How much is due to luck, do we make our own?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

This last week i’ve had to brake really sharply twice to prevent head on crashes due to half wits in cars and vans overtaking me in stupid places (in both instances where within a mile good long straights would be available), these instances seem to come in small batches, might not get another for a few weeks then it’ll be two really close ones, the two on one day this week also resulted in the oncoming vehicle braking hard as well to allow the brain donors to get by.

Most of us know it isn’t just our skill or lack of it that keeps us accident free over millions of miles, there is a hell of a lot of luck or good fortune involved too, not just for the criminal stupidity of others, but by our own mistakes and oversights which we know deep in our hearts could easily have turned out differently if the circs hadn’t been different.

To be fair these instances of suicidal overtakes by the walking statistics are i believe fewer now with the 50mph single carriageway speed limit.

Do any of you lot get the feeling your luck is being pushed, do you make your own luck or are some of you just lucky?

2

Most of the time its due to these people owning such weak cars, if you like overtaking don’t buy a 1.2 Micra.

3

Isnt it a bit like the the golfer (insert any sportstar) who made a long putt? "Whow !" said a spectator "Really lucky putt". "Yep", came the reply, "Seems the more I practise , the luckier I get". We all need to be alert and never rely on luck, but in some cases, very rare ones, no amount of skill and forethought will be enough, then were gone.

4

I don’t work Sundays.
I go to church and pray.
Keeps me lucky still waiting on lottery tho.

5

There probably is an element of luck involved somewhere in there Juddian, although personally I’d err towards making your own luck. Well it might appear that way at first glance but my thoughts are that good experienced drivers never “switch off” whilst behind the wheel. We often think that we are daydreaming and can’t remember how the miles seemed to slip past, but the reality is that while we think we are daydreaming our minds are actually busy making constant calculations and weighing up potential scenarios etc. The reason that we are capable of that is because we are on top of our game.

Some people have that ability and drive thousands of trouble free miles, others don’t and invariably end up as statistics. Darwinism at its finest methinks.

6

mrginge:
Most of the time its due to these people owning such weak cars, if you like overtaking don’t buy a 1.2 Micra.

Also the perfect storm of justified paranoia regarding the draconian speed regime we’re now under.Sharing the roads with others who at best think that 10 mph + over the limit is fine,or at worse couldn’t care less about the limits and their modern day enforcement until they actually get nicked.In which case they spend a disproportionate amount of a journey overtaking things.Which before would probably have been out running them thereby removing the need for them to overtake.Added to which is the dumbed down driver environment in which the idea of anticipation and the almost fighter pilot type levels of spacial awareness needed to overtake properly just ain’t there.

Then there’s the dilemma presented by the road warriors/control freak types who seem to deliberately drive at stupidly low speeds and/or vary their speed to hold up and block following traffic.With the real fear of anyone trying to maintain progress getting nicked by a strategically placed scamera van etc for having to exceed the speed limit in an often pointless attempt to safely overtake the zb’s.When it’s often better to just turn off and look for an alternative route or just wait behind them patiently in the likely event of ending up behind any of those absolute zb’s. :imp:

Having said that the old pre speed enforcement French RN’s let alone Yugoslav A roads were in a different league of danger.Of already big speed and massive closing speeds combined with low reserves of acceleration,or drivers who just viewed a single lane single carriageway road no differently to a multi lane motorway respectively. :open_mouth: :laughing:

7

the maoster:
There probably is an element of luck involved somewhere in there Juddian, although personally I’d err towards making your own luck. Well it might appear that way at first glance but my thoughts are that good experienced drivers never “switch off” whilst behind the wheel. We often think that we are daydreaming and can’t remember how the miles seemed to slip past, but the reality is that while we think we are daydreaming our minds are actually busy making constant calculations and weighing up potential scenarios etc. The reason that we are capable of that is because we are on top of our game.

Some people have that ability and drive thousands of trouble free miles, others don’t and invariably end up as statistics. Darwinism at its finest methinks.

+1. When I worked at Iceland, the driver trainers were getting a real hard-on over Smiths driving techniques.

Truth is though, a really good driver has already ’ given themselves ’ an out, be it a hard shoulder, a spare lane, wide chevron area etc. The other thing is spatial awareness and also reading the road much further ahead. As wagon drivers we have to constantly be working out other drivers intentions, but some of these morons are harder to read than an 18th century novel :neutral_face:

8

Don’t know if I’d call it luck, more the instinct of a practiced and experienced professional. At times it’s like a 3rd eye which sees 10 seconds into the future & gives extra reaction time.

It could also be a realisation that hours sorting out f***ups looses any gain made by reckless shortcuts.

9

mrginge:
Most of the time its due to these people owning such weak cars, if you like overtaking don’t buy a 1.2 Micra.

Micra are death traps. I rear-ended one in an astra estate a while back. Low speed, I thought he’d pulled away at a roundabout, he hadn’t. The number plate on my astra cracked and needed to be replaced. The back of the micra was a twisted mess and the car was written off.

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

10

I have had two close calls only last week, one with a stobart driver who was a total half wit, another idiot cutting in on me on a mini roundabout as I was turning left. I am not sure any luck is involved, I am on the constant look out for idiots as everyone knows there are some on the roads who should really be sat on a bus rather than drive. There does seem to be an element of something happening though as these near misses seem to be getting more frequent.

11

Definitely not luck, it’s experience, keeping your eyes open and watching what’s going on around you. You know what some are going to do before they know/do it themselves, it’s so obvious so often.

12

We’ve recently had 360 degree cameras retro fitted to our trucks.
If I know that I’m “in the right”…I don’t worry too much about suicide jockeys :wink:
Obviously,as a “professional driver”,I try to avoid incidents,but increasingly my mindset is that you can’t educate pork :unamused:

13

I was wondering about this today. Why do I have to keep looking out for other peoples safety when they decide to act like morons? Why can’t I rear end a complete helmet who thought they could just pull straight out in front of me on the A19?

14

I think there are “Guardian Angels” looking after lorry drivers. I have lost count of the times I’ve said, “How the hell did I come through that?”

15

I would sooner avoid accidents and I make allowances for car drivers, I slammed on luckily for the car driver on the mini roundabout incident. It is other HGV drivers that really annoy me who I seem to keep getting into problems with. I cannot understand some drivers mentality in the least. The Stobart incident really made my blood boil… I genuinely believe HGV drivers should know better.

16

Radar19:
I was wondering about this today. Why do I have to keep looking out for other peoples safety when they decide to act like morons? Why can’t I rear end a complete helmet who thought they could just pull straight out in front of me on the A19?

How many forms will you have to fill out and how long will it take?

17

Anyone remember those “think bike” notices from a few years ago?
Why can we not have notices that say “think lorry” ( or get killed!)

18

I notice that there seems to be some mentality among the public that driving a 4x4 means they will come off better in any collision. That doesn’t mean they have to seemingly bloody cause such head-on collisions though!

I get these tanks routinely swerve right into the road I’m coming out of, which means if I don’t check up, or stay put for a few extra seconds, I’m going to get my hood ripped off.
If I can, if someone is turning right into the road I’m coming out of, I’ll stay still, and let them go. Some have a habit of flashing ME out though, as if they can’t be arsed to make the tighter turn involved with getting around me in pole position coming out… Trouble is, they’ll flash me when something is bearing down upon the both of us. ARRGH.

You’re not supposed to flash people of course. I don’t take it much seriously unless it’s another trucker flashing me in. I’ve heard it said we’re not really supposed to do that either, of course.

I’ve long thought “It takes two to create a collision”. One to cause it, one to fail in avoiding it.

Whilst I’ve not had a blameworthy collision ever, I have been rear-ended a few times, hit whilst stationary, and even T-boned on one occasion, I believe to this day by a third party driver who’s foot may have slipped off their clutch. (They were signalling right and stationary at Clock House junction, turning south off the A406 into Green Lanes) I was approaching down the A406 westbound, due to cross the junction in front of where they were turning, had the light go green on me as I approached, but they then suddenly lunged forward a car length when I was right on top of them… I cut the front of the car off pretty much, leaving him holding his steering wheel in a state of bewilderment and shock, whilst I lost my rear mudguard rolling over his bonnet in my rigid 16tonner.
No one got hurt though, and the police released me quickly from the scene, stating that it’s all on the crossroad camera system there. If the other guy had been another foot forward, I’d have had his legs, so it was quite fortunate really. He didn’t speak English though, and I never had a conversation with him (Oriental rather than EE) As luck would have it, a medic ambulance was passing by, and they assisted at the scene, treating this guy for shock presumably. He was wandering around in a daze, steering wheel loose in his hand.

I think Pro Drivers are better suited to most to reading “possible unexpected incident ahead”, but calming it down into a non-life threatening situation should a collision occur. A higher speed T-bone would likely result in a car driver sitting in the passenger seat with the rest of him still in the driver seat otherwise - right?

19

emmerson2:
Anyone remember those “think bike” notices from a few years ago?
Why can we not have notices that say “think lorry” ( or get killed!)

LIKE :smiley:

20

ChrisArbon:
I think there are “Guardian Angels” looking after lorry drivers. I have lost count of the times I’ve said, “How the hell did I come through that?”

in all seriously I believe in this !! in the old days of no radios,phones etc ,my two way was not working well… I once heard the words stop stop stop and I did a fair hard stop and just round the corner was a car sitting in the middle of the road doing an illegal turn (was a blind corner ) if I hadnt slowed to a crawl I would have obliterated it.(yeah I know blind corner .loaded to the boards on an old Leyland young lad ). I asked the guys behind who said stop they heard nothing! and just said someone was looking over me that day.