What would you think was about to happen?

For this or something else???

'God, you're no fun any more!'

Thankfully they weren't about to witness my carefully and fairly clear use of indicators and road positioning in order to position myself to back the van onto my own driveway or I'm sure I'd have been hit by the sharp corner of the book being thrown at me - nah, said opportunity to be educated and not prosecuted relates to the heinous crime of 46 in a 40.....

Well now you come to mention it... I think I'd have done the manoeuvre by just leaving the left indicator on rather than putting the hazards on... having made sure nothing was that close behind first.

Better to indicate left, pull into the side of the road and wait for a decent gap if there was anything that close behind... IMHO, of course.

'Hang him!'

Fair does, but you've seen where I live - it's a busy road, especially late morning on a Saturday with every man and his fridge heading for Reading to do some shopping - short of doing what I normally do to briefly hold up the traffic for 30 seconds or so, I'd be waiting bloody ages for a gap. As for anyone being too close behind, that's the idea behind indicating first for a reasonable while, then whacking the hazards on, to give people plenty of warning - as I said - works 99% of the time, but you do get the odd clueless f****it.

Indeed.

Yes, I can imagine it's a bit busy along there at times.

Hmmm... I've seen others who do this with hazards, and IMHO, it's not as obvious what they're up to as it would be if they slowed with the left indicator on and then moved the vehicle out to the right, before putting it in reverse - no doubt at all then as to their intent.

Just my personal take on it, anyway.

Yes, but only after you've had 'both eyeballs sucked out by a goat and replaced with red hot toffee apples'.

That'll learn you, young fella me lad!

Gotta say that, IME, slowing down first whilst the left indicator's on tends to result in more people thinking you're just pulling over to the side of the road, and nipping past.

Aye, sure - I'm not saying I'm *definitely* doing it the right way - it's more a case of whatever way you do it, there's bound to be someone behind who hasn't fully got what you're doing, and as long as whatever's being done is done with caution, and in the knowledge that someone might do what you don't want them to do, like shoot around your outside, then hopefully accidents shouldn't happen.

Heh. In a completely unrelated anecdote, I delivered to someone once where the parcel had the wrong house no. on it - said 25 when it should have been

28 (or something similar - few doors up). After a brief conversation with the woman at the door, I established which house it was for, and made my way over there. On my way back up her path, she said to me "I oughta learn you to read". I turned back to her and said "I oughta teach you to speak."

If it involved a Merc Sprinter and flashing hazard lights anything could happen. It could actually hover and then fly off and I wouldn't be surprised.

"Many of the rules in the Code are legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your licence or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison. Such rules are identified by the use of the words 'MUST/MUST NOT'."

Simples.

In addition to which I refer you to section 27 on this page

That would confuse me terribly...

My stepmother got hit when she tried to undertake a car that was taking a slow, very wide swing before turning left through a narrow brick-pillared gateway while indicating left all the time.

She still insists she was in the right and no amount of diagrams, explanations etc. can convince her otherwise.

I worked somewhere that had a 1997 Spritner with this feature.

Bah, what's wrong with engaging reverse while moving forwards at

20-30mph anyway?

The recentish transits I've driven even have syncro on reverse, presumably for this very purpose.

I'm usually going 'a bit' faster than 30mph in the MX-5 when I manage to engage reverse instead of 6th.

(c:

Will it hypothetically save us all from a ban too?

That's kind of what worries me.

Boooo!

Nonsense. You should insist on your right as a tax paying citizen to a full and thorough prosecution.

On a recent trip to the states I was pulled over by a 'cop'. It was great fun; just like in the films, at least until the point where I handed my (olde-worlde paper) license over and he said "What the hell is this?" and gave up. I didn't get to do a field sobriety test or anything.

Judging by the randomness of the actions, the driver is about to reach into the passenger footwell to retrieve the portable dvd player he dropped during the vinegar strokes.