Dash Cam Owners Australia seems to be getting longer and worse by the week and it's making me feel uneasy that I'm sharing the roads with them.
Having mountain of patience and maximum awareness is not enough to keep you safe.
How can this happen? Should there be mandatory psych test with the whole attention deficit plague going on or China style road laws where everyone is subject to lesson and re-test all over again to discourage this behaviour.
It's the 'wave of death'.
Never rely on someone else's judgement to decide what your next move is.
Meth and mobile phone distraction
I know how this sounds, but I really think things have changed since 2020.. It's like people are more tense and selfish since the pandemic
There have always been bad drivers about.
What I am seeing is a big increase in the number of angry and selfish people doing dangerous stuff to try and save 30 seconds on their journey time .
Having had a L driver for the past 3 years (first child recently got Ps and second is on Ls) my main gripe is people who are impatient and road rage L plate drivers - what is with these morons????
100%. My son got his Ps in December (1st go - better than his old man LoL), but on Ls there were a lot of inconsiderate drivers when he was taking extra care especially at the start.
For example entering a round about he'd slow a little much or stop if he wasn't sure. He's in a manual too so I wish these people would just think back to when they first stepped in a car and you had to multitask for the first time with brake, clutch, accelerator, gears, indicators, checking mirrors etc. etc. etc. It's a LOT to take in especially your first 10 hours.
Now it all comes naturally and flowingly, but how quickly people forget and are quick to chastise. It's sad.
I'm retired and don't drive much, and when I do it is not during peak hours. However, it seems that every time I do there is at least one idiot on the road - not indicating, illegal u-turns, barging into my lane, etc. It didn't seem like that a few years ago.
Decided I needed another layer of security and bought a dashcam a couple of days ago.
Maybe i'm getting older but drivers on the road seem to be getting a lot worse lately, I've been speculating its because of:
All the working/studying from home. All the reduced car traffic was nice but obviously there are now younger and less experienced drivers on the roads with full license plates.
interest rate rises/cost of living/family issues triggering the unhinged. Or drugs, just drugs.
Migration policies, i.e. driving like its another country, with a whole different set of rules, e.g.failing to give way.
change in mass culture, with an increase in "entitlement", and "self preservation" at all costs. A loss of social cohesion
Retirement/ loss of an older generation of drivers
Definitely should be high up in the list.
Whilst your issues are all valid, they aren't the root cause, Aussie drivers have been bad before the pandemic. It's like our drinking culture, it's just part of it
There's more old people with lisences than ever, should be mandatory testing after 65
licenses
But I agree in part. Maybe not have a full on test, but certainly a quick 15 minutes to make sure they're still safe drivers.
Maybe, but I find the majority of crap drivers are not the elderly.
Elderly drivers are generally just slow.
Keep in mind, with 20 million licensed drivers in Australia, and with probably more people driving daily now than ever before, there is always going to be a certain number of people who either can't drive very well, or who lose concentration while driving and do something stupid.
They don't have a license. They are licensed (verb) and have a licence (noun).
It's really hard to drive these days, probably people have become bad-tempered due to traffic, and financial burden or who knows. Recently, I stopped at a STOP sign, and the guy behind me started honking :)
I love to watch Dashcam Australia's videos and I try to guess what happens next.
Don't know if anyone else has noticed it, but I feel the driving behaviour seen on the roads has gotten far worse in the last couple of years. Most of it caused by people in a rush with no patience for others and a sense of I'm right and everyone else is wrong.
I think a large portion of the population (myself included) has a slowly degrading mental health related to stress thanks to things like cost of living pressure, being overworked, not spending enough time with loved ones etc. Obviously this is a much larger issue, but I think the general population is just slowly working themselves up to a breaking point and something needs to be done about it sooner rather than later.
I like your insight!
It’s definitely happening in my experience. Ten years ago I wouldn’t see people driving without their lights on at night (or it’d be a rare occurrence as opposed to basically nightly now) nor would I see people making turns without indicating at all nor would I see people not stopping at a dotted line at the end of an aisle in a car park. This is driving the same roads at the same time. Driver quality has become so much worse.
I reckon it worsened with the pandemic. Too many idiots started thinking that rules and laws are optional in protest and the pointless scepticism that a number have adopted towards anything that vaguely looks like authority seems to contribute.
I see a lot more driving without number plates now, imagine it's because they don't feel they need to have their vehicles registered… Morons
Have a dash cam now, I regularly drive though the areas in NSW those dash cam videos.
Yeah its much worse now, people that straight up should not be allowed to drive along with much more cars on the roads and failing infrastructure to cope with all these garbage drivers.
Have to drive to account for dangerous drivers.
I watched exactly 5 minutes of that DCA vid then couldn't handle it anymore.
Its confronting.
Also never had a rear dash cam but they prove their worth.
How do you drive on the road? lol
Easily.
You?
The most frustrating drivers are those that do something wrong but are the ones that are angry about it.
Like mate, you're the one doing an illegal u-turn, why are you angry i'm beeping my horn?
I've always wondered… why do people beep their horn at others when, say, they're doing an illegal u-turn or something (and not turning into your path)? I mean, what's the point?
Expressing frustration I guess. The ones I don't get is when something dangerous is happening out in front to another driver, and the person behind them starts honking their horn. Umm, the driver in the front is going to look behind them first and away from the oncoming danger.
yes!! This is exactly what I meant! You've described it much better than I have!
Often, I think the horn could momentarily take away someone's attention and possibly even cause an incident that would otherwise not have happened.
How else do you let them know they're being a twat.
I figured that much haha.
But the horn is one single tone…
The ones that know they're doing wrong probably won't give a shit.
And those don't even know they're doing something wrong will likely think the horn is "for someone else".
@bobbified: Maybe we need custom horns and we can have one honk for danger and one that just goes "Ya bloody MORON your mum would be ashamed of ya"
Because they should be told they’re wrong.
Exactly, doing nothing means they'll continue with their shitty and dangerous driving habits.
@Caped Baldy: The only way teach them a lesson is to follow them for 20 minutes and force them to apologise. haha
If you don't let them know they're doing something wrong they will continue to do it again?
Yep, I remember when a skinhead bloke in his Ranger gave me the finger for beeping him as he went halfway through a red light while I was turning on the green arrow.
Really, like what the heck are you upset about. He was stopped at the lights so it's not like he was just shooting through..
The scariest dashcam videos are the country road overtaking videos. So many near hits that could easily be fatal for both drivers. And for what… saving maybe a minute or two to your destination?
I'm not afraid of overtaking but I want to make damn sure I can see for at least many hundreds of metres ahead of me on a country road. It stuns me when people are so impatient they overtake right in front of a curve. Yes, the center line is dashed and theoretically overtaking is allowed but practically if another car is coming it's very dangerous.
There's one near the end of the clip of two utes collide when one overtakes a truck in the rain. Both had headlights off.
The amount of people I see with no headlights on in the rain is mind boggling… noticeably so with black/grey cars. If it's especially wet with lots of water being flicked up, dark cars can be very hard to see.
Also, don't get me started on people who put their parkers on instead of the normal lights in questionable conditions like rain/fog… they're borderline useless past a few meters.
I had one recently where the guy was blindly overtaking just before corners on a very windy road. I ended up taking my dash cam footage to the cops and reported them.
Need to be extra careful with this sometimes. I've read here or reddit where someone did the same and the cops booked the DC car for some kind of questionable driving.
There was one here but that person was the one who was driving like an idiot where the person they filmed had poor form but wasn't trying to actively create an accident like the DC owner… Was a good laugh and glad someone on ozb saved the video when the OP tried to remove it
One reason a lot of these people have a licence is that the police are now largely only involved in catching people for technical infringements of road laws - ones that involve breaking the law but no other harm - not getting involved in actual real crashes determining fault, and booking whoever is responsible, unless its a serious crash. That's now done by insurance companies. So lots of really bad drivers, ones whose bad behaviour actually had consequences, get away with nothing but a financial penalty. They don't get a conviction and demerit points and lose their licence. They just lose their ability to get insurance and continue driving without it. It defeats the point of the demerits point system of getting bad drivers off the road.
So you're saying that police are involved in revenue raising? That sounds like a racket that needs investigating.
People diving across multiple of lanes of traffic to get to an exit on the highway because they weren’t prepared are out of their minds. You missed it, just wait till the next exit. Absolute muppets.
A bad driver never misses their turn.
A good driver can miss their turn on an unfamiliar road. Its called cognitive overload. They are so busy dealing with the unfamiliar that they fail to notice something they needed to early enough. But when they do they don't try to make the turn anyway.
I've always wondered if the Police monitor Dashcams Australia and hand out fines in retrospect…
Great idea. This is one way to stem the evolution of bad habits to the third world standard.
Probably not, would need the original footage most likely (driver could argue it's 'edited' or something like that)
cops don't care
The pedestrian that was hit during the crossing… Hope they got a big payout and more.
Hope their estate got a big payout…
Let's be fair. DCOA isn't getting worse - it's driver behaviour that is getting worse. But yeah, wholeheartedly agree.
Tolerance is needed for those making innocent mistakes - hey, we all do.
But those flagrantly breaking the law and/or unable to acknowledge/apologise for their mistakes (brake checking, bird, road rage, etc) should be removed from the roads (temporarily, and if the behaviour continues, permanently).
Some are removed by divine intervention, but the police and courts have a bigger role to play than fate.
No deterent -> continuing behaviour + more people joining the miscreants (seeing only the benefits and no penalty).
First step would be to remove legal protection for those already breaking the law (outlaws were originally outside the law, and it's protection) - so road ragers who brake check would automatically be to blame, and also not protected by insurance any more than those under the influence of alcohol are.
Second step - giving the bird would be punishable by removal of the offending digit.
We have pathetic driving training here. Understand signs, reverse park into a parking spot ; wow now you have a license. Other countries teach you have to react in an emergency car situation and many more detailed skills. Germany especially is way up there. Hence they can have areas of derestricted speeds on their highways. Also annual road worthies in all states would help get the death traps off the road with bald tyres, poor brakes, poor suspension etc.
Also annual road worthies in all states would help get the death traps off the road with bald tyres, poor brakes, poor suspension etc.
You do know what a pink slip is, right?
in all states
Tas don't have them.
Are the only bad drivers in Tas? No. Doesn't apply.
I believe only NSW and NT require annual roadworthy once a car reaches 5yo. But research more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_Australi…
So in the other states you can buy your car and drive it for as long as it lives with no inspections on its safety
"Understand signs, reverse park into a parking spot ; wow now you have a license"
Wow please tell me which DoT branch does that - it certainly was not that easy for myself 30 years ago or my son 5 months ago.
I think the assessors can see quite quickly whether you have road awareness and are a SAFE driver or not within the first few turns/stops. I think looking at my son's assessment there were like 8 sections split into 5 or 6 sub sections each with demerit points if you did something wrong.
So many of these crashes you can just tell that mobile phones are the culprit. Put 'em away people, you don't need to be on them when driving.
yeah put those damn small screens away - so you can be distracted by the zero haptic feedback computer screens all modern cars have!
the dashcam videos of idiot drivers suggest inattention is a large factor - these days I'd guess thumbing text messages on their small screens until they look up at the last moment to see - Oh ! an obstacle !? SMASH!!!
as an inner Sydney retiree, I've sold my old car and have no desire to drive again - it only takes a moment's inattention to become one of those statistics or incur thousands of dollars of costs and/or inconvenience - for me just taking the car for annual pink slip inspection was a PITA so I'm happy without that.
but for those that live further away and spend like two hours plus in their car every day, the benefit today seems to be all-round airbags (not working in some Chinese made vehicles apparently - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HpkDUWAKFM)
I'm not sure if I'd rather have a non functioning airbag or a Takata airbag firing projectiles at my heart…
The non-opening doors is a concern though. As a road user, I'm more worried about the wank tanks that are super popular. Poor visibility and efficient murder machines for pedestrians.
"But higher cars have more visibility! And they're safer (unless you roll over). I have a kid, don't you know it's impossible to fit everything they need into a 'normal car'?"
and they never go off road
@Caped Baldy: Well now the govt thinks most of these massive prams should be exempt from the new emission standards due to them being 'commercial vehicles' (lmao), so I guess enjoy being surrounded by more of them in the future.
Reckon the insurances know about the likely defects and just grab your money anyway?
Dash cam owners Australia seems to be getting longer and worse by the week and it's making me feel uneasy that I'm sharing the roads with them
You got sucked into the social media anxiety trap. The records are meant to get longer as time passes. You ever seen a shrinking encyclopedia?
Like a sucker is born everyday there is a bad driver born every day too. It is just how the universe works. How many wise young men / women do you see?
Zero here lol
How Do These People Even Have A License?
Obviously they pass the driving test at the time
China style road laws where everyone is subject to lesson and re-test
errr this doesn't exist. happy to be proved wrong.
Self driving electric cars with no steering wheel or accelerator. Maybe a emergency brake. They have the technology. All other cars csn be crushed into a cube only answer. How do they have a license? They probably don't.
Self driving electric cars with no steering wheel or accelerator.
Lol, won't be happening in your lifetime but do continue huffing that tech-grifter hopium that keeps companies like Tesla running even as they continue to run themselves into the ground.
All other cars csn be crushed into a cube only answer.
Lol. Yes, crush those antiquated vehicular dinosaurs into cubes so that the masses can never again have reliable, cheap, utilitarian transportation that they fully own, control and can repair themselves. The future has never looked so dark bright.
Self driving electric cars with no steering wheel or accelerator.
Can we go back to horses? They were the dominant mode of transport for 5000 years and are organic compared to motor vehicles.
Some companies can't even make lane assist that doesn't try and swerve you off the road, good luck with self driving cars.
They have the technology
Yeah, that's why Elon has promised FSD for a decade now and it's always "next Year'
Drivers these days are absolute shit.
Majority of drivers don't know how to leave a safe distance between the car in front and everyone is in a hurry to get to the next red light. The people that do leave a safe gap have people merge lanes into that gap thinking it's for them which leaves no safe distance for anyone.
Morons thinking they are above the rules, people thinking they know what speed they are traveling and that their speedometer is under reporting their speed so they can drive 90kms in a 70 zone.
Sorry but if you're leaving 3 or more car spaces between you and the car Infront I'm squeezing in especially in a 50 zone. If you're going 100 then you definitely need more space.
The worst drivers are the ones that break out of nowhere. They're going 82 in a 80 zone and they slam on the breaks then accelerate immediately after.
Which in turn makes everyone else slam on the break behind causing a ripple effect.
There's also those that tailgate you after you pass them when they're going 50. I literally sped up and overtook you at 70 and all of a sudden you're tailgating me after I over took you. If you were going to go faster, then go faster to begin with. Be a leader not a follower.
Then there are those that irritate me especially when they stop at the lights but stop short by 200 mm. They inch forward and no one else is moving. Then the car behind decides to inch forward, creating an unnecessary ripple effect. These people are also dangerous because they don't know their car's stopping distance hence they stop too early.
Honestly if you can't come to a complete stop within half a metre of the white lines at the traffic lights and you're first car then you shouldn't drive.
Then there are those that irritate me especially when they stop at the lights but stop short by 200 mm
Honestly if you can't come to a complete stop within half a metre of the white line
I love how you contradict yourself using two seperate measurements and that THIS is the thing that makes you think people shouldn't be driving.
You totally missed the point there.
The first example where there stopped short by 200mm is actually fine. Nothing wrong with stopping short. The problem is that after then have stopped where they're at they should only move when it's green. Pre-emptively moving forward can cause accidents as those behind may think it's a green light and press on the accelerator .
The second point is 500mm of a stop line, in which competent driver's should be able to stop within that range. Too far back from the line means you're not using the space adequately and for large traffic jams it's bad for the cars behind them. Crossing the line can mean that you're in the way of a pedestrian crossing or even worse, a red light camera may think that you're running a red light.
These two points are completely separate and are talking about two different driving behaviours.
"3 or more car spaces" isn't the safe driving distance or even the correct metric to judge it by.
"The worst drivers are the ones that break out of nowhere. They're going 82 in a 80 zone and they slam on the breaks then accelerate immediately after.
Which in turn makes everyone else slam on the break behind causing a ripple effect."
brake, brakes.
Sorry my OCD kicked in. Carry on.
Those damn mole vehicles breaking out of the tarmac
Look at yourself in the mirror before you judge others.
Just did it. Damn I'm sexy.
Now I feel judged :(
Accidents have always happened. It's just now that there are dash cams to record them.
Most oof these people probably don't have licences and have probably "bought" them.
At this point, it seems Australia has alot of laws but zero enforcement. Repeat offenders getting caught by police only to go scott freed by the magistrate. If feels like a conspiracy right out of a tinfoil hat but it's happening. Every day going to work I see literally hundreds of people on their phones while driving.
I agree about enforcement
There's a stop sign nearby that the police could wipe the states debt in a morning. Instead they park in front of the stop sign with a fluro HWP vehicle so everyone stops on that one day.
They only enforce speed, because 'speed kills' and nothing else does apparently.
According to statistics on Australian motor vehicle fatalities its been getting safer each year until Covid in 2019.
Car owners are so much safer today. In the 1980's the road deaths were 6 times higher (per capita). I remember the poor quality of cars with steering wheels that wandered offline and shook at speeds above 100km/h. Lots of tyre debri on the freeways because of exploded tyres (pre-radial tyre technology) and retreaded tyres. Cars didn't have mandatory ABS.
I don't think deaths and bad driving correlate if cars are getting safer.
Most if not all of the accidents on DCA wouldn't involve significant injury. I doubt they'd put death videos on there
I need a licence to drive, & a brain?
Now you tell me
Because more dash cams are being installed in cars, more accidents are being filmed, more accidents and near misses for DCA to choose from, the longer and worse videos on DCA.
I do think new approaches to road education could be a benefit, sure. Not denying there are idiots (maybe many of them!) But don’t watch dash cam footage and get cynical… you have no idea what you’re really even looking at. Many of these incidents could be explained by strokes, seizures, etc.
Migration and zero enforcement.
Those videos are so addictive.
My favourites are the ones where there are 2 or 3 lanes of traffic that have stopped and a car coming the other way wishes to turn right, and 1 or 2 lanes have left a gap , so that right turning driver thinks "traffic stopped , i can go", but the far left lane is empty and some car whizzes up that lane and takes out the right turning car.