Decided to travel off the motorways/dual carriageways to avoid traffic on Saturday. Never again!
We travelled on single lane roads with speed limits of anything between 30 and 50 mph. We have a twin axle heavy caravan and 4 xhldrem buckled up in the back. My husband is a class 1 HGV driver and knows what he is doing. The roads ranged from quite steady and straight to twisty and turning. He generally did around 40 mph. The abuse we got!! One car overtook us, black Audi, must have been doing 80 on a back road and gave us the "hand signal", beeping and being very aggressive. Had I been driving I think I would have driven into a ditch. Most people were great and if they wanted to go faster, they waited for an opportunity then passed sensibly.
Worst tho was from a fellow caravanner. Only had a single axle. The woman wound her window down at a roundabout and advised my husband he "can do faster than 39 mph, you know!!" This on a road which had very clear 30 mph signs and twisty and turns!
My husband replied that anyone doing more than that on that particular stretch of road with 4 kids strapped in and a caravan on the back must be stupid! She just shrugged!!!
I arrived at our destination shaken and a bit angry tbh! Am I wrong??
------------- Kirsten :0)
May 14- The Plassey, North Wales
June 14- Lady Heyes, Frodsham
June 14- Plassey, North Wales
July 14 Tyn y Mur, Abersoch
Aug 14-Plassey North Wales
Aug 14- Loch Ken, Dumfries& Galloway
Nov 14- Plassey North Wales
If I have to go off the dual carriageways and motorways, I always keep a watch out in my rear mirror. If the cars are queuing up behind me, I usually find somewhere to pull over. Sometimes, if I can see the way ahead is clear for cars to overtake, I just slow down and indicate left (that I am going to slow down/stop)so that they can get past. Sometimes, I even get thanked for doing so!!!!!
I appreciate though, that might be hard with a twin axle huge caravan. If I had one of those, I would stick to the duals and mways! Even with my tiny caravan, I do that as the general rule. For one thing, you are generally doing 10 mph less than the cars on single carriage roads, so they soon start piling up behind you, so 'avoiding the traffic' is nigh on impossible anyway - it catches up with you!!
Not wrong at all, it's suprising how many drive with total disregard for others and the rules around them, as a professional driver like your husband I spend up to 12 hours a day driving and the amount of arrogance shown by many drivers of both sexes is amazing, I'm sure your husband has seen this many times from his truck cab.
Hopefully by now you've had time to relax a little and start enjoying your break
I believe all speed limits should be adhered to and all roads should be driven at appropriate speeds but caravanners along with other road users should make a reasonable speed. On a decent stretch of road non dual non motorway that is 50mph.
i think the "large" van is the real problem.. i tow a small one on all sorts of roads with no problems..
i do pull over every so often and left indicate and wave them on when suitable.. what niggles me is that some of them are too dumb to know what i am doing.. he he..
as an observation from an older driver.. i think people dont have the skill to overtake any more.. it seems to be a lost art.. forming a queue behind every slower moving vehicle seems the modern order of the day..
and driving too bloody close whilst in the queue.. i hate a queue behind me so my letting them go isnt entirely altruistic..
No he wasn't nervous, the part of the road that the woman got irate about had clear 30 mph due to nature of the road, we were doing that!
------------- Kirsten :0)
May 14- The Plassey, North Wales
June 14- Lady Heyes, Frodsham
June 14- Plassey, North Wales
July 14 Tyn y Mur, Abersoch
Aug 14-Plassey North Wales
Aug 14- Loch Ken, Dumfries& Galloway
Nov 14- Plassey North Wales
------------- Kirsten :0)
May 14- The Plassey, North Wales
June 14- Lady Heyes, Frodsham
June 14- Plassey, North Wales
July 14 Tyn y Mur, Abersoch
Aug 14-Plassey North Wales
Aug 14- Loch Ken, Dumfries& Galloway
Nov 14- Plassey North Wales
If someone wishes to faster than me, then fair enough.
If I go faster than someone else feels `comfortable` with then they seem to think that is dangerous, irresponsible or stupid. Not so!
A competent driver doing 60mph (where permitted) is probably much safer than an incompetent one doing 30mph in the same place. Speed is only one of many factors, but more easily quantifiable than blindness, lack of spatial awareness, lack of observation, ignorance of the law and downright stupidity.
------------- Kirsten :0)
May 14- The Plassey, North Wales
June 14- Lady Heyes, Frodsham
June 14- Plassey, North Wales
July 14 Tyn y Mur, Abersoch
Aug 14-Plassey North Wales
Aug 14- Loch Ken, Dumfries& Galloway
Nov 14- Plassey North Wales
We stick to motorways as much as possible . Where ever we go I take in the route first.
But like Jax if on single lane roads we look for a layby and pull over if traffic is building up. Not always possible though.
I must say there are some horrible people out there.
As an ex-coach driver of many years experience, I know there are countless stupid and ignorant drivers out there. I have encountered many of them, including some who have taken incredible risks to get past my coach in a totally inappropriate place, then slowed down in front of me. Why?
I find the best course of action is to completely ignore the idiots if possible. They are completely wasting their time and effort if they wind down their windows to me, or make hand gestures. I just carry on with whatever it was I was doing.
I agree with those who have said that it is a good idea to pull over when you can, if there is a queue building up, but it isn't always possible. A sensible driver will drive at whatever speed they consider to be safe, as long as it's within the speed limit. There are few minimum speed limits on our roads.
Towing a caravan at 50mph on a 60mph single carriageway is no worse than most HGVs - I don't see many of them pulling into laybys to allow traffic to pass.
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Topic: How fast is too fast/slow??
