, in my mirror I saw him drive across oncoming traffic to the hard shoulder. I presume his next trick was going to be to reverse along the hard shoulder and carry out a death-defying manoeuvre to get back on the M25.
Later, as I joined the A40 at Northolt to head in to London, I patiently let a people carrier which was in the wrong lane come in front of me, then as we both joined the A40 he, for no reason at all, went straight across to the middle lane causing a car coming down the middle lane to brake hard (he tooted and put his lights on full beam).
My own suspicion is that many of the people responsible for the mind blowingly awful driving that's an increasing feature of British roads have not passed a UK driving test.
I think a good many driving incidents around Heathrow can be attributed to folk coming straight off a long haul flight jet lagged, and jumping straight into a hire car. This is a subject which often crops up on TripAdvisor. I and many other posters there will always strongly discourage it, but the advice often falls on deaf ears.
I agree though, I'm convinced there are an increasing number of people who have never legally taken let alone passed a UK driving test, despite the fact the law requires them to.