HomoFaber:
In other words, ignoring the Highway Code is absolutely OK - right up to the point somebody or something gets hurt.
Well, that explains why so many drive like if they never heard of some traffic rules and why the police take no interest in them…
Actually this bit is similar to everywhere else.
You can walk on red light in Paris, bump into a policeman and he’ll tell you only “Pardon”.
But if you force some car to brake suddenly because you entered pedestrian crossing on the left - this will be different.
When the cars crash because of you - then you are in real troubles 
But my observations are similar when it’s about UK roads.
Lot of things are left to driver’s common sense. Unfortunately some of them have not enaugh of it.
Example from my own yard: one of my neighbours still parks his transit van right at the corner of our street, blocking the view for the cars trying to join traffic on the main, quite busy road. I asked him if he can park few metres down the road, but he said he’s not breaking the law. Maybe not, but it’s obvious that he’s posing a danger as cars can’t leave my street safely due to not seeing if the road is free…
In that situation I would prefere clear rule saying “you can’t park close to the junction” (in Poland it’s, if I remember correctly, 10 metres for cars and 15 metres for bigger vehicles…
I had a private discussion on the subject above (indicating) with one of the members, who claimed that indicating changing lanes always is good for newbies, but “good drivers don’t have to do it all the time, as they can judge if that will benefit other road users”. I asked what if they will make a mistake? In that situation indicating can save me from crashing into the vehicle suddenly changing lanes or at least give me chance to inform vehicle’s driver of my presence by flashing my lights or using the horn. The answer was a bit scary for me: “Good drivers are not making errors”.
The point is that everyone is making errors. We are all human. And therefore, in my point of view, is much better to indicate 1000 times without the need of it, than to cause a dangerous situation by not indicating when our judgement that it wasn’t needed was wrong.
In Poland there was a discussion about mandatory usage of headlights all day long. I am not a big fan of this solution, but of two evils (all cars lights on all the time vs drivers putting their lights as they like) i would rather choose first one. Second situation is what we have in UK - on heavy rain some are using headligts, some are dazzling everyone arround by driving on fog lights, some are driving on parking lights and some are not using lights at all… I personally would rather using my lights unnecessary all my life than cause someone’s death because he wasn’t able to see my car…
