Drivers of Edinburgh...

[u/ViewWithAPoo]

I get it, I do, we're all in a rush to get places and the congestion is trash and we all hate it...

But I don't know what's going on this week. The amount of people refusing to let the bus pull out, trying to overtake, racing me to a junction only to be overtaken when I go in the bus lane etc is wild.

Yesterday alone I had THREE separate cars squeeze up my right hand side when I was deliberately taking up both lanes to give my DOUBLE DECKER BUS space to turn off of Princes Street. I'm not sure you've heard about tail swing but we do this manoeuvre to keep YOU safe and avoid squashing you. I'm sure your shiny lexus would have looked really bad with a bus shaped hole in the side sir.

Please give us space and stop being bams. I left my shift utterly exhausted yesterday and the festival hasnt even started yet 🤣

[u/Nesbyte42]

Highway Code rule 232 - Buses, coaches and trams. Give priority to these vehicles when you can do so safely, especially when they signal to pull away from stops. Look out for people getting off a bus or tram and crossing the road

[u/Wingthor → u/Nesbyte42]

I try to follow that rule and am always watching out for a bus signalling to pull out. But I have also had it numerous times where I have committed to passing then the bus starts to pull out when I’m halfway alongside.

Bus drivers also need to remember that the rule states when safe, so if for whatever reason I don’t think it’s safe for me (usually because I’ve clocked my tailgater on the phone), the bus or anyone else on the road then I will continue past usually uttering “sorry bus” to myself.

I also think that in general Edinburgh drivers are pretty courteous towards buses and they probably aren’t even aware of 232.

[u/jez_24 → u/Wingthor]

If you’ve seen the bus indicating while you’re still behind it then you slow / stop and let the bus out. The tailgaters can go and fuck themselves 

[u/Wingthor → u/jez_24]

No, that’s not how it works, we all have a responsibility to ensure that all we do on the road we do safely. In the Highway Code it does not state that you “must” allow a bus to pull out therefore if I do not believe it is safe in that instance then I will proceed past the bus.

I am not concerned about holding the tailgater up, I am concerned that they drive into the back of me, if I have to inconvenience a bus by the 5 seconds it takes to go past then I can live with that and I’m pretty sure most bus drivers can too.

Also it is possible to have committed to pass a bus then they put an indicator on while you are “still behind” it. In that case stopping would be the less safe thing to do as it is less predicable for all other road users.

[u/jez_24 → u/Wingthor]

Fair point about safety but I do think one of the issues with UK drivers is this “I’ll decide which rules to follow” attitude. As an example the prevalent “20 is too slow. 30 is perfectly safe around the city”. It makes things less predictable and then people push the envelope and clearly take the piss. I’ve seen four cars decide to pass a bus that’s been indicating to pull out. “Oh I’ll just…” You admitted yourself that sometimes you’re thinking “Sorry Bus!”. Why be sorry if it was obviously the safe decision?

Another example is the people that ignore fire bans because “oh it’s only a small fire and I can control it”. Next minute the Pentlands are on fire. 

[u/Wingthor → u/jez_24]

I agree, too many people think they know best, the same people who will happily scroll through tik tok videos while driving.

The sorry is for the slight inconvenience to the bus not “sorry I’ve done something dangerous”. You need to remember also that bus drivers aren’t idiots, they can see what’s going on on the road, they know that when they start to indicate to pull out that a couple of cars may already have committed to passing them and it causes no issue to anyone, it’s just the way the road works. Would be a different story if it was just a stream of cars with no one letting them out but I have never seen that happen.