Reminder to Safely Share the road with Oversize.

Cruising Granny · Guru

Reminder to Safely Share the road with Oversize.

D and D · Guru

Converted the attachment to pdf format for those unable to read .docx files.

Cruising Granny · Guru

Thanks.

NeilandRaine · Guru

I think it goes further than that. Share the road wisely with everyone. Last week I followed (no van attached) a caravan from Kingaroy to Cooyar. The van, or should I say the driver towing the van, drove slowly hugging the centre line ignoring any spot to pull over and let traffic pass. To make matters worse the kilometre or so of traffic behind had built up at road works. When one of the few long stretches of road that would allow passing came up the fool felt it was ok to speed up to about 95, thus making it impossible for more than 1 or 2 cars to pass safely. These are the reasons caravans are despised by a great number of the driving public.

All I say is be aware of everything

Yabbie · Member

Thanks, for sharing that.
We experienced being caught behind a convoy of wide loads at the 3 ways intersection on Stuart hwy NT.
Spoke to one of the drivers at the fuel stop and said we had plenty of time before they were leaving anyways, they were turning left at the 3 ways intersection heading to Queensland, but what we didn't realize was they were waiting for another wide load convoy to turn out of the 3 ways intersection before they could proceed, anyways we got stuck behind the one that pulled out.
We heard on the 2-way the driver of the pilot vehicle requesting them to pull over at the earliest to let us through. We then replied no we were happy to tag behind as we were going to pull over in a few km's anyways.
People don't realize the truckies have a schedule to meet and all they want to do is to get there safely.

SnowT · Guru

I think I must be the opposite of that situation..

Being as I'm only traveling at 80-90k's at most, I personally try to give everyone that has the ability to over take to do so..
- in overtake lanes I will slow down..
- when the edge of the road is good and there is no on coming traffic I will partial pull over, slow down and wave them on..

So if you see a slow moving Coaster bus, with a roof full of solar Panels, it might just be me and if its safe to do so I will wave you thru...

Juergen

Gerty Dancer · Guru

Yeah that's pretty much our towing style as well, Snow T, but we also communicate with the truckies on UHF.

A question for Granny... We hear the pilots on the radio calling up the trucks to warn them, please could we have their short-hand translated? I'm sure they get sick of me asking "How wide?"

_wombat_ · Master (of Mischief)

CG

For some reason it will not open as a avator but will if you put it in as a signature.

Right click the anim and save as to your computer, let me know when have it

-- Edited by _wombat_ on Monday 12th of May 2014 04:16:16 PM

Quickboats · Member

Thanks for sharing.

Cruising Granny · Guru

Sorry Gerty, I missed your post. Now, can you be more specific about "short hand" you're referring to? Some examples:-
You may hear "4.5", which is the width of the load you're about to meet.
Some pilots start their call with the size of the load. Others may say "Copy west bound, the oversize is 4.5 metres. Fog line is fine". Or "Oversize is 4.5 metres. You may need to slow down and make some room please."
We can't teach you all to be pilots, but we can do what we can to help you understand the importance of observing pilot vehicles. If you have a UHF radio you will learn a lot about the size of the load, the position on the road, and the behaviour of other traffic, particularly traffic following the load and waiting to overtake.
Just don't do anything rash. Do not, repeat, DO NOT brake in front of the pilot vehicle or truck! Keep rolling at your cruising speed, and we'll adjust and work around you. We're the team with the experience.
Just stay as far as possible to the left to share the road safely.
Keep the shiny side up.

Gerty Dancer · Guru

I've figured out that "two 3.5's at you" means there are 2 separate trucks with a load 3.5 meters wide coming toward us..

So 3.5 means we don't have to get right off the road, but a 4'5 load means move half off the road. Is that right?

They don't always say what they want us to do, but we find a spot and pull over for 4'5 and bigger, and have often had a "thank you" as they pass.

bruceg · Veteran Member

I know that this topic is old, but during my enforced covid isolation I've been reviewing my travel essentials list.

I'll add 2 of my travel aid documents to this -

What to do when you meet an oversize vehicle and a UHF channel list

iana · Guru

A point I would like to make, is the chatter by truckies on non essential things, i.e. the weekend fishing. By doing that they cause the other road users to miss vital info, has happened to me. Towing a large caravan we have to be able to get off the road well before hand, as pull overs arn't always there.