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I agree with the others, you did very well to avoid a major pileup by the sound of it....
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Or even "license" ! - sorry.
Have a great / safe trip oilrag. ;-)
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A few weeks ago, I followed a large, rigid lorry down a country road. He was using more than half the road, so I elected to stay behind him.
The road bent gently to the right. I watched the lorry follow a straight line, across a grass verge, go through a hedge, bounce over a ditch and come to a rest in the field with the front nearside wheel a good foot in the air! At one point it looked like it would flip onto its side.
I thought the driver may have passed out at the wheel. I stopped, and got my feet covered in mud approaching the drivers door. It slowly opened, and the wide-eyed driver peered out. He assured me he and his passenger were unharmed, and then I heard a mobile ring in the cab...........
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and then I heard a mobile ring in the cab........... >>
That really worries me. In the last two weeks I've seen lorries coming towards me on smallish single carriage-way A roads with the driver leaning both forearms on the steering wheel and a mobile firmly clamped to his right ear holding an animated conversation.
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Thanks for the replies, and the support, i've been wondering if the accident had occured had i been able to do something different, probably not. Another lucky day and we all got home safely.
Oilrag...i was empty at the time, but no way could a current design loaded transporter have survived the swerve the other driver performed, TBH it isn't the centre of gravity thing so much as the design of the whole vehicle, it may look like a articulated truck, and it may have a very short tractor with very long trailer, but its connected behind the towing vehicle and not imposed upon (semi trailer), which is much more stable.
Simply put, take swb land rover towing trailer twice as long and twice as heavy, its more or less the same, very easy to have a case of the tail wagging the dog, so care and no violent manouevres are the order of the day (and correct weighting as any good caravanner will know).
As the spy in shoes says, all the best for a very enjoyable break.
(just hope you leave the French some of their cheaper diesel after you've filled as many Yorkshire jerries as you can fit in).
Optimist... if these clowns must use a hand held mobile wouldn't you think they'd have the brains not to use it jammed up against the drivers window for every one to see.
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Mr Bennet, I don't think that you can have any worries about what you should have done differently. From what you've posted you handled the situation terribly well.
I had an almost identical situation in my coach a while ago. I was driving up to the Lakes with a load of (ahem) more mature passengers and was in the middle lane doing 62mph overtaking an articulated lorry when it started to move into my lane. A spot of quick and heavy braking and protracted use of my audible warning device (they're bloomin' loud on a Bova!) got me out of the situation without incident. One of the old dears said "Ooh, I thought our time was up then lad. You did well." Sadly, I had to reply "Not really love, you get used to it when you drive on motorways all the time." (Said without wishing to annoy any HGV drivers on here...)
Cheers
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Thanks BW, don't worry about annoying hgv'ers, the lads and lasses that contribute here are as likely as you and i to be thoroughly dismayed by the loss of competence in our professions. Spend a lot of my days with shaking head.
Like the lady on your coach, you can always rely on the more mature boys and girls to have an understatement for any incident, keeps it all in perspective.
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You were cool gb and obviously did the right thing.
I had my life (or at least my car) saved once by an HGV driver on the A34, when I found myself bearing down on him like a bat out of hell in the nearside lane as he was pulling out of a layby. I was going far too fast to stop, 80 or so, and the evening commuter who had been tailgating me, persuading me to pull in as soon as I could instead of taking my time and looking, had alredy started to pass me so that I couldn't nip back into the overtaking lane. The HGV man aborted his pull-out and drove back onto the very bumpy grass verge, so his truck bounded and crashed, as I just managed to squeeze through the gap, my speed by then down to about 60.
An incredibly hairy moment, half my fault and half the fault of the tailgater I would say, and I am eternally grateful to that lorry man. I thought of slowing or stopping to thank him, but decided he might not be in the best of moods with me so just waved out of the window. Hope he didn't think it was a rude gesture.
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Lud, we've all got away with things over the years.
Anybody who has been a high mileage driver and been accident free for a long time (i'm saying nowt, not tempting fate) will tell you they have had a good share of luck (anyone who thinks its all skill is deluded and dangerous IMO).
Your incident on the A34, the fact you acknowledged with a wave would have been all the was needed under the circumstances.
Not so sure who's fault it would have been anyway, sometimes the circumstances just add up wrongly, luckily the truck driver saw the developments and took the required action.
Its not always the case (these days esp) that a so called pro driver is any better, the overall visibility from a truck is superb, so he should see things develop.
I shall not comment on why so many trucks are managing to pull out from lane 1 into traffic already in lane 2, we have discussed that before, and it caused many heated exchanges...on the other hand..
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Maybe you should sin a bit less, GB, then you wouldn't need such a large transporter for them...;-)
Glad you're ok - and experience and luck were on your side.
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>>(anyone who thinks its all skill is deluded and dangerous IMO).
Very fair comment GB.
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