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Taking Care Round Trucks When Your Driving


celeste

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One of the members of the poultry forum I use is also a trucker, she posted a very good bit of advice for us normal drivers and kindly said I could post it here.

Please, please take care around the trucks in this weather, a lot of us are carrying max weight loads to minimise the amount of journies made and

44 tonnes takes alot of slowing/stopping time/distance in these conditions!

If you're on a Motorway please dont sandwich yourself between two trucks.

When you overtake, pull a loooooooooong way clear before pulling in infront of us, it fills me with utter terror everytime a car pulls 10ft infront of me and the kids in the back are waving at me................I see their smiling faces, then imagine someone else having a blow out or making a mistake........those kids are infront of me............I'm ontop of them with nowhere to go......

and please, please, please keep your lights on...........the salt on the roads

literally bakes on our heated mirrors, if you're coming up behind us to overtake, in a Silver, Grey, darkish or metallic coloured car, against a backdrop of slush coloured road you are very well camoflaged to the poor trucker looking back almost 60ft along the length of their vehicle through salt crusted mirrors, especially when you take into account the speed in which you approach us..............please try to help us to keep you safe by not inadvertantly making yourselves vulnerable.............I have 6 mirrors and a windscreen to look at/out of, and with the best will in the world I cant do all at once, I may be a loathed trucker but I'm only humancrying.gifscared.gif

 

So to all of you out there driving takecare, travel safe and be safe!smile.gifsmile.gifsmile.gif

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Excellent advice,would also like to crosspost.A sign on a truck I saw once really made me stop and think,not sure if it's true but am guessing so - said "If you can't see my mirrors I can't see you" - and I couldn't see the mirrors until I dropped back some distance,never done that again.

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She is right Barry has been up and down the country and cant believe how some people are driving in this weather. Lights dont cost any thing to keep on and could save your lives, dont leave it until the last minute before changing lanes to leave the motorway, a truck takes time to stop and if it hits a patch of ice whilst doing so you will have no chance! I worry about Barry constantly but this weather makes it worse, the majority of the wagons on the roads are stocking up your food stuff so are as vital to keep on the move as your emergency vehicles so give them a chance

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She is more than happy for anyone to cross post and has added some more safety tips.

 

 

Zenith raised very good points regards mist and fog too!, in these conditions for a Trucker looking backwards through mirrors along the length of their vehicle, Silver and pale metallic coloured cars are virtually invisable, likewise in the rain when the road surface darkens, drivers of darker grey or blue vehicles, again especially the metallic ones become virtually invisable.

If you are driving a car and the sun is behind you, that sun is bouncing directly from the truckers mirrors into his/her eyes whilst they are trying to keep their eyes on you whilst you overtake, again limiting/restricting vision.

 

Moola has raised fab point about truckers' 'blind spots' the very worst for the trucker and most vulnerable for the car driver would be the blind spot below/alongside the truckers passenger door (left or right hand drive)

On either side of our trucks we tend to have two mirrors reflecting down the length of our vehicle (a small long range one and a large standard range one) most trucks on the passenger side also have a downward facing 'curb mirror' fitted above the passenger window to allow us to see whatever is directly alongside of us. If and when a car is alongside a truck on the passenger side there are two vunerable 'blind spots' when the car is out of view of the backward facing mirrors and not yet in view of the downward facing 'curb' mirror and again when slightly further forward and just out of view from the curb mirror but not quite infront of us enough to be seen fron the windscreen.

These blind spots are at the most vunerable to trucker and car driver in a Motorway speed restricted stretch like roadworks where everyone is going more or less the same speed.

Normally if a truck were to overtake you (thus having the greater speed as the overtaking vehicle) the trucker would have his/her eye on you and you would only be in the blind spot for a fleeting second. The danger tends to occur when both vehicles are doing a similar speed, the car being overtaken tends to spend longer in the blind spot, the trucker is also having to continuously keep track of what is approaching from the otherside aswell as having to concentrate ahead in the often narrow lanes.

This become especially dangerous when as a car driver being overtaken by a truck you suddenly decide that you dont want to be overtaken and increase your speed marginally (come on we've all done it!) thus prolonging the length of time you are in the blind spot. It would be far safer in this instance if you increased your speed substancially and pulled away in front, allowing the truck to pull back in, or stayed at the slower speed allowing the truck to pass you safely and pull back in, before you in turn increased your speed, overtook and went on your way!

And lastly, pedestrians.............many of todays trucks are so tall that you can't actually be seen by the driver whilst you are standing at the side of the road or indeed crossing the road infront of us scared.gif

For example I am 5'4ft, my door handle is heigher than my head as indeed is the floor of my truck! standing to the front on tip toes with out stretched arms I can't reach the bottom edge of my windscreen!

Those of us driving trucks with tall cabs tend to have a mirror fixed above the windscreen on the passenger side, facing downwards so we can what is directly infront/below us, but it does not provide a vision across the whole width of our vehicle. If a truck is stationary and you are crossing infront of it, please for your own safety try to keep a distance of at least 8ft from the front of the truck and the driver may just about be able to see your head!

 

And as for cyclists, I wont even go there as you all completely loathe us ! and quite frankly with your vulnerability through your silent often invisable approach, often on our near and blindest side, usually as we are trying to turn corners.............you scare the living daylights out of us!

 

Lecture over folksblush.gif Be safe! smile.gifsmile.gifsmile.gif

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A lot of valuable points are being raised, and I think everyone could/should be made more aware of the mechanics of a lorry - not in terms of how the whole thing works, but in terms of the vision of the driver and the time it will take for a lorry to slow down etc.

 

However, I would never advise any car to speed up when being overtaken, I think that is downright irresponsible! When you're overtaking someone, and this is whether in a car, a van or a lorry, you expect that the other party knows what you are doing and that they'll let you pass in order to get in front of you. Some drivers appear to have issues with me overtaking them in my van and start speeding up. I hate it when cars do that! My van goes faster than the 60 mph than they were doing until that moment, but I can't take it over 70 comfortably. If the car starts speeding up, I will have to slow down in the middle lane, in front of cars that are speeding up to overtake too, causing a potentially dangerous situation.

 

As for cyclists: this cyclist here doesn't loathe lorries, but like there are stupid cyclists, who ride without lights and dodge traffic lights left, right and centre, there are also inconsiderate and downright dangerous lorry drivers, who do think that they're king of the road. I didn't appreciate the pick-up this week that passed me so closely, at a stupid speed, that it sent me into the slippry, icy slush on the side of the road, causing me to lose my balance and nearly ending up underneath the wheels of the lorry behind it, which was driving along at the same speed at a way too close distance! :ohmy: :angry:

I've said it before, but if all parties could have a bit more consideration and a bit less attitude, we'd all get along fine on the roads and a few less of us would die on them.

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Must say it's one of my pet hates on the motorway when someone speeds up when you try to overtake, they're pooteling along at 65mph, but as soon as you pull out to overtake, they hit the accelerator and before you know it your doing over 80 just to get past angry.gif, I often wonder if it's due to the remnants of some primitive flight response unsure.gif.

 

I don't think the OP was advocating speeding up when a lorry overtakes, just that it's better to do that than remain in a lorry's blind spot unsure.gif

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I don't think the OP was advocating speeding up when a lorry overtakes, just that it's better to do that than remain in a lorry's blind spot unsure.gif

 

But then surely it's better to slow down? The lorry driver would not expect to be taken over on the left when overtaking a car on the right :unsure:

 

Of course all lorry drivers venturing out in this weather to supply shops etc have my total respect. The country would quite literally come to a standstill if it wasn't for you guys keeping us all going! :flowers:

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Excellent thread!!

 

The point is to always leave yourself an escape route. For instance if there's 3 in a bed on the m/way, i.e. 3 vehicles alongside each other in 3 lanes, then where does either of them go if an incident happens?

For overtaking lorries the advice is not to ride along side but to wait until there is space in front of the lorry for you to move in to.

 

Motorways are the safest roads but the speeds mean that much more braking distance is required by all - something that all of us forget in our haste to get somewhere. I am guilty of not giving lorries enough room when getting into a congested lane near an exit :(.

 

PS. I would also advocate taking advanced driving instruction, it's amazing how much more we can always learn about driving. I've been driving for 15 years and have only recently understood about limit points!

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I've been driving for 15 years and have only recently understood about limit points!

 

 

Now obviously, I know what a " limit point" is whistle.gif......but perhaps you could explain to some of the others what it is rolleyes.gif

I've never heard of limit points in my life, anybody else know what they are ?

 

 

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