Why aren't there more road accidents?

add to that the amount of foreigners on the road bringing their dangerous style to
the UK roads + women driving in the full face veil + aggressive potential road rage drivers,
etc etc......surly a recipe for disaster - welcome to  Britain 2016

There probably already are more road accidents but minor ones, mainly thanks to better brakes.

I see maybe 2 or 3 minor dings a month at the roundabout at the top of the road, and I'm only there maybe half an hour a night.

You're right Ramruma, great improvement in the automobile have made it much easier
for certain types to drive - ie women - go back 30 + years & it wasn't a rare sight to
see a woman kangarooing up the road.

Now days these cars are so simple to drive a child could be taught in minimal time

Now days these cars are so simple to drive a child could be taught in minimal time

And they are.

A lot of the dings I see involve young drivers with their mates in the back. New licence, new car, distracted by conversation perhaps, and driving just a bit too fast to react when they encounter a busy roundabout with lots of lanes converging and confusingly staggered traffic lights.

They are probably also encountering darkness, rain (and in a few months, fog and ice) for the first time.

Controlling the car is the easy bit -- it is anticipation and reaction that come with experience. In days of yore, cars were harder to drive but there was generally a lot more space on the roads and time to react. When I am appointed minister of transport, I shall make it illegal to turn on a car radio in the first six months of driving.

Ramruma why do you spend half an hour a night at your local roundabout? Collecting car numbers?

Maybe the majority of sensible drivers have just become better at avoiding the loons. There's a one-way street near me and it's a regular occurrence to see people travelling in the middle lane turn left into a side road. And they just indicate and turn as though it were a completely normal thing to do but I've yet to hear about an accident happening because of it.

Also a local side street may only be exited from at one end which apparently leads some people to believe it's one-way. That causes fun sometimes but again no accidents as far as I know.

Surprised drivers have much idea of what is happening on the road anyway, as their eyes seem glued to their mobile phones.

I'm not long back from a racing holiday in England ,I spent most of my days getting to and from the tracks ,and I can tell you it was scary driving the motorways . Mad speed been done , I was breaking the speed limit myself doind 80mph when along come a electric car and passed me as if I was standing still. Cars coming onto motorways never give way, they just fly along and hope they miss you . I was glad to get home in one piece , how so many drivers still have a licence is beyond me , I was talking to a lad who drives a merc , telling him about  how surprised I was at the speed of drivers , his wife told me she recently had to tell him to slow down , he said when he looked at the speed he was doing he was astonished 120mph .

they just fly along and hope they miss you

I think that just about sums that style of driver up workrider

@workrider -- his wife told me she recently had to tell him to slow down , he said when he looked at the speed he was doing he was astonished 120mph .

Modern cars don't give the external cues to speed they used to in the shape of engine noise, road noise and vibration. Especially on empty motorways, you can't even tell from passing scenery.

Mind you, I heard a phone-in once with an aggrieved caller who'd been done for speeding even though it was perfectly safe on a clear motorway and he was fully in control. So in control and aware of his surroundings that he'd not noticed a police car with blue flashing lights coming up behind him.

25% of road accidents are caused by drunk drivers.

Therefore, 75% are caused by sober drivers.

The old saying speed kills rings true, anyone having to drive on British motorways need their wits about them at all times...

My current bugbear is people who don't know the rules at roundabouts. the amount of people nowadays who don't seem to know that you are supposed to give way to traffic coming from your right, is frightening. If you come round in the right hand lane, signalling to turn off at the next exit, you get a lot of idiots that still think it is OK to pull out in front of you as long as they are in the inside lane.

My thoughts exactly Des, unreal the amount of times I was cut up on roundabouts , thought it was just me...

Coming through Reading today in a single lane road. As I was coming up to a red set of traffic lights some idiot swerved right in front of me from the wrong lane and then proceeded to drive straight through the red light without noticing!

This is a really busy junction and how he never got hit I will never know.

Hate to say it but he was asian and had a young boy in the front passenger seat with him. I was then behind him for about 4 miles and he didn't stop talking to his son and paid little to no attention as to what was in front of him. The driver never noticed the red light whatsoever and seemed shocked as I beeped him.