OT - Drivers

Yes, in big vans you really feel you're moving along very smoothly. It's far nicer than being in a car.

Bill

I once read an account about a woman who only made left turns going miles out of her way to get to destinations without doing a right turn.

Richard

When we moved house we hired a Mercedes LWB van and spent a week driving from our new house to our old one, loading up, returning, unloading - rinse and repeat every day for a week. The "old house" was my parents holiday cottage so we had access to it - we didn't have to be out on a set day. We just got a small removal van to bring the really big things like fridge, freezer and washing machine right at the end.

It was a bit unnerving to drive to begin with, especially as the first journey from the hire place to our new house was on my own (no wife to look the opposite way at junctions etc because she had to drive home in her own car), and it was a bit tight reversing into our drive with only a reversing camera and door mirrors, but no view through the central rear-view mirror. As with all things, what is scary the first time becomes easier and piece-of-piss by the end. Without a reversing camera, and only views down the *side* of the van, reversing would have been very scary.

We both found it a nice van to drive, and not too bad on acceleration. Best not to dwell on the diesel consumption. Keeping down to 50 on single carriageway and 60 on dual took a bit of remembering - especially coming off the A1M (motorway) onto the A64 (dual, not motorway). The full van handled very differently to when it was empty, but it still made it up Garrowby Hill on the A166 between York and Bridlington and even managed to overtake a slow vehicle on the hill. We decided that Sutton Bank was too steep to manage when loaded, hence the longer Garrowby Hill route coming home. Sutton Bank would probably have been fine, but I didn't want to risk the embarrassment of not being able to set off from rest on the hill if some pillock in front ground to a halt

- I've witnessed too many HGVs, especially triple-decker waggons of sheep, gradually grind to a halt on Sutton Bank and then be unable to set off again. *Those* are the people who should be banned from Sutton Bank, not drivers of car+caravan who probably have better power:weight. Ideally they should be banned from driving altogether for even attempting it in a vehicle that is underpowered enough not to be able to set off on the hill.

The one thing we both fell foul of occasionally was the dreaded clipping a kerb with the back wheels. Even when I allowed extra distance, going wide at the front end, I still once or twice mounted the kerb.

Maybe because the van had hire-company markings so other drivers knew we weren't as used to driving a longer vehicle, I noticed that cars and other van drivers were inclined to give us a quick flash when we were overtaking them and the back end was safely clear of their front end, to say "OK to pull in now".

Given the lack of central rear-view mirror and the poorer side visibility (no side windows behind the driver/passenger), the door mirrors had to be good to compensate - and the Merc's were excellent: plane glass, convex blind spot, and convex angled down to show back wheels and a feet feet forwards of that. Much better than the ones in either of our cars. Parallel parking was not much harder than a car - use the angled-down mirror to show when the rear wheel was about to touch the kerb, full lock to straighten up, reversing camera to check that I didn't get too close to the vehicle behind, wife to keep an eye on the front wing against the car in front.

Just as an aside, when learning to drive I was always taught when reversing to twist round in the drivers seat and look where I am going through the rear window. All my most recent cars have had a fairly small rear window high up with a view from the drivers seat several metres away. Added to that headrests getting in the way and age taking a toll on flexibility I find I can see more using my door mirrors and relying on the visual display from the reversing radar to see kerbs and distances from other vehicles. Would that be a fail in a driving test?

Richard

I think that what is recommended now is to come to a stop, apply the handbrake, but keep your foot on the footbrake, only releasing it when you are sure that the driver behind has seen your brake lights and is slowing to stop.

Tricky Dicky snipped-for-privacy@sky.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

A bit extreme - but sometimes a bit of planning on a regular journey can lead to avoiding an awkward turn. Hence I tend to avoid a particular rat- run as it involves 2 right turns and I prefer to go to a traffic light controlled junction to take one safer right turn.

Yes, whenever I'm taking a load of garden waste and Amazon cardboard to the tip (sorry, "recycling centre") I take a slightly longer way round to avoid having to turn right from a minor road onto a major road where there isn't very good visibility either way because the junction is on a long bend. At quiet times, it's not a problem but as soon as there's a stream of cars going to the coast, it's a dead loss because there's almost nose-to-tail traffic and it's rare for anyone to stop to let me out.

Where I used to live, there was a crossroads where my road joined a busy trunk A road. If I wanted to turn right, I had to check for two streams of traffic coming from my right because the road narrowed from two-lane dual-carriageway to one lane at the junction, and from the left some cars were preparing to overtake others as the dual carriageway started.

I quickly worked out that there was an easier way. There was another road, a little dead-end into a hamlet, about 300 yards to my left. I would turn left (only need to check for traffic from my right), pull into the centre turning-right lane, do a U turn around the island in the mouth of the dead-end (having checked there was nothing coming from that direction) and pull out again into the direction I originally wanted. People from the hamlet did the converse with U turns in my road.

I got a *very* funny look from a car that was waiting (and waiting and waiting) to turn right when I did my turn-left-U-turn manoeuvre and went past him, still waiting. I would have slowed down and flashed him out ahead of me, but there was traffic coming from his right so he wouldn't have been able to get out even if I'd let him - and anyway, there's too much risk of someone overtaking me at the junction and hitting him.

It was a weird junction for traffic doing odd things. If I was turning right into my road (coming from the left), I'd indicate a few seconds before and pull over into the centre turning-right lane, carrying on indicating. And I've lost count of the number of people who have nearly rear-ended me and then swerved left to avoid me - presumably because they thought I was going to accelerate to move into lane 2 of the dual carriageway rather than slow down and turn right. I must have been doing something wrong for it to happen so often. Maybe the signage is such that people see the "start of dual carriageway n-hundred yards" signs but not the "cross roads" sign and don't realise that a right indicator might mean "turning right" rather than "moving right to overtake".

I bought a second-hand Mondeo estate (55 plate Mk3) a few years back. The guy I bought it off had just bought a Mini which was both taller and wider than the Mondeo.

Suggest he sets up a telephone hot line so you can ring in in real time on your mobile...oh hang on, hands free mobile and have a good rant.

would help the shortage of organs for donation though

The Vauxhall Victor FB with a bench front seat had the handbrake under the steering wheel. You pulled it out to apply and twisted it to release it.

In message <s54rfd$1n98$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org>, Andrew snipped-for-privacy@mybtinternet.com writes

Dad used to have a 1972 Datsun (with seats rather than a bench) that had the same handbrake arrangement.

Adrian

I suspect the migration of the handbrake from under the dash to between the front seats was motivated by cost savings. Shorter cable run to the rear wheels and no need for lever arrangement under the bonnet that converted the action of pulling the handbrake out into a much-reduced movement of the cables going to the rear but with more tension.

The actual wording is: "... a person must not cause a vehicle to enter the box junction so that the vehicle has to stop within the box junction due to the presence of stationary vehicles ..."

So my >>A lot depends on where the box junction is: if you are overhanging at

Interestingly, it seems that box junctions over level crossings have no legal authority, unless the road is <4.5m wide:

"For the purposes of this paragraph ?box junction? means an area of the carriageway where the marking has been placed and which is?

(a)at a junction between two or more roads;

(b)at a gyratory system or roundabout;

(c)along a length of a two-way road (other than at a junction), the carriageway of which is not greater than 4.5 metres wide at its narrowest point; or

(d)on the length of road adjacent to the vehicular entrance to the premises of a fire, police or ambulance station."

From

There's an odd junction for joining the westbound A27 from the A280 just outside Worthing.

The A27 is a two-lane dual carriageway at that point. The A280 merges into lane one from a slip road. Nothing unusual about that so far.

The oddity is, about 100 yards further on from the end of the slip road the A27 gets a third lane split off from lane two.

I've never been able to work out why the slip road doesn't simply become the new lane one on the left.

So you cannot enter unless there is a car-length gap on the far side - or will be by the time you get there. And if another car is closer to the gap, because it's coming from a side road, then you always lose your chance. There have been times when I *have* entered before the gap exists, because I plan to crawl forwards slowly (not actually stopping!) until the car ahead has moved far enough. But that requires confidence that the really *will* move. And I aim always to move quickly while I'm blocking an oncoming car turning right into the side road, and only crawl while I'm blocking a left-turning car from side to main road.

Box junctions are great for letting cars turn across your path without you blocking them, or to let emergency vehicles out of a fire station etc. But they are open to abuse with side roads because drivers on the side road often don't respect the normal rule of "driver on side road gives way to driver on main road". They are one of the times when I will flash a car on a side road to say "we've had long enough on the main road, time to let at least *one* car out from the side road even if you don't have priority". At all other times I hope that side road cars will give way and not try to sneak out ahead just because they can get to the space quicker than I can.

It's where a dashcam can help fight a fine for misuse of a box junction. If the video shows that I set off as soon as there is a big enough gap and a side-road car sets off at the same time and gets there first, it can be seen that I was waiting correctly and set off as soon as I was allowed and not before, so if I'm stopped on the box, it's only because the other car got there first.

I suppose it's down to semantics: at the precise second that you set off, there was no stationary vehicle preventing you leave, even though there was one a split-second later.

There is a breed of driver who seem to regard a box junction as conferring actual *priority* to the side road and *they* will hoot at *you* and give

One of the most dangerous and misleading junctions I've encountered is this one in Ryde on the Isle of Wight:

It really needs one of two things - either say "sod it" and convert it to a proper roundabout with normal rules, or else erect signs at each entrance to say "Roundabout rules do NOT apply - GIVE WAY to traffic from left".

I'm not sure why the priority is that way, anyway. The traffic that you have to give way to is coming from a dead-end, whereas the road you are on is a major through route.

Well, not *always*, depending on what you are driving and what they are driving and how good / brave they are. ;-)

I have done that and assumed (dangerous I know) that the last car(s)

Or keep moving into the spaces that's clearly there. However, so many only seem to think of themselves or best case be oblivious of others.

We had to go though some road works earlier that were quite long meaning there was quite a dead-band between each side actually moving and the lights were on a fairly short (for the small quantity of cars that could get though each time) duty cycle.

So, given I was the front, I made sure I was both ready as soon as the last car was though and our lights went green to be away and there is

It is a game to be sure.

Yup. ;-(

There are some 'known' junctions were the regulars know it's a bugger and alternate / zip.

And most people don't, especially when they know they could land you a fine. A minority WGAF of course.

Sounds 'fair' but I'm not sure if that matters?

And where video might well show, yours or theirs.

Daughter followed a Council van (in her van) into what she assumed was the left hand lane but turned out to still be a bus lane (and when it was active). She was sent the fine and a picture of her van in the bus lane and a link to a video of the previous 5 seconds or so. You would have thought when the picture shows someone in or overhanging (as in daughters case) the box junction they might check the video to see if issuing a PCN is 'fair'. As I mention previously, I'm not sure 'fair' really comes into it and they enjoy the revenue, until contested.

Yup, they are lovely people indeed.

My maiden voyage driving on the wrong side of the road was in France, co-driving with my boss in a van full of exhibition gear to be set up in Nice. The Périphérique in rush hour was a baptism of fire (but we survived). ;-)

Cheers, T i m