Tonight ITV 8pm

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
41

I think making car drivers much more aware of HGV drivers would be very benifical, as part of the theory test. We all sit slag off foreign drivers, ive driven a truck a few times in Europe and just basically ferry over change over not doing much driving but found it hard going being on the wrong side of the road.

My hat goes off to UK drivers working over there and foreign drivers coming over here with left hookers trying to drive in our busy roads, with lots of idiots in cars acting sucidial.

Even in a right hand drive truck, and trying to defend your road space turning left or navigatin tight small roundabouts you always seem to get some no mark trying to cut up your inside in a car.

Think its time authorities and the general public realised truck drivers have only got one set of eyes, these campaigns go on about mirrors etc… thats all fair and fine if you are only going to be looking backwards but at busy junctions your having to look allround you and even with good mirrors you can blink and miss a motorbike or bicycle hammering up your inside. Anytime that kinda accident happens its allways the truck driver who should have seen the person !!!

Heard a stat once that 70% of HGV accidents on motorways were caused by car drivers, don’t know if thats true or not but wouldnt surprise me. We have been treated like naughty school children for years with strict regulations maybe its time to point some of that authoritianism and training towards other road users causing HGV accidents.

As one of my mates said somedays you think its become an offence to drive a truck.

42

It would be very beneficial to make car drivers aware of all other road users, but it won’t happen.

I did get round to d/l and watching it last night. Reporting was reasonable enough given the time constraints and you couldn’t make it longer because your average joe wouldv’e glazed over.

As well as on-the-spot fines, you need to massively increase the traffic plod number given that they seemed to have disappeared from the road as the scameras went up.

43

I’ve just watched it from that link Denis posted.

ITV CatchUp

I was actually quite impressed by the programme, overall.
It was a bit sensationalist in a few places. (Those two families who’s loved ones were killed )

I was pleasantly surprised at how Quentin handled the bit where he’s driving a LHD truck.
When I saw the trail for this programme last weekend I was shouting at the tv :unamused: , calling him all sorts of things :laughing: .
Watching the programme, that bit wasn’t anything like I’d expected it to be.

I’ve found that driving a LHD wagon, in the UK is a horrendous experience.
The biggest problem is that junctions, especially roundabouts, are set out to aid a driver turning left, to continue moving into the flow of traffic. In a LHD truck, it is almost impossible to have any view of traffic coming from your right.
The majority of junctions in Europe seem to be much squarer, or there is enough room for me to position my wagon squarer in the junction so I can see.
There are exceptions of course, but these are exceptions, not the rule.

I’ve also found that when swapping from RHD to LHD (after some time away from LHD (or vice versa)), it takes me a couple of hours of driving before I’m comfortable with driving it. It takes a couple of weeks of driving, before I’m confident that I know exactly where I’m positioning the vehicle. (For eg, swinging into a tight parking space to my left. Knowing that if I put full lock on now, the front right corner of my cab will just clear the rear corner of the wagon in the next slot and my trailer will come around just clear of the wagon in the slot before. ie The sort of maneouver we do, and take for granted, several times an hour)
Straight forward driving down a road or motorway is much the same, seated on whatever side and driving on whichever side of the road. It isn’t driving on the wrong side of the road which causes problems in particular, other than the obvious ones.

On the subject of side-swipe accidents, I’ve done it twice.
Once in a RHD truck in Italy, once in a LHD truck in the UK.
The one in Italy, I was in a queue of traffic, waiting for a truck to do a very slow overtake. There was a dark car beside me in my blind spot. Once the truck had completed his overtake and the cars started moving again, the car in my blind spot stayed where it was (at 90kmh) for several minutes. I was tired, looking forward to parking up for the night in an hour or so. I forgot it was still there. A few minutes later on, I was in a position to do my own overtake. I checked my mirrors, a dark car was coming up to overtake me, so I put my indicators on and waited for that car to complete his overtake. The car in my blind spot then moved ahead, I thought it was the overtaking car. After checking my mirrors again, nothing else coming up so I pulled out and side swiped the overtaking car, which was then by in my blind spot itself.
The one in the UK, I was working for a real cowboy company and quite simply was absolutely knackered. I didn’t do my job properly.
In both cases there were no injuries at all, only(?) dented metal.

44

What i don’t understand is the blind spot bit of the argument.
How many drivers on here have driven over in Europe and seen an English driver exchanging details with a smashed up car,i think i saw it once but over here it happens everyday.
I mean they have the same amount of mirrors i have,so surely i would have a blind spot when moving over to the inside lane,but i don’t because i “bloody” look!!!.
I saw it on Sunday,foreign truck straight out in front of a car doing nothing wrong on the A1,the git didn’t indicate till he was halfway out,how the car missed him i don’t know,but i should say thats another car driver who’s been alienated against truck drivers.
Personally can’t see the problem in starting to tax foreigners when they come over here,i mean it didn’t take the like’s of Belgium,Holland and Germany long to introduce the original vignette system,yet it will take the government over 3 years to introduce it here.

I just can’t believe how a government can be so against its own road transport industry.

45

Personally I like the flat floor on the magnum, when abroad in traffic I like how you can stick it in Cruise then nip over and have a look out of the Passenger window to see if your blindspot is clear. Nip back to the drivers seat and make a safe manouver.

If all trucks were fitted with cruise and a flat floor side swipes would be a thing of the past.

46

yes hombre there are alot of hold up,s especialy when you get a foreign truck trying to back out of a motorway slip road,all cars getting out of his way until he gets to mr akward ( ME)

47

I drive a LHD veh on foreign plates, and yes it is a problem the side swipe thing, but if you know about it , and you should, you do take more care when pulling out, I look once twice and thrice then pull out gingerly…BUT other road users MUST be made more aware of this problem to, it’s not just down to the truck drivers surely■■?
The Today prog was just another negative diatribe about the road haulage in general, nothing new there then!

I had a real bummer of a blind side reverse on thursday in Birmingham and a English driver sat in his cab and watched me struggle…And struggle i did, cars abandoned everywhere, you know the sort…When I had eventually got it on the ramp I knocked on the drivers door and said ‘Thanks for the help mate’ and he said ‘Oh I thought you were foriegn’!!! WHAT FERKIN difference does that make, to say I was not impressed was an understatement. What a ignorant plank. Mind you he was a Brummie, didn’t get good press on Radio 2 today did they…

I can hear the windmills a calling!!!