Im not doing very well with this artic driving despite doing it for a few years now, first was the low bridge and reversing blind side into farm giles’s field and then i made my second big ■■■■ up, i took a wrong turn and the only place turn round was in this little bit of road. now i found this difficult, may be because i am inexperienced or im just a crap driver i dont know.
just wondered what the drivers on here with years of experience under their belt would of thought about reversing into this gap to turn round.
i got out and had a look at around to plan my reverse to see if i could reverse my taught without hitting anything , thought it wasnt worth the risk and got a passer by to watch me back out onto the main road - i know thats a truck drivers last resort because it mean defeat but i like my job.
the answer is Rome was not built in a day
&
No One is Perfect ,not even those of us who
have been driving for years,MATE
you just take your time, and you did
excellent mate,
All the best
Axletramp’s right. I MAY have tried to spin my rigid round in the gap but certainly not with that car there.
You did the right thing. You may feel a bit of a wally for having to ask a passer-by to see you out, but that’s better than pranging both your motor and the other one aswell
Good luck, i’m fairly new and still get quite stressed sometimes but I just take my time and think through any tricky manouvres before attempting them!
If the car wasnt there, Id have done it in a rigid but not an artic
I had to turn my coach around in Pontons Road in London the other week near Christies auctions, by god was that tight, 100 point turn to do it
Think you chose the best route. If anything, your choice shows real wisdom and clear thinking in a difficult situation. I bet all of us have been in situations like that and many of us have made the wrong choice. 2 of my wrong choices have been featured in “My Mistake”, both of them relating to wrong turns and getting stuck.
It just occurred to me that I did it again last week in the middle of Regina, SK. I followed the directions from the customer and came to a 3.8 metre bridge. My trailer is 4.2 metres. Had to get someone to stop the traffic on both sides of the lights, so I had 8 lanes of traffic waiting for me to reverse across the intersection at 8am. Believe me, you are not alone!!
Wheelnut, that guy in the KW obviously is a top pro… Didn’t someone try that in the Mont Blanc 10 years or so back, with disastrous results?
If the car isn’t there , i don’t see a problem with that reverse it even has a nice curve to help you. With the car being there you would need to mount the kerb and get really close to that building which in turn could lead to you ripping that building apart with your tail swing on the way back out.
I’ve got myself into plenty of sticky situations it happens to us all and it gets your heart pumping but nothing hit, next drop , job done
Im not doing very well with this artic driving despite doing it for a few years now, first was the low bridge and reversing blind side into farm giles’s field and then i made my second big ■■■■ up, i took a wrong turn and the only place turn round was in this little bit of road. now i found this difficult, may be because i am inexperienced or im just a crap driver i dont know.
just wondered what the drivers on here with years of experience under their belt would of thought about reversing into this gap to turn round.
i got out and had a look at around to plan my reverse to see if i could reverse my taught without hitting anything , thought it wasnt worth the risk and got a passer by to watch me back out onto the main road - i know thats a truck drivers last resort because it mean defeat but i like my job.
thankyou
greg
Depends on a couple of things whether I’d have attempted that :
Which direction were you travelling in?
Were you heavy?
What sort of road did you turn from? Was it a small Ind Est road or a busy fast-moving trunk road?
If you were going from left to right then I wouldn’t have bothered attempting it because it would be a sharp and tight blind-side which would require too much getting out and checking to make sure I wasn’t going to gouge a hole out of the factory on one side or the side of the car on the other. I would’ve more than likely reversed back onto the road I came from.
If you were going from right to left then I would’ve reversed into that street if I was empty as you’d need to use the kerb to ensure the underrun bar doesn’t open the side of the car like a tin opener. If I was heavy I wouldn’t reverse there as that kerb would crucify the trailer tyres so it’d have to be a reverse back out onto the road.
If the road was a busy one with a lot of fast-moving traffic then I’d be looking for someone to throw my hi-viz to so they could stop the traffic while I reversed out. If there was no-one about then I’d edge out blind, to my good side (as if I was driving forwards and turning left at the junction) and cross my fingers that some driver coming along uses his/her brain and sees what’s going on and waits for me to finish.
I know where that is actually. It’s in Luton behind Bannatyne’s health club. Dead end round the corner to the right so just reverse it all the way to the road at the end (Chapel St.) and away you go.
Rob K:
I know where that is actually. It’s in Luton behind Bannatyne’s health club. Dead end round the corner to the right so just reverse it all the way to the road at the end (Chapel St.) and away you go.
Rob K:
I know where that is actually. It’s in Luton behind Bannatyne’s health club. Dead end round the corner to the right so just reverse it all the way to the road at the end (Chapel St.) and away you go.
Something you want to share Rob?
Well if you look at 1st pic you can see that the street sign is bent
That car should not have been there due to the fact it is parked to close to kerb & with wheels on the path so blocking a public access so it dont exists as it is the driver fault
At the end of the day you acted as a proffesional & got yourself out of a sticky situation without causing any damage, Top marks in my book.
I ended up down a road in cardiff somewhere thinking i could turn round. It went around to the left in a horseshoe shape & had cars parked either side all the way round the bend. When i got round the bend there was a road off to my left at a 45degree angle with cars parked eitherside & a deadend infront of me with no room to turn round. My heart was thumping like mad. My only option or so i thought was to try & squeeze down the road on my left. I started creeping down the road & had to get 2 cars moved to get through. When i got to the end i was faced with a very tight crossroad with cars parked right upto every corner on both sides. Noway i would ever make it round so had to reverse all the way back. Couldn’t even back out to face the other way as cars parked both sides & a bloody tree close to the edge of the pavement on my nearside. Got back out facing the deadend once again. By this time i was starting to think i would have to admit defeat & ring boss to say i was stuck. Couldn.t reverse the way i had come in due to the fact it was a tricky blindside reverse with cars eitherside & i had only just made it through going fowards. In the end after about 1hr i decided to try an extremely difficult blindside reverse made harder by the fact the turning to my left was more then a 90 degree angle with the tree right on the edge. During this attemp a nice old guy came out from 1 of the houses & offered me some assistance. Thought he would moan at me for driving down there but was very sympathetic & said the local residents have pleaded with the councill for no access for hgv signs as it keeps happening. With his help i managed after about 40mins to turn it round with no damage caused. Got out the truck & shook the guy by the hand & breathed the biggest sigh of relief
Looks bigger in the pic but isnt that big maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=h … .07,0,4.4
As others have said…we.ve all been there but when you do get youself out of a sticky situation it makes you feel good.
It looks like it would have been tight to reverse blind-side past that car parked on the corner so I’d say you did the right thing in getting someone to watch you reverse out.
