Boy racers, drivers who don’t thank you when you let them out and drivers who show off are the top three types of drivers that AA members most dislike, according to an online AA/Populus poll of 14,743 AA members for the Autocar AA Drive Better campaign.

The Autocar AA “Drive Better” campaign thinks that some good old fashioned manners could bring back the smile to drivers’ faces and remove the threat of road rage.

Commenting, Edmund King, AA president said “ Many drivers do thank others who let them out but 37% of male drivers and 46% of female drivers still find those who don’t a major irritation. Lorry drivers tend to flash their hazard lights and others raise their hand to acknowledge the good manners of other drivers. It does not take much to let someone into the queue of traffic or to acknowledge them. We all need to live in harmony on the roads so better manners would help.”

Autocar editor Chas Hallett said “Personal transport is hugely important to all of us but we need to make our roads better and safer places to be. Being nicer to other drivers and acknowledging their existence calms everyone down, and that’s got to be good for everyone. And a friendly raise of the hand and a smile uses much less energy than an angry, heated exchange”.

The top ten types of driver that other drivers most dislike were:

1. Boy racers 42%
2. Drivers who don’t say thanks 41%
3. Drivers who show off 33%
4. Those who listen to loud music, windows open 23%
5. White van man 21%
6. Sunday drivers 20%
7. School run mums 16% (19% males,12% females)
8. Taxi/Mini cab drivers 14%
9. Foreign lorry drivers 12%
10. Drivers with caravans 9%

Other driving irritants included:

Drivers with signs in the car with slogans such as baby on board annoyed five per cent, while 3% didn’t like those vain drivers who always look in the mirror.

And while white van drivers wound up 21 per cent, drivers of the iconic red Royal Mail Van cause almost no distress to other drivers countrywide.

Regionally, Sunday Drivers are more disliked in Wales and Northern Ireland than any other region, residents of the Northern Ireland dislike taxi drivers more than the rest of the country and drivers at the wheel of a white van are more likely to cause irritation in the South.

Wales had the highest percentage disliking boy racers (48%), followed closely by Northern Ireland (45%). The South West and the East Midlands had a higher percentage of those who dislike drivers who don’t say thank you (44%). And in Scotland 8% disliked tractor drivers.

Heavyweight motoring brands Autocar and the AA have joined forces to make motoring a better experience for road users frustrated by the lack of ability or care of many drivers. The Autocar/AA Drive Better Campaign believes the route to better, safer roads is education. Autocar and the AA will be lobbying the government for a re-think of the driving test process.

The BVRLA has urged the Department for Transport to be more ambitious in its attempts to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads.

Responding to a DfT consultation on improving road safety beyond 2010, the association has asked the government to increase its goal of cutting the number of deaths on British roads by one-third by 2020.

“Given the immense progress already made by all sectors of the road-user community, we believe that a reduction of 40% is achievable by 2020,” said John Lewis, chief executive of the BVRLA and chairman of the work-related road safety group Driving for Better Business.

In its response, the BVRLA has highlighted the use of more road safety technology and standards for driver training as areas where the DfT can make significant progress.

“Manufacturers have produced plenty of technology like anti-lock brakes (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESC) that promises to get motorists out of trouble, but they can actually encourage people to drive faster,” said John Lewis.

“Speed is recorded as a contributory factor in 25% of all road deaths. The Department should commit to producing a national digital speed map and encourage the development of non-mandatory intelligent speed adaptation systems, which monitor vehicle speeds and help drivers adhere to local limits.”

In the area of driver training, the BVRLA believes that the government should consider extending the range vocational qualifications available for people who drive cars and vans as part of their job. This should be combined with setting standards for those offering professional driver training.

Elsewhere in its response, the BVRLA calls on the government to conduct a review of the way work-related road accidents are reported.

“Government data and industry estimates suggest that between 25 and 30% of road death incidents in the UK involve at least one person driving for work. It is essential that we get a more effective way of reporting at-work road accidents so that we can understand how and why they are occurring,” said John Lewis.

“Using this information, we could come up with some tightly-focussed road safety campaigns that really hit home with employers and employees.”

1 in 4 companies in the UK Accident Repair Centres industry is making a loss as the downturn continues to make life difficult. But how many of these 200 loss making companies have simply had a bad year and how many are burying their head in the sand is the subject of a new study.

David Pattison, author of a new market report into company performance in the market said, ‘Increasingly we are seeing companies making a loss for the first time in their history and I think they can rightly claim they are victims of difficult trading conditions. A quick refocus on profitability would ensure this an isolated occurrence – ‘the year the recession forced us into loss’.’