Maddy

On a number of occasions when driving on the motorway those friendly truckers have given me a quick flash of their lights to warn me that the boys in blue and money making equiptment are just round the corner, so a big thanks to those yorkie bar chewing truckers who probably have to put up with more sh*t on the road than any of us.






The worse drivers I find are Caravan drivers, I won't go in to detail but have almost died twice because they don't check the mirrors.



Maddy

Scooby_Dan.

I wasn't too happy with that Yorkie bar chewing trucker who pulled out on me & hit my with his 40ft trailer !!!

Maddy

There's always going to be a few out there that are bad eggs, suppose you get that with any type of vehicle so I may be wrong to generalise but in my experience the majority of truckers have road manners.

Maddy

TopBanana

Big thanks to the trucker who pulled out in front of me whilst going about 40mph slower on the A34... but he was indicating, so that's that's alright then

TopBanana

They're probably better in Yorks, but down here they think nothing of causing huge tailbacks just to get past a lorry whose speed limiter is calibrated 2mph below

civictyper

Going slightly off topic 5th Gear did a bit on trucks the other night.

Apparently there have been shed loads of incidents involving LHD trucks as they have a big bind spot when you're in line with the driver.

Best course of action is to stay clear of blind spot (duhh) look well ahead to see if one is going to pull out on you and also to use the fast lane to overtake.

ScoobyJawa

5th Gear - WTF - talk about outlining the obvious couldn't believe it! DOH!!!

New To Scoob

Truckers!!!!! big thanks to the two recently who almost crushed me then about two days later almost crushed the misses, both times we were driving the scoob, must be some kind of magnet for them
I vote for banning them carring out overtaking on two lane M'ways.

John.

Reffro

I vote for paying more attention to what people are doing in front of you. I always anticipate when a truck will overtake something, and find I never have a problem. I even let them pull out to overtake, because, get this, our little cars will easily accelerate back up to speed again after they have finished, its easier all round if it takes me 5 seconds longer to get to my destination. What's even worse is I slow down whenever I see horses on the road, down to 10-15mph everytime.

Ignorance may be bliss, but consideration for others sure does make everybodies lives that little bit better.

JR55

Do they have horses in London? I always slow down for our four legged friends after seeing a young girl thrown over a wall after a tw@t in a Nova went kevving past her and her horse.

New To Scoob

Reffro, it isn't just a case of paying attention to whats in front of you but whats along side you, if I see a truck indicating in the distance I generally slow down and flash him out, its when then just pull out in front of you with no indicators etc and just for your info I always slow down for horses etc.

Reffro

I'm going to get flamed in a moment but what the hell it'll be worth it.

I live in London now, but I still travel to Lincolnshire each month to stay for the weekend, therefore I drive past many horses hacking out on the roads.

If a truck just pulls out in front of you, then you are not paying attention to what is in front of you. If you are waiting for the indicators then you are reacting to the situation, I prefer to use my judgement to anticipate what is going to happen long before then. I don't have to wait for indicators to know if a truck will want to overtake.

I will have been watching it before then, they're pretty big, I find I can see then from 1/3rd of a mile away, and will be judging the trucks closing speed to what's in front of it. Then if I figure the truck will be wanting to overtake at about the same time as I'll be passing it, I then start paying closer attention.

Is the truck on level ground, going uphill or down hill, what is it that it might overtake? If its on level ground but catching a car up just before a slight hill, then its probably going to slow enough going uphill not to have to overtake. Whatever the situation I'm looking at his closing speed to what's in front, and my closing speed to him. If its going to be close, then I get ready to slow or if I can, I give my car a bit of squirt to move me past the truck before it overtakes. But if your in traffic, as I often am on the A1 then its usually getting ready to slow down, give the truck room, flash my lights when they indicate so they know I've seen them. The truck then overtakes, and I spend all of about 10 seconds catching up the cars that were in front of me before all this happened.

None of this is rocket science, but you do need to pay attention to those other road users all around you.

JR55

Pay attention to other road users! Ref stop it you are talking to much sense If everyone paid a touch more attention to what is going on I think there would be alot less jamming on of brakes etc on the way home from work and therefore less accidents, tailbacks etc etc

SteveLegacy

I bloody hate horses on the road! Why arent they off chasing foxes of something instead of getting in everyone elses way and expecting you to slow down to 5 mph, and shooting you dirty looks for having the stereo on too loud.....

New To Scoob

Reffro, are you telepathic????? can you see through the truck to tell if theres something in front of it that it might overtake???, using indicators is a sign of good road manners, bet your one of those folk who play lucky lanes at roundabouts outside-inside-outside.



[Edited by New To Scoob - 11/20/2003 4:15:19 PM]

S.B.

I agree with reffro

Reffro

I don't need to be telepathic, we are talking about trucks making overtaking moves on motorways and dual carriageways. If I'm going to be overtaking the truck, I'll have to be in the outside lane, therefore I can easily see what's in front of the truck.

RB5320

makes perfect sense to me Reffro, but there are a lot of people driving who only react to what is happening 10 metres in front of them .

New To Scoob

Or in the case of some people, them who just don't use their mirrors.

Reffro

Mirror..........

Thank you for the reminder, mine is languishing on the back seat of the car, I must stick it back on.

New To Scoob

No problem glad to be of service

J1nxy

I agree you can predict, at least to some degree, what they will want to do.

What gets me is when they want to over-take something which is going about 0.00000001 mph slower. I travel up and down a dual carriageway to work and they can cause miles of tail backs....the longest I've travelled is 19 miles with two trying to overtake each other with the only advantage being the direction of corners given the one on the inside a slight lead. They only passed when another lorry wanted to come on at a slip road...

Steve

[Edited by J1nxy - 11/20/2003 5:23:37 PM]

Brendan Hughes

Thread hijack:

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre was what I was taught.

If you follow that logically, it means that once he's signalled, HE'S GOING TO MOVE WITHOUT CHECKING HIS MIRROR AGAIN.

Too often people behind will react to a signal, eg try to quickly overtake, before the manoeuvre is started. Thus totally screwing up the manoeuvre.

The law (unless changed, perhaps it has) is MSM. Unfortunately, the practice should really be M, S, Mirror again, cancel signal, wait a bit for prat to overtake, try again, get stuck, then finally swear and pull out straight in front of someone.

REALLY gets on my wick.

Sorry... /Thread hijack.

DEEDEE

Im a Trucker and we always flash each other and show the Thumbs down, to say slow down. If car drivers did this to notify each other the camera vans would soon be out of work. So lets start keeping our money to our selves and stop giving it to the unworthy

Dazza01

WOW, theres me thinking u flashed ur lights at other lorries to let them know its safe for them to pull back in once they have overtaken you.
<rant on>
But im afraid 95% of lorry / bus drivers are total tw@ts and think they own the road, they all suffer from the same syndrome of my vehicle is bigger than yours so if i wanna pull out i wil, flame me if you will, but when u've been hit head on by a 17tonne truck and had ur legs and a arm busted cos the fecking cnuting driver was on the wrong side of the road u may think a ittle different towards these.....

<rant off, as red mist is disappearing>

DRUNKNORGY

It sounds like you want everyone to know who does really own the road .

Its a chicken and egg situation, If the horses are to become used to the traffic, they have to mix with it. It seems that some forget that they aren't vehicles which you just turn the key and away you go.
Until there is a change in the law, they have as much right to be there as anyone else.
If you had any common sense, you would realise that an a car with an open pipe on full throttle and a 100 gigawatt stereo may just spook them. Apart from which, not everyone wants to listen to your Blinging Sounds. If you had ever spent any time around them, you wouldn't be talking through your sphincter.

As for the Foxhunting, not everyone who keeps Horses agrees with Bloodsports.

MooseRacer

^^^^^ What drunknorgy said

Suresh

Overtaking slow traffic is always tricky when the speed differential is high. For example storming down a 2 lane autobahn up a slight incline at 120mph+ and bearing down on a truck going at 60mph which is itself coming up behind a truck doing 58mph. Question is who is going to have to brake? My opinion is it should be the truck, but if he thinks otherwise then I'm going to have a serious brown trouser moment. This is why I always lift off way in advance to reduce the speed differential to 20mph or so in these situations and inevitably the f*cking truck pulls out on me.....

Overall truckies on continental Europe seem quite considerate and imho, drive pretty well. It does help that they are prohibited to overtake in the rush hour though.

SteveLegacy

erm...No. Right, hang on!

I do not blast past with an open pipe and blinging sounds, Horses and more importantly their owners (Well the ones I've come across in Oxfordshaire) have a paranoia about anyone going past them at more than a snail's pace.

Personally, I don't think they should be allowed on the road, but do not do anything to antagonise them in any way, they just seem to hate the fact that they don't own the road any more.


Don't even get me started about the one I see through Kirtlington regularly on the mobile phone, thats the rider, not the horse.

DRUNKNORGY

Most riders only use the roads to link one bridle path to another as the tarmac is so hard, it will send the horses lame if used all the time. Asking vehicles to slow down when they pass Horses on the road isn't just to demand respect.

A few years ago, My sister was riding along a road to get to a bridle path and a Petrol Tanker came flying past at about 60.
It spooked the Horse and he clipped her as he went past.
My sister broke her back in the impact and the Horse was nearly cut in two.

I always slow down for Horses !

As for the phone users, they should know better.