Caravans & Road Trains

do you get nervous when you see a road train coming up behind you when you're tying your caravan down the road or maybe after this short video hopefully some of those nerves won't be there anymore there are three common mistakes that i see when i'm out on the road and i come up behind a caravan yeah i'm a road train driver i'm also a caravan so i see it from both sides of the fence first mistake is people speed up and i don't think they realize they're doing it and the second one they slow down same thing they don't realize they're doing it and the third one the most dangerous is all they seem to bail out so let's go through those mistakes one at a time speeding up if you're driving on a cruise control and towing a heavy load quite often when you go up an uphill gradient your car's going to work a lot harder and that speed control is going to try and keep that speed whatever you've got it set to let's say this example is 90 k's an air you're pulling heavy up that hill your car's trying to do 90 and it drops back to 75 k's before you crest that hill and what happens when you get to the hill goes over goes down and the car takes off at a great rate or not so instead of doing 90 k's in air your car is probably going to do 100 might even do a little bit more the end result of that is you're just pulling away from that road train and you're just limiting any opportunity he's got there or that he may have had where he's going to get past you you start to slow down and you think you're trying to help the road train so when he's ready to come around you he can get a clear run but you actually prevent him from keeping his momentum up and that's a big no-no by the time he breaks up that momentum that he's just lost possibly he's lost his opportunity to overtake and he's still sitting behind you a caravan of bails out and what i mean by this he sees that road train sitting behind him and the first thing he does when you get his opportunity he heads for that white fog line he breaks hard and the road train's got nowhere to go so this leaves the road train with no choice but to swerve well swerve will go through the caravan one or the other now if he swerves hard to the right he goes around and his three trailers follow behind him and if he swerves hard enough one of those trailers is going to fall over and hopefully it won't be on you so you've got a massive accident okay then they're the three things that we don't want you to do what about what you want to do well there's two methods that i'm going to go through here at the moment and that's one where the caravan or the towing vehicle that's towing the caravan has got no uhf fitted and the other one the second maneuver that we're going to go through is where the towing vehicle with the caravan has got a uhf and he's in communication with the truckee okay scenario one no uhf radio what we'll do here we'll go through the scenario where i'm in a road train and i come up behind you and you're in your caravan the main thing that you can do when you see a road train or any other heavy vehicle for that matter come up behind you is maintain a constant speed that's the most important thing that you should be thinking about so when i'm in my road train and i come up behind you the first thing i've got to do is to assess what sort of driver you are are you erratic with your speed or you're wobbling all over the road and just get a mental picture in my mind of what i'm up against when i go to overtake you [Music] so i'll be sitting behind you waiting for that opportunity and when that opportunity arises i'm going to come out and start coming around you as i do that most probably i'll flash my headlights at you just to let you know that i'm making a move or that i'm there to make sure that you are aware that i'm actually there now please don't take this as a sign of aggression it's just a courteous thing to let you know that i'm there and what i'm doing at this point in time i've come out to come around you and i'm in the wrong side of the road hopefully you've been maintaining your constant speed and i'm starting to come up alongside of you when you're confident that i'm on the wrong side of the road and then coming around you at this point in time it's a great help if you lift your foot off the accelerator you don't have to touch the brake at this stage just lift your foot off the accelerator and you'll notice how quickly i'll start to come around you it makes it for a shorter overtaking time span and a much safer one once the road train's gone past you and the rear trail is clear and well and truly out in front it's very good at this stage if you flash your headlights back at me just to let me know that it's safe for me to come back in then i know that when i do that i'm not going to run over your bonnet and the second overtaking maneuver is where both the caravanner and the truck driver communicate with each other via the uhf radio this overtaking maneuver where uhf radios are used in reality isn't much different to when there's no uhf hopefully at this point in time the caravan's maintaining a constant speed and i'll come up behind him and i'll make contact by the uhf radio with the caravanner just to make sure that he's picking up me on the uhf once that uhf contact's been made then i'll know straight away that the caravanner and myself are both on the same page with regard to that overtaking maneuver that's about to happen the difference from before with no uhf radio at this point in time when i make my move to overtake the caravan i can either as before flash the headlights to let him know or in most probably in this case i'll call him on the uhf radio just to let him know that i'm coming around as before when i'm alongside the caravan if he was to lift his foot off the accelerator once again he'll notice how quickly i start to overtake him if he maintains his constant speed it just increases the amount of time the amount that i'm out on that wrong side of the road and i guess there's more potential for an accident to occur what is a big advantage at this stage though is should something unforeseen happen then i can always call up the caravanner or he can call me up and let me know what's going on and together very quickly we can work out a safe resolution to what's happening once again once the last trail has gone past the front of the caravan the caravanner can either flash his lights at me to let me know it's safe to come in or call me up on the radio and let me know the same thing with bright sunlight during the daylight as flashing the headlights is good but sometimes it's a little bit hard to see them so in this case i would always prefer to use a radio to say that it's good to go or it's good to come back in so in conclusion as a truck driver what do i want to see well i'd like to see you guys out there with caravans talking to the truck driver if you've got your uhf radio you might say oh but i don't use it because there's too much foul language on it well that's fine around the cities just turn it off even i do the same thing put out on the open road if you see a truck coming up behind you and you do travel with your radio but it's not turned on then turn it on at that point do the overtaking maneuver with the truckee and then turn it off again you'll have as much much easier and more relaxed life when you see a truck behind you if you like the video that you just watched give us a thumbs up and if you want to see more of our videos hit the subscribe button and once you've done that tap on the bell and change the notification to all that way every time we do uploads to our youtube channel you'll be notified

Channel: JustCruisin with Mick & Sally

Views: 16,782

Rating: 4.9673734 out of 5

Keywords: Caravan, Road Train, Road, Train, Overtaking, Mick & Sally, Mick, Sally, Just, Cruisin, JustCruisin, Safety, Speed, UHF Radio, UHF, Radio, Driver, Trucks, Safe, Moves, Caravan Australia, Caravanning Australia, Cruising, Adelaide

Id: DvRoWf8yIZk

Length: 8min 22sec (502 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020