I had a bump the other week. At first I thought I was totally blameless, but after talking to a mate i’m not so sure now.
As you can see from the photo I had ben stopped at lights for about a minute. When the traffic moved off i checked left and right normal mirrors and set off slowly.
After travelling a foot ish I bummped into the car shown in diagram which had decided to push his nose in.
The driver said he was totally to blame and he was driving like a ****.
An indipendant witness said he had tried to do the same to him.
This witness had already phoned our office and spent 10 minutes on phone explaining what had happened to my boss.
I cant remember if i checked ALL of the mirrors on left hand side. And im not sure if I could have seen him if I did.
My mate said he checks every mirror before he sets off in traffic. Which has got me thinking.
There are six mirrors on my truck. 2 main and wide angle mirrors on each side, a passenger downward mirror and a front downward mirror.
When I passed my hgv 30 years ago there was only one mirror each side.
Do I have time to check all six mirrors and look over my shoulder every single time I set off in stationary traffic?
srw1mpo:
Do I have time to check all six mirrors and look over my shoulder every single time I set off in stationary traffic?
Am I partly to blame?
Yes you do or one day you could kill someone. Really your mirror work should be near the same level as is if you’re in motion especially on the n/s. You can’t drive a lorry like you drive your car and switch your brain off whilst at lights.
If I had to put it into % I’d say you’re 75% to blame. If the car was visble in at least one of your mirrors (kerb I suspect) and he wasn’t moving at the time then good mirror work would have prevented it.
We’re no perfect everyone misses something now and again or your mind wonders. Just hold your hands up and say boss I could have prevented that if I was on the ball. Instead of trying to blame some walloper doing what wallopers do best. Always blame the other ■■■■ at the scene of the accident though. Never hold your hands up at the scene of an accident pretty sure your insurance company would take a dim view of that.
Reason I don’t crash is one reason and one reason alone…its a 18 page form you need to fill in when you get back to the depot
I think the point here is that cars etc don’t simply materialise in your “blind spots” as if they had been beamed there by Starship Enterprise. Either they were already there when your lorry arrived on the scene, or they moved into that location while you were sat waiting for the traffic to start moving/lights to change (or some combination of both, of course). You’ve got all those mirrors at your disposal so get into the habit of using them - all of them - all the time.
You will see it all the time (not just lorry/bus drivers) - drivers staring fixedly at the vehicle in front or the red traffic light waiting for it to move or change colour while all around them other road users (not just vehicles) are moving in/out of potential collision zones. Then when the lights change/traffic moves off they go…
Sorry if this sounds a bit condescending - It’s certainly not meant that way.
I will take them on board and learn from the experience.
Regards
A commendable attitude with 30 years experience and not a strand of arrogance, you won’t fit in here!
I see this incident as; Eye not on the ball due to our human natures weakness of complacency, and you are not alone…
Yes you possibly could/should of prevented it, but hell who’s perfect all the time?
Come back and impress us when you’ve taken out a bridge!
You say you checked your side mirrors before setting off, and I assume the wide-angle mirrors are properly adjusted and you implicitly checked these too.
Could the car you hit be seen either out of the front window or the normal mirrors (assuming your seat is at an appropriate height, etc.)?
If not (and I’m a bit sceptical), then he must have been extremely close to you and I’m inclined to think you bear no blame.
I appreciate other posters have said you should have been able to see the car in the cyclist or pedestrian mirrors, but it doesn’t seem to me that these mirrors are designed to address this situation - namely, another motor vehicle waiting alongside and then recklessly moving in front to block you.
If a cyclist was waiting alongside you in the n/s corner, and then moved across in front of you and you ran him down at the moment of setting off, all within a few feet, my attitude would be the same.
The cyclist and pedestrian mirrors are there to stop you violating other road users who are proceeding correctly but you otherwise cannot see. I was almost caught out once (with only a side mirror) by a car driver who was duelling with me on the motorway - I’d lost track but had the feeling someone was there and waited for a mile or more to see him go back or forwards (I think I even eased off slightly to flush him out), and when that didn’t happen I still felt uneasy so moved over at a snail’s pace watching the mirror (in case he showed himself by braking), but sure enough as I complete the lane change the ■■■■■■ emerges on the hard shoulder in front of me shaking his fist.
Nevertheless, the cyclist and pedestrian mirrors aren’t there to change the basic rules of the road and allow people to hide, wait still, and then cut across in front of you the moment you go to move. Even if you could have seen him at your side, you’re not required to anticipate what he did if his attempt to push in was so marginal he couldn’t even be seen ahead of you.
I drive quite a lot in London. With all the suicidal pushbike riders/pedestrians/motorbike riders/private hire taxis etc I’m paranoid about hitting something,which is good because it’s made me check the front and kerb mirrors last thing before I move off. Not so much in the front,but I quite often spy a pushbike rider in the kerb mirror. I try to dominate the road where I can too. If you give any of the above a gap they might fit into,they’ll be there
My first thought was, do you really have a duty of care to somebody who is breaking the law, but I suppose you do have a duty of care to look after yourself and the motor. You also have a duty of care to monitor your mirrors, but the other motorist had a duty of care to move in only if it was safe to do so, and it patently wasn’t.
Put it behind you and move on.
Honest answer yes you should have probably spotted the car, however they are a ■■■■ for trying to get in front of you in a place they should not be on hatched markings, so I blame them completely for being a moronic pig ■■■■. But yes you do need to check your mirrors better, we all know we have blind spots and we all get lackadaisical about checking them often enough.
Now then even when an accident is not our fault it’s quite natural to disect the incident to see what we could have done to avoid it.
I won’t go down the road of explaining deliberate accidents we can get away with or be so reckless as to admit I have no fear of hitting other road users apart from the hassle of paperwork it’s just embarrassing to stand on the side of the road taking down each others particulars, unless your in Brighton or on a pride march.
Anyway a HGV/LGV driver will over time gain an almost precognitive understanding of what other road users are going to do whether legal or silly. But we do have a duty to protect them from theirselves. It’s unlikely you will have this type of incident again as we learn from these occurrences just how crazy some buggers can be.
As far as mirror checking this is even more important when stationary as hazards have a habit of sneaking up on us.
There’s also another secret mirror on your truck and you won’t learn about this on your lessons as its advanced stuff right from elite drivers club that only Albion1971 (who maybe on his annual sebaticle to worry Australian folk) and myself are members of.
Right so the secret mirror is located on the left handside of your windscreen in good conditions it will show ghost images of stuff in your blind spot on the nearside, doesn’t cover it all but next time you overtake something try it, you will find they are still visible as a reflection on your windscreen.
These may not work on all trucks but has on all the ones I’ve driven.
I will take them on board and learn from the experience.
Regards
What , there taking the ■■■■ , Ffs my old truck had mirrors , lenses , cameras , screens etc , try looking in that lot in central London , by the time you’ve blinked a cyclist , biker , pedestrian has moved into yot blind spot .
your mate sounds like this lot on here , don’t do as I do , do as I say , Ffs there telling you how too drive a truck then 99% of them ■■■■ themselves at the thought of driving in London
last night i came out of tesco avonmouth and up to the 403 and stopped at the lights waiting to turn left,a goon in a citroen was at the lights waiting to turn right…as the lights changed he turned left right across my path as i pulled out…then he tried to pass another truck where the road widens for a junction only to find himself trapped in some traffic cones,he found a gap and cut me up again.
down the road are roadwork lights just after the island on red with a queue of cars and trucks so the goon pulls out as the lights go green and round the island the wrong way to cut in front of the traffic…to get stuck behind more traffic???this sort of goon needs to learn a lesson…you taught your goon to think twice,dont loose any sleep over it.
