r/drivingUK

Been driving for a decade now and despite living in rural areas and mostly driving country roads, I had never hit any wild animals before. There are loads of deer where I live (Perthshire area) and have had a couple of close calls but have always managed to avoid or stop for deer (I come across them a lot as due to work start times I’m out really early in the morning).

This morning I was driving around a sharp corner on a country road and there was a juvenile deer standing right in my lane. I was only going about 35mph at the time due to the nature of the corner but still couldn’t stop for it or move to the other lane safely. The deer just panicked and stood there.

I drive a 4x4 with quite a high ground clearance so it went under the car but a tyre did run over its leg. There was an entrance to a farm track right ahead so I pulled in and put my hazards on to check on it.

The sounds were horrible, when I first got out the car it was squealing in pain, and when I approached it stopped screaming but was making a horrible groaning/wheezing noise.

Its leg was clearly broken but I couldn’t see any other obvious injury so I thought there was a chance it could be saved. I called the police to report it and the dispatcher said they were sending a team out with a “wildlife specialist” and that as long as my car was fine I could just leave.

Didn’t feel right to leave the poor thing in the middle of the road by itself to be hit again and I didn’t want to drag it to the side and injure it more. It’s a quieter road but I got my warning triangle out and put it around the bend on the approach to it. Then sat on the verge near it in my high viz work jacket to warn people until the police arrived.

Despite being in the middle of nowhere, the police arrived surprisingly quickly. The wildlife person they had with them assessed the deer and unfortunately didn’t think it would be able to be helped so they said they would “deal with it” but thanked me for staying.

Drove to work and am a little bit ashamed to admit that I had a bit of a cry on the way. I had obviously called them to tell them I was going to be late because I hit a deer but I got made fun of a bit when they found out I stuck around even though my car was fine. The only guy who wasn’t being a dick was an older chap who tried to make me feel better and said “there is nothing wrong with having an extra caring bone in your body” and it kind of worked but I still feel like I was being dramatic, idk.

Anyway, been feeling a bit numb the rest of the day and just feel like I’m a terrible person. Going to take a different way home tonight to avoid it.

Hope everyone is safe on the roads today.

Last night, we were driving back from a concert at Wembley to Somerset.

There was a few sections on the M4 that were reduced to 50mph because 3 lanes were closed.

The 1st one we got to, a car in front of me slowed down to the speed limit and a lorry got about 2 foot away and started flashing his headlights at him.

2nd section we hit, not long after the 1st one, it happened again.

The car in front slowed to 50mph, so did we before the lane closures. 3 lorries went tearing down the 1 lane still open, obviously not at 50mph. 2 of them were the same two from the first section.

We then hit another section that was showing 40mph on the matrix signs. I slowed down, as there was a Van in front of me who slowed to 40mph.

The lorry behind, which again was 1 from the other 2 sections - a Langdons artic - got right up behind me, started flashing his lights, moved into the hard shoulder a bit, moved back behind me and kept flashing his lights.

A few seconds later the other lorry that had been doing this shit - it had foreign plates - goes steaming up the hard shoulder, undertaking me and the other van.

I do a lot of driving, I have been field based as a Merchandiser/Sales for about 18 years and that last night was the most danger I've ever felt on a road in this country. The behaviour of them 2 idiots in them lorries was quite frankly wreckless and could have easily seen someone less experienced on the roads end up in an accident.

I sometimes see there has been a crash in the early hours and wonder how when the motorway is so much quieter. I now see why.

Be careful out there, especially if having to drive this time of late night, early morning, which luckily I don't on a regular basis.

Hey all,

I’m looking to upgrade my dashcam setup (front + rear) and could use some recommendations.

I’ve got a £300 total budget, including the microSD card. I do long journeys, so I need at least ~6 hours of driving footage, which realistically means using a 256GB microSD card. I’m aiming for 2K minimum on the front camera so number plates are readable while driving.

So far I’ve been looking at:
- Viofo A229 Plus 2CH – around £230
- Nextbase 422GW Full Bundle– around £190
- Road Angel Halo Pro Front/Rear - £150
- 70mai T800E 3CH - £150

I also considered the Viofo A229 Pro 2CH at about £280, but it seems to require a specific industrial‑grade SD card by Viofo or Sandisk, which pushes the total cost past £380, and I’ve read reports of it overheating.

I’m not too bothered about having an app — the main thing is clear footage and readable plates. I use Apple CarPlay, so I don’t want the dashcam constantly connected to my phone while driving, only when I need to check footage or change settings. I also don’t mind taking the microSD card out to check footage either.

I would like the dashcam to have good night footage.

Does anyone have recommendations for a reliable front + rear dashcam setup that fits within £300 and works well with a 256GB card.

Thank you in advance!

I was almost the victim of the ‘Wing Mirror Scam’ and lost £450.

I’ve searched on Reddit and there aren’t so many posts about this in the UK.

After driving through a busy, tight town centre I heard a very loud noise. Checked my mirrors and decided that I hadn’t hit anything and continued my journey. About two minutes later I was pulled over by a vehicle presumably telling me something had fallen off my car, exhaust was dragging or something like that.

The man approached my passenger side and I now am certain pushed my wing mirror into my car to simulate a collision.

He said ‘you’ve smashed my wing mirror, and driven off, and I am going to call the police and inform them of this crime’

I have never been in a collision before, I didn’t believe I was at fault, but the huge noise really spooked me and the man was very believable. He also had his family in the car. Woman in the passenger seat and two children in the back. This is what really threw me off.

He was threatening me with police action for my ‘crime’ and that if I wanted to avoid a fine and points on my license I should pay him for the repair to his car. £450 for the wing mirror he searched for on eBay, showed me the picture of the auction. In hindsight this was surprisingly fast. Going through insurers would have cost me more in the long run no doubt so to save a police investigation I agreed to pay for the repair.

My eBay searches didn’t turn up this replacement, but he had an answer for everything.

Fortunately I ran his plate on gov.uk and found it was registered to a completely different car that was taken off the road in 2012. He tried to explain this badly.

I said actually we should call the police, and all of a sudden his demeanour changed. The cost went down, he’s still arguing with me I’m at fault and I’ll get points and wreck my insurance. I said fine let’s call the police and work this out.

It was at this point we agreed to go our separate ways.

If I could do the whole thing again I would do a lot differently, but it’s only when you are placed in these situations you have to decide what to do. If I had another go I would have insisted to photograph both vehicles and our ID, but it’s easy saying that in hindsight.

I walked away with no loss, other than my time and a loss in humanity; he roped his family into this for the believability. It was incredibly convincing.

Be safe out there everyone. Happened 5pm broad daylight and I never moved my car from very popular public views.

I have reported to the Police.

I just completed my IAM advanced motoring course and got a huge amount from it. I’d slipped into some bad habits in the decades since I took my test as a teenager.

One thing I noticed during this was how my likes / dislikes about my car changed. For example, my large electric SUV with air suspension wafts nearly silently down the road, which is very comfortable but makes it much harder to gauge speed. I longed for some engine noise 😂

Ignoring all other factors, what model / type of car do you like for advanced driving?

(I’m aware good driving techniques can be practiced in any vehicle. This is a question about choosing a vehicle prioritising advanced driving techniques in the buying decision.)

I have just done my 1000th accepted operation snap submission in just over 12 months. 99% of which are mobile phone offenses.

From these submissions the most regular makes in my submissions (along with % of that make on uk roads in general) are VW 10.8% (9%) Mercedes 10.5% (4%) Ford 9.5% (14%) Audi 8.3% (5%) BMW 8% (6%) Nissan 5.9% (4%) Land rover 5.5% (2%). All others are below 4%.

18 vehicles have been submitted twice and 1 vehicle 3 times.

Edited to add:

All of these were captured while walking or cycling, mainly to and from work on commute past lots of traffic.

Submissions not processed by the police (50-100) have been removed from this dataset

I feel like I might have avoided every working camera in town…

Edit: my car is not compliant.

It is telling me to plug it into the obd11 port. But when I googled it it said they would cancel my policy if I unplugged it. How am I supposed to use the port. I'm pretty sure I only have 1. As I was going to use it to keep track on my turbo as I had to replace the stock one as it wasnt holding pressure. How am i supposed to make sure my turbo is healthy without using this port?

Has anyone here ever been in a speeding car before? I have a couple of times and for each time never went in their car again if they were offering lifts.

But this situation was the most dangerous I've ever been in.

Long story short, I was in my sister in law boyfriend's car he offered me a lift to Wetherspoon's. I've never seen him drive before, but he seemed like a nice enough lad so I thought why not and got in the back. The moment he started revving up the engine before pulling out I knew this would be trouble. Went off to a single track country road and he was doing about 80 mp/h peak 90 mp/h most of the way there. Around bends with poor visibility still doing about 60 mp/h and tokyo drifting on the way. Absolutely dreadful experience and I was in a brace position the whole time waiting for him to lose control or slam the brakes for an oncoming vehicle.

To make matters worse he started drinking when we were there and said it was fine to drop me off because my house isn't too far from here. I declined his offer and they got back inside the car while he had alcohol in his system. Stupid lad, but I should of known better than to get in a teenagers car.