Normally I am all for more personal freedom and less nanny state bureaucracy and far less yellow jacketed jobsworths.
But at the traffic light grand prix today I began to wonder if they've missed something.
I was in pole position next to a lorry with the engine revving and clutch slipping and clearly very ready to burn me off at the green light. Being grown up and thinking he may be in a hurry I let him go, well as far as 10 tons pulled by slow engine would allow anyway. He pulled away in front of me around a bend and the two vertical gas cylinders swayed across the back of the cab to the limit of the security chain. One of these cylinders was powering an open flamed heater for the mastic asphalt mixer / heater mounted on the back of the truck.
The thought occurred to me that there would be a very hot and sticky life threatening mess if it turned over. The open flame would then no doubt only help proceedings to get well underway.
I've seen white lining lorries with much smaller hot tanks too. Mobile fish & chip vans too?
Whilst petrol tanker drivers receive all sorts of extra training and drive very well, I don't suppose there is any regulation to curb the enthusiasm of the hot asphalt lorry drivers.
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I suspect the usual dangerous driving rules would apply.
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Tar, thanks very much :-)
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could have been a sticky situation!
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Try and not look on the black side.
:-D
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>>
>> Whilst petrol tanker drivers receive all sorts of extra training and drive very well, I
>> don't suppose there is any regulation to curb the enthusiasm of the hot asphalt lorry
>> drivers.
>>
The clue would be if the lorry was displaying a rectangular orange plate to front and rear. If it was, it indicates that the vehicle is subject to ADR regulations, and the driver must be suitably qualified. The necessity for regulation would depend on the amount of hazardous material (in this case the propane cylinders) being carried.
Link to relevant HMG site here;
www.hse.gov.uk/cdg/regs.htm
Like any other set of safety regulations it's an absolute minefield, and I have no personal experience or qualification in the subject. I do know that the penalties for non-compliance are pretty ferocious.
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.
Last edited by: BobbyG on Mon 18 Apr 11 at 22:40
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Sounds like the clown that drives the scaffolding truck round Wednesbury, he can't drive either but thinks he's on a race track.
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>> Sounds like the clown that drives the scaffolding truck round Wednesbury, he can't drive either
>> but thinks he's on a race track.
Scaffold Truck? Pole Postion?
Very Good. Ho Ho Ho,
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Found it Harleyman, white lining vehicles are specifically exempt from ADR regs:
www.hse.gov.uk/cdg/manual/commonproblems/whitelining.htm
It comes under the banner of Mobile Machinery as opposed to Road Transport. Not a good situation methinks.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi {P} on Tue 19 Apr 11 at 00:18
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>I was in pole position next to a lorry with the engine revving and clutch slipping
>and clearly very ready to burn me off at the green light. Being grown up and
>thinking he may be in a hurry I let him go,
Good Glub. You were intimidated and couldn't work up the courage to accelerate away from a truck?!
The drivers behind you must have really appreciated that.
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>> Good Glub. You were intimidated and couldn't work up the courage to accelerate away
There's a lot to be said for letting numpties go in front, that way you can keep an eye on them and when they side swipe or hit someone up the back it'll be some other poor blighter, and you get the pleasure of giving the innocent victim your details as witness..;)
I hate having an idiot behind me when in my own car, often pull in and let them go by.
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>> There's a lot to be said for letting numpties go in front,
Only if they are fast. Otherwise they just get in the way. Nothing more annoying than a rapid-squirt-up-to-25-then-waddle-zigzag-down-the-middle-of-the-road numpty. And they are legion.
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>> couldn't work up the courage to accelerate away from a truck?!
>> The drivers behind you must have really appreciated that.
I must say those thoughts crossed my mind, but I was too polite to mention them.
Talking of idiotic behaviour in trucks: a friend who lived in Tanzania and had a Peugeot 404 pickup, much favoured in those parts, was moving a band and its equipment one evening in the outskirts of Dar es-Salaam. The band members stood their tall PA speakers vertically in the back of the pickup. Then one of them perched on top of one of the speakers. My friend urged him not to sit up there, but he insisted.
There are lots of potholes and unmade roads in DSM. Soon the inevitable happened and the guy fell out into the road bruising and abrading himself. The band decided my friend was to blame and got nasty. They beat him up and were on the pont of tipping him over the parapet of a viaduct into the gorge below when two people heknew arrived and rescued him.
African bystander mobs always blame the car driver when an accident occurs and are capable of lynching him or her even if no one else has been hurt. This is odd because I have usually found African bystanders thoughtful, interested and supportive under other circumstances.
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>I must say those thoughts crossed my mind, but I was too polite to mention them.
We've seen your 'polite' rants before AC.
;-)
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>>> We've seen your 'polite' rants before
Ye-e-e-e-es.
By the way, 'Glub'?
Calls to mind a sixties or seventies picaresque comic novel of some sort whose title and author I can't remember.
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>By the way, 'Glub'?
The Great God Glub.
An abstract deity created many years ago in the bowels of alt.tasteless.
You'd have loved it there in the old (pre-www days)!
;-)
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Nobody slags off my driving and gets away with it. Names have been noted.
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>> Nobody slags off my driving and gets away with it. Names have been noted.
Like we are all quivering in our boots, we would all leave you at the start!
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>> >By the way, 'Glub'?
>>
>> The Great God Glub.
>>
>> An abstract deity created many years ago in the bowels of alt.tasteless.
>>
>> You'd have loved it there in the old (pre-www days)!
Ah the pre WWW days!.
Alt.hamster.duct.tape
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>> >>>
>>
>> By the way, 'Glub'?
>>
>> Calls to mind a sixties or seventies picaresque comic novel of some sort whose title
>> and author I can't remember.
>>
Anything to do with the expression "glub glub", meaning nice work?
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Improved Safety Rules required ? - RattleandSmoke
