An epidemic of insanely slow drivers

[LennyM1984]

I know this is a pointless rant but I am beginning to feel as though I am the only sane person to drive on the roads in Oxfordshire and wanted to see if I was alone in this observation.

In the good old days (I'm 39) most people would drive at a sensible speed. Every now and again you would meet a little old lady driving at 40mph but in general that was the exception rather than the norm. Fast forward to today and the norm is for me to be stuck behind people (of all ages, sex, race, and weight... before anybody tries to go there) doing 30mph in a well sighted 50 or 60. The speed is often dangerously slow and will result in a queue of cars/lorries bumper to tail crawling along (some of the roads are busy enough - like the A40 - to make overtaking opportunities low).

Some of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are parents at the school where my kids go. They seem like normal people and yet the speeds at which they are driving would imply that they are incapable of rational decision making and/or being in control of a vehicle. Even white van man these days is likely to be doing 35 in a 60 - these guys used to be the fastest human beings on earth and yet here we are today with articulated lorries trying to overtake them.

So what the hell is going on with people??? Am I alone in wanting to get where I am going???

[For context, I do not drive fast on public roads - I have a race license for that - and am not expecting others to break the speed limit or drive beyond a safe speed for the conditions. What I am objecting to is the dangerously slow speed at which almost everybody now wants to try and traverse the roads]

[LennyM1984]

K4sper said:

What about the epidemic of "is it just me, or having driving standards got worse??" threads that pop up on PH every other day??

Very fair

[LennyM1984]

Mr Tidy said:

I think it is a cultural thing depending on where you grew up.

I got a job in 1998 in Victoria Street, SW1 and had a work colleague from Frankfurt who would only cross when the green light was on while us Brits just found a gap and went for it!

She said doing that in Germany you'd get prosecuted for jay-walking.

When we lived in Germany, an old lady called me an ahole for crossing on a red man on a totally deserted fairly residential street in a well-to-do part of town. I didn't do it in front of kids as my colleagues pointed out - quite rightly - that it set a bad example and they may try to do the same without being able to judge the traffic