Been thinking about buying some sort of camera that films while i’m driving. I spoke to my company about roadhawk a while ago but was told it would cost too much & they wouldn’t pay for something like that. Well this week i had some idiot in a van pull out from my right on a dual carriageway about 50yrds before 2 lanes go into 1. He pulled out into the right lane as i was right on top of him but then tried to race infront of me but as the traffic was slowing to a stop he didn’t make it & ended up next to me on the chevrons. With that he got out the van & started calling me all the names under the sun saying he was gonna kill me. He then tried to position his van in front of me so i couldn’t move but i managed to pull away so he ended up behind me. When the road opened up again near the roundabout he pulled up besides me telling me to get out & he was gonna kill me. I just ignored him & kept driving but later that day my boss phoned me saying he had had 2 separate calls from members of the public accusing me of dangerous driving. Thing is there was a guy driving & a woman in the passenger seat so im thinking they both rang up to make it sound worse. I had a investigatory meeting today & could end up with a disciplinary if my company believe him over me. There was no cameras that i know of so its his word against mine.
Anyway I want to get some sort of camera to film while im driving but would like to know what sort any of you guys use & is it any good??
You dont need a silly camera FFS just get yourself a good brass knuckle duster. If you had one at the time you should have smashed his teeth in.
I had one like that once first set of lights I came across got my base ball bat out jump out the cab he went white and shot up the road like a rat up a drain pipe the frickin ■■■■■.
Get yourself tooled up mate its a bad old place out there and no silly camera is going to save you!.
and I bought one of these- ebuyer.com/product/183959
by way of a cheap intro into this sort of thing. Amazed by the quality of the results but soon lost it - it is/was the size of a thumb. Found it difficult to stick to the dash but would recommend something like it.
ive got a HD windscreen camera that records on loop, i just unplug it if something happens that i want to keep on file, cost me 350 (aussie dollars) check my other thread for the quality etc i just put some vids up, but the reason i got it was for liability in case of an accident, as theres lads getting jail time now for culpable driving here so i want to keep myself covered in event of an accident
dantruckman:
You dont need a silly camera FFS just get yourself a good brass knuckle duster. If you had one at the time you should have smashed his teeth in.
I had one like that once first set of lights I came across got my base ball bat out jump out the cab he went white and shot up the road like a rat up a drain pipe the frickin ■■■■■.
Get yourself tooled up mate its a bad old place out there and no silly camera is going to save you!.
Well ‘tyler4164’ please take this response with the good intention that it is meant
As you have said you might now be facing some kind of disciplinary interview over this incident & I really hope that you don’t lose your job over this.
You need to think about why you didn’t let the vehicle just get in front of you even though you were both at the chevrons and the other guy had pulled out just 50yds before. Your employer’s might not be interested in the fine detail or even understand what goes on everyday out on the road, but you need to be able to defend your actions and get that across to them in ways that they understand.
Maybe you felt intimidated or scared because there where 3/4 big guys in the van and you felt the safest thing was to get away from the scene ASAP.
Sounds like you did the right thing by not getting into any verbal or physical confrontation with these people but it shouldn’t be a reason for you getting disciplined.
You have rights as well and you need to get your story straight in your head ready for the disciplinary interview.
Hope things go your way
All the best
Regards
Dave Penn;
Well, I was stupidly in a hurry once and was wondering why a vehicle in front had not overtaken the rare instance of an artic doing less than 40mph on the single-carriageway Frome bypass, having had ample opportunities to do so. So, after a few miles of tedious progress in a Sprinter, I decided to overtake and as I went by saw this woman hunched over the wheel, just staring at the rear of the truck, totally oblivious of me indicating left for several seconds before I had to pull in tightly to avoid a head-on. Now my manouevre was completely safe apart from this incompetent who was not paying attention to anything apart from keeping 20ft behind the truck. Then she phoned up the company to complain about my driving. So, if the full facts had been taken into account, as with tyler, the incompetent/idiotic/aggressive/criminal driver who actually caused the problem in the first place (and I don’t mean me in my example), i.e. the other in tyler’s example, has not only got away with it, but tried to blame it on someone else, using a crude attempt (2 separate calls from the same source in effect) to reinforce their view (unless tyler really was in the wrong in this instance). These fools will eventually get their comeuppance if they continue that way though. This has happened before etc. but having genuine video evidence is incontrovertible and independent should anything happen.
Snudger:
Well, I was stupidly in a hurry once and was wondering why a vehicle in front had not overtaken the rare instance of an artic doing less than 40mph on the single-carriageway Frome bypass, having had ample opportunities to do so. So, after a few miles of tedious progress in a Sprinter, I decided to overtake and as I went by saw this woman hunched over the wheel, just staring at the rear of the truck, totally oblivious of me indicating left for several seconds before I had to pull in tightly to avoid a head-on. Now my manouevre was completely safe apart from this incompetent who was not paying attention to anything apart from keeping 20ft behind the truck. Then she phoned up the company to complain about my driving. So, if the full facts had been taken into account, as with tyler, the incompetent/idiotic/aggressive/criminal driver who actually caused the problem in the first place (and I don’t mean me in my example), i.e. the other in tyler’s example, has not only got away with it, but tried to blame it on someone else, using a crude attempt (2 separate calls from the same source in effect) to reinforce their view (unless tyler really was in the wrong in this instance). These fools will eventually get their comeuppance if they continue that way though. This has happened before etc. but having genuine video evidence is incontrovertible and independent should anything happen.
I’d say she was quite within her rights to phone your gaffer on the evidence presented here!
davepenn54:
Well ‘tyler4164’ please take this response with the good intention that it is meant
As you have said you might now be facing some kind of disciplinary interview over this incident & I really hope that you don’t lose your job over this.
You need to think about why you didn’t let the vehicle just get in front of you even though you were both at the chevrons and the other guy had pulled out just 50yds before. Your employer’s might not be interested in the fine detail or even understand what goes on everyday out on the road, but you need to be able to defend your actions and get that across to them in ways that they understand.
Maybe you felt intimidated or scared because there where 3/4 big guys in the van and you felt the safest thing was to get away from the scene ASAP.
Sounds like you did the right thing by not getting into any verbal or physical confrontation with these people but it shouldn’t be a reason for you getting disciplined.
You have rights as well and you need to get your story straight in your head ready for the disciplinary interview.
Hope things go your way
All the best
Regards
Dave Penn;
Reason being i was doing about 45 slowing down for a 40 limit & as i was going past the van hes pulled out into the right lane. I started to break as the traffic in front was coming to a stop but the guy in the van had decided he wanted to get in front. I stopped behind the truck in front of me & he ended up on the chevrons beside me. At the time i thought he would just pull behind me as it was clear but how stupid waas i?? Anyway thats when he got out & gave it all the mouth
davepenn54:
Well ‘tyler4164’ please take this response with the good intention that it is meant
As you have said you might now be facing some kind of disciplinary interview over this incident & I really hope that you don’t lose your job over this.
You need to think about why you didn’t let the vehicle just get in front of you even though you were both at the chevrons and the other guy had pulled out just 50yds before. Your employer’s might not be interested in the fine detail or even understand what goes on everyday out on the road, but you need to be able to defend your actions and get that across to them in ways that they understand.
Maybe you felt intimidated or scared because there where 3/4 big guys in the van and you felt the safest thing was to get away from the scene ASAP.
Sounds like you did the right thing by not getting into any verbal or physical confrontation with these people but it shouldn’t be a reason for you getting disciplined.
You have rights as well and you need to get your story straight in your head ready for the disciplinary interview.
Hope things go your way
All the best
Regards
Dave Penn;
Reason being i was doing about 45 slowing down for a 40 limit & as i was going past the van hes pulled out into the right lane. I started to break as the traffic in front was coming to a stop but the guy in the van had decided he wanted to get in front. I stopped behind the truck in front of me & he ended up on the chevrons beside me. At the time i thought he would just pull behind me as it was clear but how stupid waas i?? Anyway thats when he got out & gave it all the mouth
Thanks for the support
So not only do you cut the job up for everyone else, but you also take your breaks whilst the traffic is at a standstill.
Reason being i was doing about 45 slowing down for a 40 limit & as i was going past the van hes pulled out into the right lane. I started to break as the traffic in front was coming to a stop but the guy in the van had decided he wanted to get in front. I stopped behind the truck in front of me & he ended up on the chevrons beside me. At the time i thought he would just pull behind me as it was clear but how stupid waas i?? Anyway thats when he got out & gave it all the mouth
Thanks for the support
OK tyler, it doesn’t sound as if you have got anything to worry about, if you do face a disciplinary interview just explain it in a calm manner and as soon the other driver started getting threatening and aggressive you got outta there ASAP.
In my experience of similar situations most companies are only interested in the fact that their image hasn’t been tarnished and as you took the right course of action by not getting involved in any verbal or physical atercation, you should be alright.
Once again mate I really don’t think you should be facing any kind of disciplinary, just a quick explanation by yerself should suffice as far as I’m concerned, but I suppose these companies are obliged to investigate any ‘phoned in’ complaints.
davepenn54:
Hey snudger, you have got to be on a wind up here If there was only a 20ft gap why did you want to get in it
Regards
Dave Penn;
I don’t think it unreasonable for someone in a Sprinter to pass someone in a small car going at well under 40mph on a good, modern main road when you can see there’s nothing coming in the other direction for hundreds of yards, do you? That was precisely the case.
Because I stupidly didn’t realise how close to the truck she was when I started, and stupidly expected her, if she didn’t want to go, to leave or create enough space for others to do so, I overtook. I had honestly been out there ahead of her to the right for several seconds indicating left, quite patiently (to start with) waiting for her to leave a safe gap, so I didn’t just cut in which is I believe what she said. If she wanted to spend a long time doing 30-something (true satnav speed) then fine, but don’t hold the rest of us up.
For some (most?), doing 50 in an HGV isn’t fast enough but the truck was quite legitimately driving well within the speed limit so you can imagine the queue as no-one had been going faster than this for a while. There had been ample opportunities to overtake especially as it would be easier due to the slowness of the lead vehicle.
The point is that just one person’s word against another is of no use and you need an independent “witness” to get to the real facts. I would hope the witnesses in the line of traffic would have borne me out by stating the true facts as they were, i.e. a simple overtaking manoeuvre was made more dangerous by this person blocking me out.
davepenn54:
Well ‘tyler4164’ please take this response with the good intention that it is meant
As you have said you might now be facing some kind of disciplinary interview over this incident & I really hope that you don’t lose your job over this.
You need to think about why you didn’t let the vehicle just get in front of you even though you were both at the chevrons and the other guy had pulled out just 50yds before. Your employer’s might not be interested in the fine detail or even understand what goes on everyday out on the road, but you need to be able to defend your actions and get that across to them in ways that they understand.
Maybe you felt intimidated or scared because there where 3/4 big guys in the van and you felt the safest thing was to get away from the scene ASAP.
Sounds like you did the right thing by not getting into any verbal or physical confrontation with these people but it shouldn’t be a reason for you getting disciplined.
You have rights as well and you need to get your story straight in your head ready for the disciplinary interview.
Hope things go your way
All the best
Regards
Dave Penn;
Reason being i was doing about 45 slowing down for a 40 limit & as i was going past the van hes pulled out into the right lane. I started to break as the traffic in front was coming to a stop but the guy in the van had decided he wanted to get in front. I stopped behind the truck in front of me & he ended up on the chevrons beside me. At the time i thought he would just pull behind me as it was clear but how stupid waas i?? Anyway thats when he got out & gave it all the mouth
Thanks for the support
So not only do you cut the job up for everyone else, but you also take your breaks whilst the traffic is at a standstill.
Snudger:
The point is that just one person’s word against another is of no use and you need an independent “witness” to get to the real facts. I would hope the witnesses in the line of traffic would have borne me out by stating the true facts as they were, i.e. a simple overtaking manoeuvre was made more dangerous by this person blocking me out.
Unlike others in this thread, I fully understand your ‘point’ here as I’ve been caught with my pants down in a similar situation myself. However, it’s not up to the person you’re overtaking to make allowances for you. They aren’t doing anything wrong whereas you are by being on the wrong side of the road with a head-on collision rapidly approaching . Really unless you were 100% sure you could take both vehicles together then you should’ve just stayed where you were.
OK snudger, given the situation you have described my question is Why didn’t you just go for the truck as well in one complete manouvre
Given the the car drivers already stated inability to asses the road conditions and make the overtake I would have thought that one big overtake was the best option. Also I wouldn’t have counted on support from other car driver’s especially if you were in a sprinter type van as they, and their driver’s, are hated as much by Joe/Jane public if not more than HGV’s.
in the van and you felt the safest thing was to get away from the scene ASAP.
