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AA driving school car + dangerous driving: Who to report to?
Now, before I start, I'm not in the habit of considering doing something like this, everyone makes mistakes whilst driving but this simply astounded me.
Yesterday coming home from a dayshift I witnessed some of the worst driving by a so called "professional" that I've seen for a long time.
I normally finish at 18:00hrs on a dayshift, but we were running a training excercise for another watch last night and did not get finished till about 20:00hrs.
So I headed for home along the Clackmannan bypass towards Kincardine and the bridge. Anyone living in this area will know there are lots of roadworks here just now with the building of a new rail link in Alloa and the new bridge crossing at Kincardine.
There is a strict 30mph speed limit in force throughout all of the roadwork locations in order to ensure the safety of the various construction workers on the road.
About half way through the new roundabout roadworks at Clackmannan, I notice in my rear view mirrors a silver Ford Focus 5 door rapidly approaching me from behind. And I mean rapidly. I estimate it was travelling somewhere in the region of at least 60-80mph.
It catches up with me just as I pass under the old railway bridge.
Its a silver Focus 5-door alright, emblazoned with the decals of an AA Driving School car.
He sits barely inches from my rear bumper and after a few seconds, straddles the white line trying to decide whether to attempt the overtake or not. To get to this position he has had to brake heavily as he approached the rear of my car.
I am sat behind a line of traffic which is obeying the speed limit of 30mph. There are about 8 cars ahead of me, a van, a 4x4 and at the front of the queue, a artic lorry.
The Focus driver then decides he's not willing to wait any longer and passes me on a blind bend. There's no way he could have seen anything approaching from the opposite direction at this stage.
Focus then forces its way into the queue about half way up.
We travel on for a short while more and by now we are out of the 30mph limit and into a National Speed Limit area. All the time the Focus is swerving in and out trying to see if he can go for another overtake. He is having to do this because he is sat so close to the van in front of him that he cant see anything apart from its rear doors.
I'm right at the back of the queue and positioned so that I can see if its safe to overtake which quite clearly, it is not as there is a line of traffic approaching coming from the other end of the bypass.
The Focus driver then decided once again that he did not want to wait any longer and indicated then pulled out to overtake the remaining line of traffic.
I was horrified. It was an overtake that I would not even have contemplated attempting on my bike, there was just no way this Focus was getting past clear of the artic at the front of the queue in time.
The van at the head of the oncoming traffic braked sharply, I could see it dip forwards as he did so, then swerved over to the left and nearly onto the verge, slowing down.
The Focus just managed to cut the artic up enough as to make it past safely but to be quite honest I thought I was about to witness a high speed head on collision.
"Total idiot" I thought to myself, and also wondered just how someone who drove a car marked up as a driving school car could even consider driving in this manner. Not exactly good advertising is it?.
About two miles up the road, I catch sight of the same car. He's tailgaiting again. Swerving in and out looking for another overtake, but the traffic is so heavy even he is not stupid enough to attempt it.
As we cross the Kincardine Bridge ( another 30mph limit ), he starts widly swerving once again to try and see past the vehicles in front and at one point indicates and pulls out to go for an overtake. He must have got slightly alongside the vehicle in front and though better of it as he braked and dropped back into his previous road position behind the car in front.
Then I started noticing a lot of cars up ahead flashing their headlights rapidly at oncoming traffic. There had been a Police speed trap there the night before and again, this was what the other drivers were warning the oncoming vehicles of.
But the Focus driver was tailgaiting the vehicle in front of him so closely that he was oblivious to the warnings of this and continued to swerve in and out looking for yet another overtake.
The only reason he didnt go for another overtake, and undoubtably would have been caught red handed by the Police in doing so, was the volume of traffic oncoming again was very heavy.
Once we got to the motorway ahead, he continued tailgaiting the vehicle in front ( the motorway at this point at the Bowtrees roundabout is down to one lane only and a 40mph limit for a few hundred yards as it leaves the roundabout for bridge construction work ). Once the roadworks ended, he was immediately out into the right hand lane and passing everything ahead of him, finally taking the slip road for the M9 heading towards Falkirk.
Now, as I have never reported another road user for driving antics such as these, but having witnessed this exhibition of blatantly dangerous driving, I am considering doing so.
So who should I report this to?. I'm reluctant to report it to the Police, I feel it would me more appropriate to report it to the AA as I am assuming the driver was the instructor registered with them.
Whats likely to happen if I did report it to the AA?. I understand their driving schools are similar to BSM in that they are franchises?.
I'm not being a "wannabee copper" here, but in over 17 years in the Fire Service I have attended hundreds of road accidents and last night I thought this driver was about to become yet another statisitic along with whatever poor unfortunate he took with him.
And to drive in this manner in an AA driving school vehicle just astounded me.
Apologies for the length of the post folks.
I'm attempting to track the individual down through local driving schools as I have the vehicles details- Silver AA Driving School Ford Focus 5-Door, reg number GD56 ERV.
I know a few local driving instructors and will be speaking with them in due course about it all.
/end of rant!!!!.
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Originally Posted by Jay Kay 313
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