UKC

What little things annoy you everyday. What things would you like removed from your life?

Work. And John Humphries. Then my life would be perfect.

Laptops and Windows.  Bloody upstart typewriters

Expense claim systems

Waiting on the bus for what feels like three lifetimes only for two to show up at the same time! 

When you hit the buzzer on the bus and the driver drives past your stop only to argue you never hit the buzzer (despite the fact the stop light is showing above his head).

When you're standing at the bus stop for what feels like three lifetimes and you see the bus approaching and put your hand out for it to stop and it drives past you.

Rant over... 

Drivers who can't filter.

People. And er top roping of course.

'The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog."

Jira.

If you don't know what that is then consider yourself lucky.

Except Concur, which is the only way to do it *right*.

SAP, in any form, not just for expenses.

Flashbacks to Jira!

You think you have issues, I have been given a training course as a Jira administrator and told off you go!

Work place politics is my annoyance, there is simply no need for it.

'Right on' parents who drag their children around in those small chariot things behind their bikes on busy roads. Madness

People who demand to know about what's annoying me.

If only - we are still using Redmine :/

Middle laners

My leaking kettle

Rain.

And ticks.

Automatic doors that are too slow for me.

I do find it funny how some people seem to attract ticks.  I’ve never had one bite me and only ever even seen one once ever.

Far too many things to list on here. I'm not sure if it's changes in working practices and society in general or just me becoming a grumpy git but I find more and more things winding me up every week. 

Those who don't know that the plural of milk is milk, and butter is butter. 

Broadly, stupidity annoys me. Stupidity manifests itself in many ways, from trying to navigate websites on a smartphone, anything involving insurance, flights, renting cars, driving cars. And computers, "help files" in programming software, programming software. And supermarkets, domestic appliances, banking, pensions, the range of areas where I find an appreciable level of stupidity in my daily life is staggering.

Thanks for asking

I will raise your expenses claim systems and throw in online appraisal systems

Ticks, and car windscreen wipers that both go outwards. Dunno why just something about those wipers ticks the hell out of me.

FAQ 's in customer service help sections of websites. 

Surveillance and tracking.  Apart from the problem of the wrong people having access to everything you do (no one else would be interested).  It is getting increasingly difficult to do things with software and devices.

When trying to set up a google home device to control lights and a milling machine,  I found you can't do so without enabling location so it knows who, and exactly where you are.  I don't want that.

I write software for equipment I sell.  It's getting difficult to provide a customer with a working system on a android tablet without it all being linked to my own email address.

We've stumbled into the 1984 world of Winston Smith.  Everyone is monitored 24/7 by anyone that wants to.  It's so difficult to avoid that we don't bother. Only the villains will.

People who don't seem to realise they're in the way.

If you have ever (a) stopped suddenly at the bottom of a busy escalator to play a vitally important game of Candy Crush or (b) hung around in a train doorway while you conduct a detailed examination of each and every empty seat, much to the frustration of the fifty-odd other people who want to get on the train too ... I hate you.

People who listen to music in public on their personal devices without headphones. 

Parents who can’t control their spawn. 

People in coffee shops who say “can I get”, rather than “may I have”.

Mouth ulcers. 

To list just a few...

When people write "should of" instead of "should've" or "should have".

I often talk about implementing the shove rule. Basically if you dither around in the way expect to get pushed out the way!

people who sit in judgement on others.

+1

I commute into London, so these things piss me off every bloody day.

And I'll add, the person in front of me waiting for the gates on the automatic barrier to close before they insert their ticket. I know it's only a couple of seconds delay, but FFS why? 

Litterbugs

People who piss on toilet seats and don't clean it up

Drivers willing to endanger my, their own and whoever else's lives because they're in a hurry/don't want to let someone in front of them/are in a mood/think everyone else is there to facilitate their journey/wanted to take a photo of something to the side of the motorway whilst having to break suddenly approaching congestion so took both hands off the wheel (M5 North last week)/want to read their book on the steering wheel (M4 East yesterday)/etc.

Chilli flavour things that aren't hot.

the Guardian reporting on EVERY death linked to 'dangerous' cycling and totally ignoring death by dangerous driving.

back pain

shoulder pain

teenager rage

Projects that don't use Jira.

Projects that attempt to use Jira for requirements or test management.

I find it more fun, when someone in a station stops abruptly in front of me, to stop really really close to them. The surprise on their face when they realise someone has screeched to a halt and is literally breathing down their neck causes them to move off again (although I wouldn’t recommend it if you are physically intimidating or creepy looking)

Other peoples gripes.

How can you see the look on someone's face if you are tight behind them and breathing down their neck?

They move forward and turn around to see who/what was behind them

People complaining about things when they've not done their research (read/listened to news).

People who walk about staring at their phones

people who stop suddenly to stare at their phones

Phones! Life was better before mobiles.

Delicately placed dog pooh bags hanging from barbed wire or hawthorn bushes, dripping their fermented liquid doggy pooh...

Non 'right on' parents who drag their children to the school gates in those massive chariot things, aka, 4x4s, SUVs etc etc. Madness. 

I don't disagree with you above view at all, however, it does  not negate the stupidity of bundling your toddler children into an exhaust level chariot before negotiating a busy high street or main road while thinking a small flag will somehow save them from careless drivers.

People who sort data in Excel without selecting all the columns first and then expect me to somehow magically undo it.

People who give me vague job specs like "I just want to see if there are any patterns in this data".

People who give me data and expect me to "just stick it on the internet, you can do that tomrrow, right?".

People who walk in crowded areas glued to their phone.

You'd all be better off staying at home.  Get off your phones, look where you're going, stop being a slave to you mobile device.  

If someone needs your immediate attention because they're about to die, then please take your time.  Otherwise, foxtrot oscar.

Fly tipping.

Or as I call it, "Shitting on the view"

'Haich' If this is something you're annoyed by, I won't need to explain ;p

I 'Need' a new phone/ipad/car/whatever other shit. Bought plenty of pointless crap myself but know fine well I don't 'Need' it

Fixed that for you. I'll add - everything at work being tagged as "Agile"

Littering, fly tipping, spitting, graffiti, dog shit not picked up...etc etc

and tw*ts who dont know how to use indicators on roundabouts.  Tw*ts!

People. That's it. Just people.

Folk ambling aimlessly around the roads on their horses

People who treat the train like an extension of their office. 

 "I was stood" and "I was sat."

The fookin' Conservative Party

Vocal and self righteous vegans.

Noticed a new variant on (b)  -  people who stop at the entry to a filling station for  half a minute trying to assess which pump is likely to be free next because heaven forbid that someone else should get served before them out of turn.....

Googled it, saw the name Atlassian, told me all I needed to know. I feel your pain! 

You got training, thats more than we've had.

badly behaved dogs, or should that be owners who allow their dogs to behave badly, either way it pisses me off.

Every toaster I have ever owned. 

Maybe I am underestimating the technical challenge, but making sliced bread brown seems a pretty simple design brief to me.  Yet toasters generally have slots that do not fit commonly available sliced bread, and toast incredibly unevenly.  Long slot 4 slice toasters (with two very long slots) get around the first issue but I still typically have to make toast by rotating and flipping the slices between repeated short toastings, in order to get adequate overall brownness without burnt bits.  I reckon it would be cheaper and easier to get a toaster that can commune with my fridge and cupboards to check bread and butter stocks, and order replenishment online than it would be to get one that actually makes good toast!

The Offencerati.

The bitch at work who has her phone on full blast. Every morning it goes off and scares me shitless. She’s a proper flake. ‘ I feel like I’m being victimised ooh I’ve had a shit day ooh I’ve had a shit day’. Then follows some banal conversation with a relative. And she’s got purple hair! Feck off brick!

People ha-ha-ha-ha

Openreach cabinets and lines blotting out radio

Dithering

Two apparently unconnected things (though mercifully not everyday).....

#1 The Post Office.

"Hi, I'd like to post this parcel first class please"

"No problem that will be £XX.XX, for an extra £6 would you like insurance?"

Can you imagine if other places charged you like that?  You go in for a coffee but you have to pay an extra £1.20 in case they forget to make your coffee...

Of course if your parcel does go missing, you go back to the post office....

"Hello, the parcel I posted (from here) hasn't arrived"

"Sorry that's nothing to do with us. You need to call Royal Mail"

#2 Royal Mail automated lost parcel phone system

People who don't know the difference between everyday and every day. Seen on lots of adverts. 

Toilet paper that ends up in tattered shreds instead of tearing neatly along the perforated lines.

Lipton teabags that pull the label into the tea water when you fill your mug, or fall off the string when you pull it out.

People who roll slowly up to traffic lights.

They should waste fuel speeding up only to add wear to their brake pads stopping to wait at the red light, anyway? That's obtuse.

At least I presume you mean red lights. Anyone who rolls slowly up to green ones is equally obtuse.

I once asked my Dad about that - on noticing a change in myself, and he said that he became more easily irritated by things as he got older. 

In reply to OP:

People who take an age at cash machines, who seem to manage to make withdrawing cash last what feels like forever. Enter code, then pause, be asked which function they want, pause, decide, enter function, pause,  use another function, pause, be asked if they want a receipt, pause, ask for a receipt, pause while deciding, receive receipt and stand and look at it, and pause. Argh. 

There needs to be special cash machines which time out after a certain amount of time so that people in a hurry can get their money and be off to what they need it for.  

Most other things I can take a breath over, but the 'pause people' drive me nuts...

My work life is ruled by JIRA.

I'll also add analysts adding requirements to JIRA that you then have to interpret what they actually wanted from what they requested.

And people that add support calls without adding all pertinent data.

The fact that I can't afford to get my helicopter pilot's licence and change careers!

Couples in supermarkets that take a democratic approach to evry single item that they purchase.

Sounds like you need a better DOR?

Concur? AYFKM?

Misogynist rants

"..The surprise on their face when they realise someone has screeched to a halt and is literally breathing down their neck causes them to move off again (although I wouldn’t recommend it if you are physically intimidating or creepy looking)"

I caught a late train home once. In the dark walking home I was behind a woman when she suddenly sped up. So I sped up. Then she really sped up, so I did the same. Then she broke into a sprint, so I followed suit . Then she started screaming, so I did to!

Never did find out what we were running from...

Using "likely" as an adverb: "A significant rockfall has occurred at Blacknor Central in Portland, likely affecting routes in the Pregnant Pause area." Yuck!

Could be worse, e.g. the family summit on which of the identical tins of beans to buy, (whilst blocking the aisle for ten minutes).

I suspect he mean the ones who approach green lights at walking pace, just in case they go red...

People eating crisps. I like crisps as well but I don't eat them as I've somehow decided that it's OK to want to brutally execute people who eat them near me. Which would be a bit odd if I eat them too. 

Edit: I should also say that someone eating crisps with their mouth open would probably make me have a breakdown. Fortunately this is not an everyday occurrence but people who eat with their mouth open should be shot dead on sight. 

Almost agree with you there, the amount of crisps I eat.
It's the smell of them if you're not eating them, not too good, but Pringles Sour Cream & Onion makes we want to vomit.  Ban them I say.

Pringles are so grim. They just turn back to paste in your mouth. To me it's the sound that winds me up. 

You've used SAP, right?

'See all, hear all, say nowt' and be friendly to everybody.

Then get shit on from a high bridge!

’see all, hear all, remember it and use it against any n’er do wells when the opportunity arises’

people who stand in the supermarket isle taking forever to choose an item while holding the trolley at a right angle so no one can get past.

old ladies who swim 3 abreast at the swimming pool talking to each other.

drama queens.

As I'm going on holiday tomorrow can I add people who, nearly 17 years after 9/11 and the resulting enhanced security, still can't grasp the concept of putting liquids in a single clear plastic bag rather than secreting them in lots of hard to find places in their ****ing bulging cabin bags.

Lumps/slices of tomato in pre-packed foods. I'm not allergic to it, I just can't stand the texture of the bloody stuff.

I'm OK with it in puree form, such as on pizzas.

Radio Four comedy programmes.

Toilet roll dispensers where the force required to rotate the roll and dispense paper is greater then the breaking strain of the perforations in the paper.

And the effort to retreive paper this involves, leaving you looking like you are fisting Sooty in an R2D2 costume.

The M74

What even Ed Reardon? 

Sorry, yes. The whole lot. It's all shockingly bad and it's got to go.

Fair enough 

BT remote controls

Oh and Orange I'm OK with yellow and red is fine but there is no middle ground

Clapping/applause.  I don't know if its that or the lack of a better alternative....

Web-sites listing times that don't mention a time-zone. These are not just annoying but COMPLETELY F*CKING USELESS.

Offender of the week: https://www.usopen.org/en_US/about/eventschedule.html

BT just about everything these days!

The way my duvet always creeps down inside its cover leaving a foot or so of empty cotton at the top.

And why does penne pasta have to stand up in a honeycomb pattern when it's cooking?

And people who use the last of the bog paper and don't tell you until after the shops have shut.

Washing machines and the people who design them...

If other companies designed their products like washing machines there would be an outcry: Imagine if every time something went wrong with a product the whole thing fell over in the worst possible way. For instance every time a headlight failed on your car the steering locked, the brakes failed and the throttle jammed fully open. Or failing to lower the loo seat caused the waste pipe to detach and flood your bathroom. 

So why the bloody hell do washing machines always fail with a drum full of dirty water, almost any other failure would be preferable?!? They never fail at the end of a spin cycle or at the start of a wash it is always at the point in the cycle where there is the maximum amount of dirty water in the drum! 

The fact that this usually happens within a month of the extended warranty expiring is also a minor annoyance. 

Mike (Owner of dead Samsung washing machine)

Washing my hands in the office bathroom, knowing as soon as I close the faucet I've undone all the hard work of cleaning my hands.

People who charge up to traffic lights then slam their brakes on, why not just roll up slowly FFS!!

Cyclists who are not capable of putting their used gel wrappers back into their pocket.

Yep that one really f****** annoys me

American tourists. Walking slowly double-file down the stairs to the Tube platform, on which there was a train I really wanted to be on:

'Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.' in ever-increasingly volume untl the gentleman stepped into the huge gap that had always existed on his right leaving me with a clear run down the stairs - while verbally chasing me down the stairs with a drawling 'well there was somebody in front of me and that is why I was walking slowly'.

What's wrong with a polite 'oh, sorry!' or stepping out of the way in silence? No need to justify with imaginary people, no need to take offence at a polite request to let someone past. No need to take up the entire width of a set of stairs so you can walk abreast your partner.

Oooh you've pointed out something that really annoys me; talking heads who appear on TV apologising for their latest f*ck ups, as if that's going to make anyone feel any better.  Go to hell in that room where you spend eternity upside down in a room full of shit.

Aargh! Bloody tourists. All of them, not just Americans. My commute takes me over Tower Bridge, so every day when I'm rushing to the station in order to get home at a reasonable time I have to battle past hordes of the f*ckers walking at 0.5mph in huge groups taking up the entire path. I'd love to be able to explain to them that it is a bridge, and was erected for the purpose of getting from one side of the river to the other. If they want to gawk at it that's fine, as long as they don't obstruct people who just want to cross the river.

It was the loud American retort that really got to me. Such an annoying accent! But yes, disappearing the tourists would be just fine by me.

People who live in London

Why?

And, if people who live in London are an everyday annoyance, that must mean you see them every day - so you probably live in London yourself?

Fake news.....

Toasters. They are universally shit - too small for the product they’re designed to process and give unreliable results. 

Littering.

Fly tipping.

Parents who cycle with a child in a child seat and the kid wearing a helmet but the parent is not. 

The use of "off of" instead of just, "off"

I could go on all day.

Dave

I assume you mean the hypocrisy of that, but if you look at it practically, depending on where you draw the safety line the child is at a much higher risk than the parent is, on many different grounds, e.g. how robust their skull is and how much notice and control they will have of a fall to the ground.

BT internet, or rather the frequent lack of it and BT's useless response (like always blaming your router or the internal wiring).

the use of "off" instead of "from"

the use of the Dubbyalike "inshpirational" instead of "inspiring" (came since  a coffee ad in the 80s!)

the use of like incorrectly instead of "as" or "as if" (e.g. "it looks like something will happen")

general crap usage from the British Broadcasting Corporation

lack of capitalisation at the beginning of sentences and full-stop termination of same

powerpoint views of everything, looking good but not substantiated

openreach's equipment being too close, passing overhead

people who fail to observe the custom of saying "sorry" to me when I do cause, or come close to causing, an interpersonal collision.

It is partly the hypocrisy and I take your points about the risks to the child. However, if there is an accident then the parent should do all they can to be in a position of reacting to and dealing with the accident. I think the chances of being able to do this are much greater if the parent is wearing a helmet.

Dave

Also a good point.

Pens without the lids on.  Or, pens with the wrong lids on.

Drawers not properly closed.

I hope my wife doesn't read this... yes, my love, that's you!

Cracked heels.

Brexit - Has become the most depressing word in the English language

People who start a statement with the word "So"

People who say "Me and my friend/girlfriend etc"

Misuse of apostrophes

People to say "With regards to" when they mean "With regard to"

People who pronounce H as "Haitch"

Are we talking biros here? If so, I hate keeping the lids on. Can't be arsed with taking it off and putting it on again every time its used at work, lid goes straight in the bin. What is wrong with you?! 

In that case, can I add Confluence for it's what-you-see-is-similar-to-but-in-some-non-deterministic-way-different-from-what-you-get editor. Jira doesn't bother me that much, but I think we've set it up pretty well to do about what we need and not too much more.

And unrelatedly, cafes that put cakes and other sticky things on top of paper napkins, so you end up with a useless napkin and potentially with bits of paper in your food. Why?

I'm using it on a project at the minute and I've certainly seen worse - HP Quality Center is much, much nastier, for instance.

Reminds me of one of my pet hates: groups of people walking along chatting and taking up the full width of the pavement, none of whom make any effort to move slightly aside to allow room for an individual pedestrian (such as me) coming the other way.  Especially so when I'm walking with my back to the traffic and I really don't want to have to step into the road at the last moment.  The thing is, I'm just one person: I can't pause for a half a step and fall in behind myself to make room.  I sometimes feel like stopping dead in front of them just to see what they do when faced with an unmoving obstacle.

Other things: people who leave car-length and larger gaps in traffic queues.  Apart from anything else it makes the queue longer than it needs to be, increasing the likelihood of a turning somewhere further back ending up getting blocked.  Some of the worst offenders are the ones who stop twenty feet behind the vehicle in front for long enough for you to think "oh well, they're obviously not going to move forward any time soon", so you put the car in neutral with the handbrake on - and then they close up the gap to the vehicle in front leaving you looking like the inefficient queuer.  Worse than those, though, are the ones who can't be arsed to move forward when the queue in front does because they think it's only going to move a few feet.  But the very worst are the ones who don't move forward when the rest of the queue does because they're too busy playing with their bloody mobile phones.

Finally: people who get off the bus and immediately try to cross the road by going in front of the bus.  This is unsafe - because they don't have a clear view of oncoming traffic on their side of road until they stick their head round the front of the bus - and selfish because it forces the bus driver (and thus everyone else on the bus) to wait until they can cross safely.

You could colour the different columns to make a pattern and send it back to them with 'Can I have some more information on the patterns you want please?' as explanation?

Yes - Confluence is what's been inflicted on us, with TinyMCE embedded as text editor. Wasn't it Dilbert who once said software should hurt?

With smiley faces so it doesn't seem too passive aggressive... 

Wait till you discover you can't have duplicate page names...

Dad? Are you on UKC under a pseudonym? ;p

Straight in the bin? Your missing a trick biro lids are the best thing for getting wax out of your ears, they have to be proper biros mind I like to use them for this then put them back on the pen, then place them back in the stationary cupboard! 

Yeah I agree and  I just want to dance to the music without those little tw@ts prattling on

Cyclists who arrive at red light with a queue of traffic and a near-empty Advanced Stop Box and stop at the absolute back left of the box, blocking off the entry and forcing everyone who arrives later to queue in the feeder lane.

everybody does that ...

I've decided to try to think of this as an accent difference, similar to not getting irate for people who pronounce bath '<i>barth</i>' instead of to rhyme with 'math' (or vice versa, depending on where you live).

Do other english-speaking nations have the same variation for pronouncing 'h'? I don't think I've ever noticed americans doing it, for instance

Brexit, Tories, Republican America, tw*ts who stop in traffic a cars length from the car in front - thus creating congestion....

How do you pronounce H if not "haitch"? 

Aitch. You don't need to put an aitch on the front of aitch, because aitch already spells aitch.

got it

Re-sealable packets of cheese which are impossible to open without performing  radical surgery, even though one corner is labelled "Open here".

Don’t you pronounce H as huh?

Exacerbating congestion perhaps, but if there wasn't already congestion to begin with they wouldn't be stopping would they?

More annoying to me are those that don't leave a gap for side roads etc.  Someone does that, as soon as somebody coming the other way wants to turn right there's a queue on the other side too.  Same thing happens on both sides = instant gridlock.

On the whole, I'd prefer people leaving a bit too much space than too little ta.

Correct there is no H at the beginning of the sound to pronounce aitch.

Having said that it seems that putting H in front has become increasingly common in recent years, particularly amongst under 35s, and like any spoken language it appears to be in the process of changing through use (or misuse? whatever that is!)

To nufkin. I don't think this trend is truly an accent difference, at least certainly not regional as it seems to be spreading throughout the land. I remember my son coming back from school saying haitch, and asking him where on earth he got that pronunciation from? He said his teacher had been telling him off for saying aitch! Well, there's no answer to that

 I don't know about Americans!?

I have an acquaintance in Penrith who definitely spells it "Haeyyttch"

My alternative supposition is that saying 'haitch' is indicative of being a grubby little oik, but that's not very progressive so I try to discourage myself from thinking that too freely.

What with the coming resurgence of Britannia perhaps we should be promoting 'haitch' to distance ourselves from those ghastly frenchies and their routine dropping of 'aiches from their 'otels, 'ospitals and 'opes for an ever closer union

I remember my driving instructor being very clear that this is exactly what you should be doing, to decrease the risk of a pileup should a shunt happen behind you.  He suggested you should stop far enough back that you can see where the tyres of the car in front touch the road - at my height in my car this puts me about 2/3 of a car length back. 

Of course I rarely ever actually do this and neither does anyone else I know...

Nein! Nach dem Brexit sagt man "Hah" (wie "Haben") auf jedem Fall.

Nach dem Brexit werden wir es so sagen wie wir wollen.

People annoy me. All of them. I can't stand people.

People who say "out the way", American style, omitting the vital "of".

That's quite mental really. That would mean there is a 'ghost' car on the road for every real car. It does explain a lot...especially why , when there is space for 6-8 cars between sets of lights there are only 3-4 cars and then some poor sucker who stupidly thought there was space enough is left like a plum blocking a round-about.

All of those, especially perhaps, the aitch thing. Thanks for saving me the trouble of listing them. We must've been brought up in the same era i.e. with standards.

One of mine you omitted is people who say and even write, if you can believe their ignorance, e.g. "must of" for "must have" or "must've". 

And perhaps my biggest annoyance: the vast majority of people who stand still on escalators and those moving pavement things in airports. Don't they know they're designed and built to increase the rate of passage not slow it down?

Chris Evans, Jeremy Vine and Steve Wright, the more so since their salaries were revealed recently. They are the reasons I no longer tolerate Radio 2.

"can I take an email address for the receipt?"

No.

Spot on. They can eat what they like but I draw the line when they self righteously use their views a stick with which to beat others. Too much like religion that is. Also, whilst if one visits your house you'll be expected to come up with rabbit food for 'em, how likely are they to go to the butcher's after inviting you round for dinner?

Must be mental.   A friend of mine told me (He worked for the Home Office on communications) he was impressed by a police colleague who had just done a defensive driving course.  They stopped in a traffic queue and after a while an approaching vehicle could not stop in time so the driver moved forwards into the empty space he'd left on purpose and avoided being crunched.  Wished I'd done that on a foggy day near Manchester when a female in a large car (who said afterwards "couldn't see where I was going, Oh God it's my own car ..." ) hit me from behind after a terrifying squeal of brakes.

Perhaps its good to be  more "Mental" when driving than just travelling in a hybrid of suppositions and assumptions

That said (and I'll eat anything) I come across far more loudly obnoxious carnivores who whinge like spoilt children if someone suggests a dinner plan that doesn't involve big lumps of meat than I do preachy vegans or vegetarians.

I'm not assuming or supposing that everyone is going to rear-end me that's for sure....

I was taught this on a defensive driving course and still employ the technique.  It also gives you enough space to be able to steer out of the queue of traffic if it becomes stationary.

American style typography, particularly the damnable "em-dash" but, above all else, lazy typists who employ hyphens as a substitute.

Text: "I wish to suggest that you are wrong-that we cannot..."

Me: "wrong-that"? WTF is "wrong-that" supposed to mean? Ooohh. Damn them damn them!

Correct, barely tolerable American typography: "I wish to suggest that you are wrong—that we cannot..."

Correct typography, actually readable by humans: "I wish to suggest that you are wrong – that we cannot..."

my score is at least 4 that I can remember, said incident, an RAF policeman on the Snake Pass when I had to stop rapidly  just round a bend to avoid being wiped out by a wrong side of the road overtaker and an outdoor shopworker who smashed my rear end when I stopped as directed by a shepherd moving sheep along the road.  Also an emergency stop from a low speed adopted because I'd seen a dog behaving erratically and it ran under my wheels, during a driving lesson.  The driver behind impacted after a few seconds, not immediately, when I'd been travelling at about 15mph before the ES.  The instructor gave him very short shrift when he tried to accuse me of "stallin, like", given he'd obviously been paying no attention.

It is a very common occurrence

Washing your hands, but due to poor design you're bashing your knuckles against the sink. 

People emerging from toilet cubicles after a stinky session and then going straight out of the toilets without passing GO or the washing facilities

When you're trying to turn right across two lanes of traffic into a smaller road or drive, and a large vehicle coming in the opposite direction in the (more congested) right hand lane stops to let you across, without realizing that by doing so they're blocking your view of the (fast, free flowing) left hand lane and making it almost impossible for you to turn safely.

The turn into our office car park is like this, so this happens to me a lot...

Not entirely sure how being a car length back from the white line at a set of lights would've helped anybody you've described.....

my final comments were simply directed at the idea that you can assume no one will drive into you from behind - in my experience this is not a safe assumption

btw a coop delivery driver had to be scraped of the road not far from here when she was pushed, while stopped at a junction, by another vehicle on to the A66 under the wheels of a lorry

Its also easier to move out of the way when emergency services come through if cars aren't rammed together. 

Running at them helps as if you're going somewhere urgent (I only found out by running urgently to places) .  

Running at them helps as if you're going somewhere urgent (I found out by running urgently to places) .  

Running at them helps as if you're going somewhere urgent (I found out by running urgently to places) .  

Running at them works if they are traveling in the opposite direction to you. Unfortunately, it doesn't work if you're coming up behind them.

It doesn't work well with tourists even if they are facing you, because they aren't looking where they're going.

The Inland Revenue, my inability to not eat crap on an evening, pain from climbing and sometimes my children.

while clop-clopping a pair of coconuts?

Could leave you subject to a torrent of abuse if they happen to be French.

particularly as I collected a lot of elderberries yesterday

Undertaking on dual carriageways.

Although occasionally people do get what they deserve:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-norfolk-45515656/van-launched-into...