No, but I'd love to learn.
Surely it's not illegal to drive without consideration for others. If it was, we'd all have to be arrested.
In the UK... Section 3 Road Traffic Act 1988 - Driving without due care or cattention, or consideration for other road users.
You can only be arrested for these in very specific circumstances (of if other offences are apparent), but they are both reportable and the driver summonsable to court to explain their actions.
Due Care and Attention - think reading a map whilst driving, or fiddling with your GPS and hence not looking at the road, or leaing well over to grab something out of the passenger seat glove compartment.
Without consideration for other road users - tailgating, splashing into puddles soaking pedestrians/cyclists.
The top one is the more serious side of the offence and is actually the main contributor to the majority of Road Traffic Collisions (there are no "accidents" on the roads). You're distracted, not paying attention, crash, bang, ouch. The second one is designed mostly for antisocial driving, weaving through traffic causing distress to other road users (including anger), riding pavements etc to get through traffic distressing pedestrians. That kind of thing.
The latter is normally dealt with by me via warnings or a different piece of legislation which gives the driver a second chance. The first I will stick on at any opportunity. I've been to probably a hundred crashes in my career, some of them fatals, most of them just a little headache or muscle pain. The thing that bugs me is that nearly all collisions can be avoided, mostly by PAYING ATTENTION to the road and the hazards in front of you. People seem to become oblivious to either (a) their frailty whilst inside a car, and (b) their actual driving skill level. Most people aren't very good, and I certainly wasnt before my course. And Police divers are not off the hook either, there are plenty of rash boys and girls out there in response vehicles, which is sad, but the faster you drive on minor roads the greater the likelihood of collision, regardless of training.
Speed generally isnt the killer of the driver (though certainly it will be for the pedestrian/cyclist etc), it's inattention.
Biggest tip I can give... riase your vision. Drivers have a tendancy of focussing on the car in front or the car to the side when overtaking. Look up, keep the front car in your lower vision but then look over/past it down the line of traffic. Firstly to do this you will have to be a sensible distance away from the vehicle directly in front so you will have more reaction time if that car breaks heavily. Secondly, by looking past it you are looking for oncoming hazards (lights, roundabouts etc) so you are reacting to THEM well in advance than you normally would. By doing this simple tip you will find that you are normally beginning your manouvre (turning, braking etc) before the cars in front of you and hence the likelihood of being involved in a collision dramatically reduces. You can drive at great speed by doing just this (and learning to deal with limit points on corners) because you have more time to make your decision rather than simply reacting to what's directly in front of you.
If every driver just raised their vision a little collisions would go down drastically. IMO
Hugo - lecture over.
