I remember driving paper wagons 44t up there in 2014 to Didcot for drop-off. The roller coaster pattern of the hills on the M4-Didcot stretch meant that the exhaust brake didn’t really have much effect on the downhill slopes.
SO I just use the normal brake, padding it a bit here and there to keep my speed within reasonable levels. There would invariably be some tipper driver or car transporter that would pull out to get past me on the downhill stretches (they coasting downhill at 60+ of course) which I’d end up having to slow right down in case the buggers swung back over in front of me too early (not waiting for me to flash them in) as they have a habit of doing…
In my experience it IS tippers and transporter drivers that seem to want to freewheel everywhere, and use the brakes as little as possible…
Then there’s the elephant racing… I slow down to get them past me quicker, and bugger me - I get a supermarket wagon pull out to overtake - 'cos I’ve inadvertently slowed down to 48mph FFS…
Can’t ANYONE wait a bloody minute here?
Is everyone on some kind of “job and knock megabonus” to be in that much of a hurry to an early grave?
I hope the law throw the book at the pillock who’s wiped out so many in one hit. There’s no excuses for bad driving when we’re all supposed to be professionals in this game.
A lot of drivers think that people joining from sliproads or coming out of laybys have right of way on the A34. Never known a road where you get grief for not moving over, plenty of dawdling head shakers with no idea of how to merge into the traffic.
Talking of laybys, our Maritime friends are particularly good at just rolling out into traffic.
No road seems as bad for “filling the idiot space” as the two lane only trunk road/motorway. Coming down the M11 between Cambridge and Stansted in the morning comes close to what the A34 is so notorious for - Artics snapping at each other’s heels… Drop back - and a slower one then decides that THEY “must overtake now or never”.
The thought of clicking it back enough so anything passing you bumper to bumper in lane two can leave you out of it - doesn’t seem to come to mind.
Even when out in my car - I purposefully avoid spending more than five seconds within striking distance of any artic - and I’ll NEVER sit between two of them if I can help it.
Some of the off-slips have rather short “deceleration lanes” too… And they are downhill, eg. Milton turnoff. Get the speed wrong, and you’re either rolling it, or rear-ending the car at the bottom of the sliproad.
Have they fixed that “always broken” canopy at the fuel station yet btw? - Have not been down the A34 since January.
Winseer:
No road seems as bad for “filling the idiot space” as the two lane only trunk road/motorway. Coming down the M11 between Cambridge and Stansted in the morning comes close to what the A34 is so notorious for - Artics snapping at each other’s heels… Drop back - and a slower one then decides that THEY “must overtake now or never”.
The thought of clicking it back enough so anything passing you bumper to bumper in lane two can leave you out of it - doesn’t seem to come to mind.
Even when out in my car - I purposefully avoid spending more than five seconds within striking distance of any artic - and I’ll NEVER sit between two of them if I can help it.
Some of the off-slips have rather short “deceleration lanes” too… And they are downhill, eg. Milton turnoff. Get the speed wrong, and you’re either rolling it, or rear-ending the car at the bottom of the sliproad.
Have they fixed that “always broken” canopy at the fuel station yet btw? - Have not been down the A34 since January.
The worst on slips are the ones like you get coming off the A303 onto the 34 really short sweeping bends where something like a truck is only going to be able to get upto about 30-40mph when it gets onto the 34 then such as the n/b side ain’t going to get any momentum if running heavy as it’s going up a steep hill.
This can cause instances of trucks just pulling out at short notice to let the other truck on and also car drivers who panick when they see a vehicle coming around the bend as to some it will just look like they’re going to force their way onto the 34. Also the bottlenecks you always get around Didcot /Oxford you’ll have the trucks in lane 2 not easing off whilst everyone is queueing to come off in lane 1 all it needs then is someone who ain’t checked their mirrors and pull into lane 2 because they don’t want to wait until they have past the queueing traffic and end up into the path of a truck doing 40-50mph whilst they are doing about 15-20mph.
^^^^^ That has been applying to the approach clockwise to J30-31 on the M25 in the mornings this week…
Lane one has come to a stop because morons have left it too late to get left into the lane drop for the Thurrock junction. Then you’ve got people in that lane one - pulling from stationary into lane two that hasn’t even bothered to “ease off a bit”… Invites disaster, and there have already been fatalities on this stretch too.
i used the A34 This week for the firs time in almost 2 years and i cant believe how shocking the condition of it is, the ruts and potholes are terrible, and i thought Scottish roads were badly kept
chaversdad:
i used the A34 This week for the firs time in almost 2 years and i cant believe how shocking the condition of it is, the ruts and potholes are terrible, and i thought Scottish roads were badly kept
First time I went past the Shell garage after the M40 when I got my Actros, I thought both my front tyres had burst simultaneously
chaversdad:
i used the A34 This week for the firs time in almost 2 years and i cant believe how shocking the condition of it is, the ruts and potholes are terrible, and i thought Scottish roads were badly kept
First time I went past the Shell garage after the M40 when I got my Actros, I thought both my front tyres had burst simultaneously
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I think the “Peartree Trench” has been filled since then - if that’s the place we’re talking about here… Just south of the M40 junction near Peartree junction, where the entire road seems to have subsided as if there’d been an earthquake… You can still see the skid marks from taking off truck tyres that have gone over it!
Magistrates were told that the prosecution case would hinge on evidence that Kroker was using his mobile phone to change music in his cab when his lorry crashed into stationary cars on the A34.
5 yrs prison paid for by us tax payers, then banned from driving but this will only come in to play if he every applies for a uk licence (unless its changed)
I know it’s tax payers that pay, but this prick deserves a life sentence for wiping out three youngsters and a mother if it’s proven that he caused this by jeffing about with a phone/radio or anything else while he’s supposed to be driving. It’s a full time job ffs!
peterm:
I know it’s tax payers that pay, but this prick deserves a life sentence for wiping out three youngsters and a mother if it’s proven that he caused this by jeffing about with a phone/radio or anything else while he’s supposed to be driving. It’s a full time job ffs!
all he will get is death by dangerous driving, this needs changing to manslaughter when people are playing with there phones etc and can be proven
peterm:
I know it’s tax payers that pay, but this prick deserves a life sentence for wiping out three youngsters and a mother if it’s proven that he caused this by jeffing about with a phone/radio or anything else while he’s supposed to be driving. It’s a full time job ffs!
all he will get is death by dangerous driving, this needs changing to manslaughter when people are playing with there phones etc and can be proven
Yeah, it’s all too soft. I know some will say that he didn’t go out intending to kill someone, but the bottom line is that he’s done just that: almost a whole family wiped out and he’ll do a relatively short time inside and then off he goes back to wherever and on the road again. Meanwhile that lot are f****d for ever.
As I said before, drivings a full time job and if I could drive around for 53 years without being distracted by things, I don’t see the need for others to be f*****g around with phones, radio’s etc, etc.
I’ll sit here now waiting for the ■■■■ taking about being holier than thou, but now some are going to realise that it’s people like Angus Mc Fungus whatever his second name is are out there doing what they do.
