Viewers Mistakes #3 | You're having a giraffe 

Giraffes are actually quite good drivers, calm and able to see quite a long way ahead. It’s the baboons that struggle to get insured.

@@highdownmartin 😂 Judging by some of the dashcam footage I have seen, there is still some serious monkeying about on our roads though! P.S. Giraffes drive better with sun roofs.

Agreed I couldn't do it

Second that

You mean the people, who don't look, drive to fast, are too impatient, don't really care etc etc blah blah.. 🙄

@@leedorney you mean people that make mistakes oh righteous one

@@gingernutpreacher Just pointing out the obvious, that doesn't make me righteous..

Thanks for sending it in, it takes courage to do that

If you don’t know Sheffield or haven’t driven it before, it can be a bit of a tricky junction because of the number of lanes. It’s also usually quite busy there.

I have started making a policy of avoiding being alongside people in situations like that, as added insurance against mistakes like that - on either party's part. as Ashley says, it makes it a non-event.

Out of interest, why would you think your lane went into that second lane? The road markings seem clear to me that your lane went into lane 1 and presumably the markings before the lights explained both lanes at the lights could go to the a61. Genuinely curious, as I'm not trying to blame, but interested in understanding where this confusion arises from as I see it regularly. Or was this actually a case of you just intending to change lanes due to more traffic in lane 1 but mistakenly failing to check your blind spot?

@@andyuk2010 before the junction, one lane has a left and straight arrow, the other lane has a straight arrow. The junction also has a right turn when the lanes split, however this is not marked on the roads. This sort of confused me and before I knew it, I drifted into lane 2 (made much worse by the lighting) and the rest is history. Just glad I didn't hit a more vulnerable road user.

when I was young, a man who'd stayed up all night gambling, chose to gamble on the road, and wrecked me, came just seconds from seriously injuring either me or the people in the car behind me. one second earlier and he would have hit me head on, 3 seconds later, and he wouldn't have been off the road before hitting the car behind me.

As EV become the standard, we will probably adapt our driving to anticipate decent length stops to factor in a battery charge. Hopefully this results in safer motorists.

@@pifko87 you are talking about rest stops. at first glance, I thought you were talking about braking distance.

I recall a journey back in the early noughties. I had been working in Canterbury and we got a finish on the Thursday at midday. The option to stay in digs Thursday night and start the home journey the next day was not the favoured one. My plan was to get to Scotch Corner by 10 pm, park up and have an hour's rest/sleep and then continue to Fife [Scotland]. The arrival by 10pm went well. The sleep did not. Setting off northwards entailed the realisation that I needed to stop and so I used a layby on the Coldstream Road [A697] for half an hour's sleep. Setting off again I needed to rest again and repeat and repeat and ended my journey just outside Dalkeith where I awoke at 6 am. The roads around Ednburgh on a Friday morning especially the bypass are somewhat busy so I rested some more finally arriving in Fife at 10 am. In hindsight it was not the wisest journey to make at that time, BUT the desire to get home a day early was the driver. My only perceived risk was to be attacked whilst asleep, a risk circumstances and my choices caused.

Cycling too I have found. Carb stores run out in 2 hours and need to keep replenishing them.

Some of them think it's the pedestrian's fault when they were literally walking.

Sleep quality and duration is also a big factor - my work shifts at one point meant I was going days on end of only 4-5 hours of broken sleep, broken sleep especially seems bad for short term memory and concentration - I was finding I'd have patches while driving where I was really struggling to process what was going on around me or completely blanking some things.

I made a mistake once in the early 2000s doing a long 120 mile commute back home for the weekend. I look back in horror at what my former self let happen. Thankfully no accident. Coffee certainly helps BTW - I could have done with some then.

That's right. You are learning forever now. Everyday something new.

Should be common sense but here we are

@@hausmaster9801 there will be people in nearly every comment thread swearing up and down that blind spots are a fib and the driver is just too lazy to turn his head. the fact is metal is not transparent, and mirrors are subject to angle of incidence = angle of reflection.

@@kenbrown2808 And then you have the drivers that put their Sat Nav in the windscreen just above steering wheel height, mobile phone cradle just to the left below the mirror and then hang some sort of sparkling ornament from the mirror woth the seat moved forward so there is no window visible between the hanging ornament and nearside A pillar creating a viewing “square” slightly smaller than where thier eyes are looking straight in front. Then act all surprised when something other than the road 2 meters in front suddenly appear in front of them 🤦‍♂️ I keep everything clear and try my hardest to have the best adjustment on the mirrors but even then not everything is visible. I also refrain from being in a blind spot even in stationary traffic…you never know if the van or lorry will need to move for emergency vehicles

@@smilerbob unless I am overtaking, i make a conscious effort to not be directly alongside anyone. considering that safe following distances are defined in multiples of car lengths, it's easy to do. and yet on the trip I had to make yesterday, there was a large number of people on the freeway (motorway) that would come up alongside and match speed, in some cases while I was trying to merge over after two freeways joined.

@@kenbrown2808 I know the type very well, they don’t want you in front of them or behind them as they slow their speed to match as you try to move in behind for the merge

Driving when feeling ill or stressed/pre-occuppied can fall into that category too.

Like the Selby train crash when a Range Rover driver fell asleep, ended up on the railway track, causing a collision between two trains. 10 died, 80 seriously injured.

A friend of mine totalled her car, almost killing herself. A two hour trip heading home, and then she fell asleep with only two miles left.

Happens a lot with lorry drivers

I once left a site following a late night emergency call out. The last thing I could remember was leaving the site, not the 2 miles to joining an "A road" single carriageway for another 2 miles, leaving that for another drive on country roads until I was approaching another village. Then it dawned on me I had done the last 6 miles or so on autopilot. Found somewhere to park up for an hour and got my head down for a bit had a coffee and then headed home when I was alert. Drove back with the driver side window open a bit. I was only 20 mins from home when I stopped and added an hour to my journey. It was literally a wake up call I haven't repeated for the nearly 10 years now. It can creep up on you.

'A' pillar blindspots need to be highlighted far more. I've lost entire cars in them, so the most vulnerable are easily rendered invisible. In this case, I don't mind being a bobble-head.

Not sure I entirely agree with respect to the 0:40 clip. The pedestrian is clearly either on or very close to the road for a full three seconds in an area that is highly likely to have pedestrian hazards. Even accepting the driver view is different to the dash cam view, that to me is not a blind spot issue. It’s a driver attentiveness issue.

@@David-sw2fn Well, it's more of an idiot pedestrian running out in front of a moving vehicle issue.

@@David-sw2fn Agree 100%

@@PedroConejo1939 Especially since 'A' pillars have become significantly wider than they used to be (for good reason). I've driven a few cars with aftermarket wind deflectors. Although they are transparent, their shape means that they distort the view, and effectively widen the 'A' pillar so far as visibility is concerned.

I wish... many of the light jumpers that Ashley shows seem to have no regard for anything - just continuing to go through regardless.

You see these red light jumps quite often in roundabouts where the lights are angled in such a way that you see the wrong signal, or you focus on the ones 20 yards up instead of your own ones. I find looking around at all the signals and lights gives a good indication of which ones are controlling which section of road but an easyish mistake to make for those distracted by other things like looking for where they need to be if they are in an unfamiliar area…but to balance the argument they should also be height awareness of everything as well being in an unfamiliar area

I guess the point I was making was that if you have someone who is knowingly jumping a red light on purpose then you would hope they are least having the common decency to look for other cars coming who have priority

@@djwwautodiagnostics Apologies, my comment was meant to be a standalone comment and not part of this conversation. The YT app likes to reply rather than create a new comment sometimes

​@@smilerbob Did this myself where my exit has a pedestrian crossing and I reacted to those lights rather than the lights for the roundabout

... and their cycling, and their crossing the road. : -)

alternative viewpoint: they haven't forgotten you are there, they just don't care.

Brilliant comment mucker.

Or motorbike 😆

Getting crushed is not an advantage tho

Have you been in a taxi when they do an overtake like that while looking at their next pick up details on the phone? I’m not religious but I was praying that day…

@@smilerbob no but that sounds terrifying

On my lesson one time i had a sprinter van overtake on a 60mph road and nearly head on crash with a lorry.

Yep, nearest for me was driving down a motorway after I pulled an all nighter marshaling at a Special Stage for a rally in the wee small hours. The monotony of an empty motorway had me struggling. Thankfully being aware of the danger and taking counter measures kept me OK, but definitely the safest thing to do is pull over at a stopping place and get some kip. If you can't get a decent sleep, the advice I have read is to drink a coffee and then have at least a 20 minute nap before the coffee kicks in.

I've had the same myself. 3am in rural Wales. Thankfully the road was straight and totally empty. I suddenly had the realisation that I had no recollection of the previous hundred yards of driving. It shook me! I pulled over, opened the window, let the fresh air in, then calmed down. I had half an hour left to get to my destination. Cold air ventilation, radio on, forcing myself to sing along with whatever rubbish Radio 2 was playing at that point, doing extra checking, commentating on what was happening. I got to my destination safely but swore I'd never ever get into that state again.

Sheffield is a nightmare to drive in because of all these types of junctions. You need to be in the correct lane 3 junctions ago to be able to get to where you want to be and as an outsider it's impossible to know. And the people will not let you in once you've realised your in the wrong lane. You have to be aggressive and force your way in which isn't something I'm prepared to do. I prefer to take the train/tram when I need to go into Sheff, it's less stress.

@@J1mston the tram is good, but the lack of park and ride facilities is annoying. There are a few, but not enough, and not where they need to be.

I thought it looked familiar 😂

There us few. But on this one I disagree. Cammer should have taken left lane no argument about it.

@@Speedkam Oh I don't disagree, the cammer got it wrong. The fun one is on St Mary's Gate, just before the London Road junction. I'm ALWAYS on guard for people cutting there when the 1st lane splits....

7 miles on the motorway is less than 10 minutes...I don't think it's normal to suddenly become very sleepy in that amount of time. I keep some cigars in my car which are good for a boost when your tired, and also for making traffic jams less annoying.

I did make a point of Ashley driving while tired in a previous video but admitted I had kept going myself when tired or drowsy. Not so bad in town when there are so many distractions to keep one focused, but when I was on M6 in early hours, years ago , I fully intended to go off at the next service station., but it shows how when you're in that state, you don't realise how much you keep drifting, so much so, I got stopped by the police on to the hard shoulder to give me advice indeed to do so.

I'm not sure that's correct. Surely you can pull over and use one of the emergency phones? Sudden tiredness can come from things other than a need for sleep. For example, it can be a warning sign of dehydration or a UTI.

On a motorway you are perfectly entitled to pull over on to the hard shoulder, exit the vehicle & use the emergency phone if you experience severe unexpected tiredness that affects your ability to continue safely.

@@johnny2hats329 Sudden tiredness can hit and hit hard. My comment on this video sort of highlights this where I had finished a nightshift, didn’t feel tired but still had a coffee and sugar before heading home. A short while into the journey the tiredness hit and hit dangerously. The scare I gave myself put adrenaline into the body which enabled me to get to the services a short distance up the road but somewhere like M26, once past the Wrotham exit going west is ~14 miles and 15 minutes under normal traffic. Rush hour you are looking at 30-40 minutes. I do not condone smoking as a way of waking yourself up especially when you are inhaling CO and CO2. I suppose opening the window is the real benefit of that process Edit: I have removed my incorrect comment about tiredness being an emergency, apparently it is not. However my personal view stands that I would rather inconvenience the Highways Ageny for a few minutes than potentially kill someone

Yea stupid pedestrian, blind driver lol

When I was first learning how to drive, I missed a pedestrian who was blocked by the car frame at a zebra crossing. Fortunately I had my instructor with me who applied the brake. This reminds me of that, I make sure now and properly check. It was a good learning experience.

Yes they did. 97% of driving is fixing someone else's mistake. 3% is hoping your mistakes don't end badly.

The clue is the bus.

@@PedroConejo1939 The pedestrian was a frikkng idiot though.

Same.

Thought it looked familiar! Surprise View is absolutely stunning looking out over Otley

@@RichO1701e It's lovely. Always nice to see places you've lived featured on youtube

Your employer really should be paying for hotels if you're expected to do that. A lit of employers have maximum working hours (including driving) to prevent that exact situation

@@georgelane6350 I am my employer, its my business. Other than goods transport companies I don't know of any employer that has maximum driving hours and besides 400 miles round trip is only 8hrs driving that is typical of HGV tachograph requirements. Maximum working hours simply don't exist in British commerce irrespective of what the EU used to say. Most 'white collar' employees don't even get overtime payments except if you work in the public sector. When your running a business, downtime is an expensive and time consuming issue that can be ill-afforded. Besides, I have never found hotel accommodation to be restful and the following day I am as tired as I was before I went to bed. Most of the issues revolve around the road conditions that are encountered and I have been perfectly alert after a 200 mile trip during free flowing traffic but at times the traffic conditions have been such as to drain any reserves. Try driving 100 miles from Kent to Midlands using M25 past Heathrow, when for 30miles it has been intensely crowded and then to encounter the same on the stretch from Luton to Northampton, on a clear day its a doddle, on a congested day its exhausting.

​@@clivewilliams3661 admittedly, many of the companies that I was thinking of are in engineering services. My previous employer enforced a maximum 10 hour policy where you could not drive once you had worked for 10 hours (including driving). They did this to remove liability, i.e. if their staff are involved in a crash while driving fatigued, then the company is liable for injury to the staff or others. If you run your own company, then you should consider your liability in that event.

@@georgelane6350 When you run your own business then there are pressures that overwhelm and consume everything and time is precious, not least because you have to ensure that those that work for you have a job. . My wife's employer moved their operation to Scotland in the early part of the pandemic and she was allowed to work from home in Leicestershire initi9ally on the basis that she visit the Edinburgh office once a month. they6 would pay one overnight stay Fortunately, lockdowns showed there was no need for the journey. Whichever way you look at the itinerary its a 3 day journey, at least 6-7 hours driving plus rest periods each way and a full day of meetings, one night stop over was not enough especially as she hates driving and tires easily, but that is all they were going to pay for. Train and Plane travel is no better. The further you go up the scale the less observing maximum work periods matter.

@@clivewilliams3661 it's interesting to hear that perspective. My experience has actually been the opposite! I see white collar employers generally having a lot more respect for health and safety with regards to long drives and that the respect increases as you move up the pyramid.

A lack of situational awareness.

Also it’s not the viewers mistake the pedestrian walked into the road when there was no crossing

"I struggle to see many benefits of being close to a vehicle in front" you get to your destination quicker obviously! * for anyone who struggles with sarcasm, this is clearly not true, as you're limited by the speed of the vehicle in front regardless of whether you are 10cm behind or 10m behind. There are no benefits of tailgating, the only reasons to do so are a) stupidity, or b) to intimidate the driver in front into going faster.

Yep it's painful to watch people bumper-humping as an overtake starting position. Even ignoring the danger of rear-ending the vehicle if it brakes suddenly and considerations of road hazards like potholes, it's just plain worse for the overtake itself. They've got no view of the road ahead, then when there is a gap they pull out and then have to accelerate. Further back and they'd have seen the gap sooner with the better view and can have started accelerating to complete the overtake quicker and time to indicate appropriately. Along the way this is also letting those behind see that they're doing it, both through speed change and indication. Hovering hard against the back of a big vehicle you won't know you can overtake pretty much until you start doing it so inevitably your indicators are late and you're really likely to surprise those behind you.

In this case, the cyclist briefly stopped and put their foot on the ground with a red man showing (as you would expect), then unexpectedly decided to cross the moving traffic from behind the A pillar. A bit of a perfect storm!

I've been caught out by the _next_ set of lights turning green. Fortunately, I caught it before I crossed the line, but it's a devil if you're not familiar with the roads.

In this clip, no lights went green, though? In fact, more of them went red than at the start - I don’t understand why they started driving?

@@crystaledwards8854 The car to the right pulled up and moved further down the road than they were. I think they saw the movement in peripheral vision and translated it to "the lights must have just gone green". Combined with a lack of direct attention on the lights, they just made a mistake that was thankfully harmless.

It's best to always assess risk for yourself and move when you know it's safe; never because another road user (a complete stranger!) tells you to.

@@izzard 100%

I like that.

There are two sets of markings contradicting each other. This is criminally bad.

I'd recommend looking at it on Google maps; it's a junction on the A4232 in Cardiff Bay. Traveling southbound on the A4055 there are 3 lanes entering the roundabout. The first lane accesses both the 2 lanes of the slip road & the first lane on the roundabout, whilst the 2nd and 3rd lanes feed into their corresponding lanes on the roundabout. There is one small sign explaining this before reaching the roundabout but it's really not very obvious what the road layout is. Additionally, anyone turning left onto the A4055 from the direction of Aldi will probably miss this inadequate sign. Think I remember a couple of close shaves with my dad driving there when I was younger!

If you had a green man then it's 100% their fault. No bones about it. Looking when crossing is to safeguard against others' incompetence.

If it was a blind person crossing it wouldn’t be their fault, so it’s not your fault, either. You were signalled it’s safe to cross, so you did.

The moral is, don't ever step in front of a moving vehicle. Wait until you are absolutely sure the driver has seen you, has space to stop, and is actually doing so. Being in the right is not much good iof you're dead..

Sadly car builders are forced into installing thicker A pillars by crash safety legislation. For now, as drivers, we just need to be aware of the issue that causes and watch out for it. Ashley is doing a great job of raising awareness.

@@R04drunner1 yeah I figured it would be something like that. He certainly is!