Evening Folks,
I am lucky enough to be starting a road sweeper job next month with a 15t Daf LF Johnston sweeper.
I was wondering if anyone has done the job and had any advice for general sweeping and getting used to driving Left Hand Drive vehicles in the UK?
Thanks
-Egg
Egg-Head:
Evening Folks,I am lucky enough to be starting a road sweeper job next month with a 15t Daf LF Johnston sweeper.
I was wondering if anyone has done the job and had any advice for general sweeping and getting used to driving Left Hand Drive vehicles in the UK?
Thanks
-Egg
Most of the first trucks I ever drove were centre drive and left hand drive fire trucks also drove sweepers on the council.
As usual left right or centre drive use the mirrors often to check road positioning between kerb and dividing line/lane markings.
I’ve not done sweeping, but I have done a lot of LHD work over here and abroad and it does take a lot of getting used to. I had the erm… ‘privilege’ of taking drivers out who had never driven, or only had limited experience with, a LHD on these roads. And I can honestly say it was the most harrowing experience of my life. Lots of saying “keep left” with increasing urgency as people wander towards the middle of the road, many times where I as a passenger am getting thrust towards oncoming traffic or middle of the road refuges. I blame that whole period of my life for early hair loss 
The best advice I can give is to use your mirrors a lot to ensure your road positioning is fine, check your NS often because if that’s close enough to the kerb, or whatever reference poijt you choose, then you know your OS is in your lane - the vehicle is the same width is just that you’re sat on the other side of it so your perspective as a driver is different to what you’re used to. You’ll get used to it and it will become normal but yo start with its handy to keep this in mind.
Other notable things to watch for are for vehicles overtaking you, we’ve all seen cars get taken out by a foreign truck and because I’ve done a lot of LHD over here I can see how it happens. Also be extremely careful at roundabouts as often vehicles coming round an island will get caught behind your mirror assembly on the “passenger” side so can go missing for a few moments. Honourable mention too for those moments where you’ve got parked vehicles on the left but have to “nose out” to get by where normally you’d be sat where you’re nosing out to but in a LHD you’ll be trying to judge the nose out from over 2m away.
But yeah its not difficult per se, it just takes a bit of care and getting used to and I think I’ve covered the main things that used to trip people up when I was “training” them.
Only driven a LHD once for 20 miles never again The vehicle was an 80 ton crane along narrow county roads Positioning was hell the mirrors were worse than useless it bounced like mad above 15kph I have driven some sheds but that crane was the worst Another driver bought it back and he said never again Believe it or not the crane was bought by a boss of an engineering firm and was a toy for him to play with
Early one very cold and frosty morning I was sent by my agency to a County Council depot. They wanted me to drive a LHD gully-sucker, but when we took it out, all the water in the pipes was frozen solid. The operator (lost his licence) and the foreman spent a couple of hours trying to sort it out, and it didn’t help that I was sat reading my book in a nice warm office.
Eventually, we set off and when crossing a narrow bridge, I banged mirrors with a truck coming the other way. With no mirror, I had to take it back to the yard and they sent me home. I never did get paid for those hours and never drove a LHD truck again.