Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

lostinrates

Made it .

And remembered town near there has petrol five pence cheaper too! Woohoo, bonus.


Car stinks of Vicks vapour rub .

bugslet

lemonjelly wrote: »

On the cyclists debate, a discussion has been kick started on another forum I use based on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITa_RyiPpoQ

And what is the debate? I posted this a while back, on one of the Np threads. There are a number of issues with that video, though I broadly agree with what it is doing, ie. trying to make people aware that keeping cyclists in view is not easy. The problems I have with it are that the near side wing mirrors are badly set anyway, that it the worst point at which to see anything because the cab is turning and the mirrors swing in and catch sight of the trailer and it would be unusual to have so many cyclists and a truck all completely stationary at the same time for an extended period of time. Trying to guess what thoughts might occur on another forum..... actually on the whole you can see a lot of the area round a truck. You need to avoid immediately in front of a truck ( see repsonse to Gen's post) and to the near side left of a right hand truck up to around the front of the trailer area, those are the most difficult areas to catch. I know there is a lot of squawk about more mirrors, which makes sense to a degree but we can have anywhere between 6-8 mirrors to check so by the time you've done all 8, the view has changed in the first one...ad nauseam. Secondly, some of the mirrors actually create a blind spot in themselves - it's a fine line.

Quite happy to answer any related questions, as long as it doesn't stray into truck bashing - I love my industry, I love my drivers and I love my trucks; I get positively protective about them. I tend not use a computer over the weekend so if you do have anything to ask, you might need to point it out on Monday or PM.

Generali wrote: »

It's why you should rarely (if ever) sit at a red light in front of a lorry or a bus. Much better to jump the light than be crushed..

don't stay too close to the front of the truck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miI7bZOgczk

As usual the driver of the car was interviewed on morning telly about how awful it was for her, inference before an investigation being that all trucks/truck drivers are terrible blah blah blah, and fair enough it would scare the proverbial out of me. Media didn't follow it up when Beverly Bell the North west Traffic Commissioner, ( a woman not known for her love of trucks), ruled that it was the car drivers fault and the driver of the Arclid truck was not to blame. And no, you wouldn't necessarily know the car was there - 60', 550 ponies and 44 tonne, why would you feel it?

GDB2222 wrote: »

"Three women enslaved for 30 years in a London house were beaten during their ordeal, police said on Friday.

At a news conference on Friday, Commander Steve Rodhouse said the women were beaten and controlled emotionally."

Hmmm, it gets worse.

I read that one of the women is irish, so you would think that she did speak English. So many factors that we aren't aware of that could contribute to them staying there. Heavens knows how they get over it.

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Our living room curtains took 32m of material - at £78 / metre, that would be rather pricey! £2.5k.....

When I buy a house, I expect to get all windows done with curtains and blinds for well under £200 the lot.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

At some of the upmarket second hand curtain shops

I never knew they existed!

GDB2222

There have been 6 cyclist deaths in London in two weeks. That gives a somewhat exaggerated view, as the total for the year so far is 14. But bear in mind that London cycling is so dangerous that there are not that many people cycling here. At least, that is the main thing that puts me off cycling on the roads in London.

I have a lot of sympathy with all concerned. Cyclists often overtake on the left-hand side, which we all know is not supposed to be done. Particularly in a large vehicle, there must be a lot to look at whilst trying to navigate London's narrow streets and tight corners. Nearly all of the fatalities seem to have followed the same pattern: a really large vehicle swings out to turn left and then runs over a cyclist on the left-hand side. The cyclist may not even have been there when the lorry started to turn but sees the gap opening up and heads for it, perhaps thinking the lorry is about to turn right, not left.

I can think of 3 things that might help the situation:

Better training for the drivers and cyclists, particularly cyclists about the sort of manoeuvres that lorry drivers make.

Better repeat indicators down the side of the lorry, making it blindingly obvious to cyclists that the lorry is turning left.

Better mirrors. I have seen one that is motor controlled, so it is set up to show the same patch of road whilst the lorry is turning left. The present mirrors swing inwards to show a really good picture of the load being carried.

Bugs, would it helps to have windows lower down in the doors, that sort of thing? Or is it more a matter that the lorry driver has too many things to look at anyway?

PasturesNew

If I were a cyclist at a busy junction I'd sit back 2-3 cars and make sure they could see me... then as the traffic took off I'd build up speed with them so by the time I got to the junction/corner I'd be travelling at a steady pace and the car/s behind me would know I existed.

GDB2222

"Swedish Ice Hotel Required to Install Fire Alarms"

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/15/swedish-ice-hotel-required-to-install-fire-alarms/

lostinrates

I'm not like bug's driver, but I used to drive 7.5 tonnes with animals on board.
As a non pro my experience is this;
You have quite enough to concentrate on as is, you are always aware there is the potential for some one to be in your extra blind spots behind you too so you are sometimes thinking about theortical vehicles. Philosophy in transport ion.

I am five foot five and. A half with decent leg length, what I found hard was finding a comfortable driving position in lots of cabs. In a car I don't have to change the seat from where my father's six foot ish seat is,) Physically I found them much more demanding to drive thn cars, on the lower body, shoulders., knees, everything, But then most of the vehicles I drove were old beasties, certainly the ones I owned were old, not like the nice smart things that probably drive more comfortably than our landrover does, lol)

I really get why timings were thought in but I only really appreciate it now really. Thinking about it in retrospect.


The visibility is different. Just like my visibility on a horse is different than yours is in a car, or your on for is different than yours in a car, fewer blinds spots , but no mirrors. Different harder, yes, different needing more skill set and testing, yes.



I have seen some pretty awful foreign plate driving on occasion here. And some pretty shocking, shocking risks taken by cyclists. But then I don't understand the road from a cyclists perspective. I know they have put me in a position as a driver I don't want to be in.

I think most of us could do with more perspective of other road users.

bugslet

In which you would probably skew the average life span of a cyclist to the longer end of the range PN!

GDB, there are things called Fresnel lenses, those fuzzy looking things that you sometimes see on the passenger window

http://www.rhaonline.co.uk/vehicle-security--safety/ext-0106---truckview-fresnel-l_-.html

They are pretty good and do what you mean by having a mirror lower down. If you put a mirror low down, it doesn't work too well I should imagine if it's not in a drivers eyeline. I think jelly's video there shows some old-fashioned mirror set up and most have multiple mirrors on the one arm, usually two sometimes three to cover the area around the cab.

There are a couple of excellent driver training schemes available in London to help drivers cope/deal with cyclists, though in fairness a lot are paranoid about cyclists. As ever you get numpties that shouldn't hold a telly license nevermind a Class 1. In an ideal world, I think everyone should spend a couple of hours on an airfield or something in a truck as part of being allowed on the road, it would completely change the way people think. Truck drivers are often cyclists and car drivers, we know what everyone else does, but they rarely know what we do. On top of that, people have some peculiar ideas, and we are the ones that politicians can sanction easily because we aren't popular.

Fortunately for Bugs trucking, we rarely are found in any main cities - phew!

bugslet

GDB2222 wrote: »

"Swedish Ice Hotel Required to Install Fire Alarms"

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/11/15/swedish-ice-hotel-required-to-install-fire-alarms/

A client of mine is getting married there next year. Honeymoon elsewhere for obvious reasons!

I expect there has been some changes, lir. Get into a brand new artic and they steer themselves these days - seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10