"great majority in a perfectly legal manner."
I beg to differ. I just wish there were some traffic police out there to make them see the error of their ways.
On my way back to London from Cornwall yesterday,I lost count of the caravans being towed by vehicles without the attached extended mirrors. How on earth do they expect to see around the caravan when overtaking. Not a minority. The majority I'm afraid.
Motorcyclists, especially, beware.
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When I used to tow, extended mirrors didn't give one any great advantage over ordinary door mirrors, what with door mirrors being so large these days. Can't really see a problem with that, except possibly from apoplexy from other busybody drivers getting steamed up about it :-)
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If cars towing caravans have the time to undertake a coach, then the coach is in the wrong lane.
It's been a while since i've towed anything for any length of time, but when I did I noticed the following:
My combination was quite heavy (Rover 600 towing Triumph 2000) so speed wasn't really an option anyway...but...nevertheless;
1,CLOG was still a problem. Occasionally whilst in lane 1, i'd catch something in lane 2. My speed was generally sat at 65mph on the speedo, so probably 62mph in reality (i'd have the occasional foray up to 70mph (67)to achieve overtakes.... and once achieved 75 (72), although things got a bit fraught, so that went off the agenda, sharpish). If you caught them up, pull out behind them, wait, wait some more, then flash the headlights, you'd have one of three things happen: A, they'd speed up (then eventually you'd catch them again); B, they'd pull over and glare at you as you came past; C, they'd ignore you and continue in the middle lane.
Eventually I worked it out. Ignore them and ensure there was a big enough gap and undertake. Far easier and safer, because by flashing lights at them, some got all annoyed; there was no way I was going to risk lane 3, apart from the illegality it's dangerous and i didn't wish to sit forever behind them, so I chose the lesser of the evils.
2, it's amazing how many people find it impossible to maintain a steady speed.
3, it's amazing how many people seemingly NEVER look in their mirror
We need a national campaign to prevent mimser's hogging the middle lane, backed up by enforcement. How many of our 4 or 5 lane motorways have these dipsticks hovering in lane 3 or 4?
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If cars towing caravans have the time to undertake a coach then the coach is in the wrong lane.
yes BUT the ones that undertake me do so at high speed. they don't crawl past, they zoom past at 70+
centre lane owners club was out in force today. about 50% would not pull into lane one, even with nothing in sight and another car tailgateing them.
i just sat back and let them get on with their stressed little lives.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again.
The way to fix MLOCs, if there is NOTHING else on the road, is to carefully overtake them on lane 3, pull into lane 2 and slow to 10mph slower than their speed.
They soon get out of the way.
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jase, if there is NOTHING else on the read, why on earth are you allowing them to wind you up? Calm down, dear, as Winner says. If you slow down in front of them, there is only the emergency overtaking (3rd) lane for them to go into - and back to the overtaking lane (middle).
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The way to fix MLOC
Going up to the Lakes (again!) early on Saturday morning on the M6 I came up behind a 106 firmly stuck in the middle lane. Was going to pull out from 1st lane to overtake but a Cheshire police car pulled alongside me.
The police driver indicated left a few times to the 106, but with no effect, so eventually went around it, turned on the roof lights and pulled it over. It was pretty early in the morning though - probably not much else to do.
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Excellent news -- we need more police like that :)
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The police driver indicated left a few times to the 106 but with no effect so eventually went around it turned on the roof lights and pulled it over. It was pretty early in the morning though - probably not much else to do.
I can remember when the police had LED Matrix Signs in the back window (do they still have them?) Anyway, one of the many messages that they used to flash up to CLOG drivers was to use the nearside lane and it also flashed up a left arrow for good measure.
Coming back down the M40 from Birmingham at 2am the other morning, there were several CLOG drivers. Most were only doing 65 to 70 mph. I got fed up in the end keep on having to pull out from the nearside lane to lane 3 to overtake them and ended up undertaking them instead. No doubt I would have been the one that would have got done for a motoring offence had plod been around.
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When I used to tow extended mirrors didn't give one any great advantage over ordinary
Me too, When I put the mirrors on, I can see little more than without them. Door mirrors today are quite big enough, even with my 20ft long van. ( inc. towbar )
Another reason I don't use them now is 'cos on a single carriage way road, every big vehicle coming the other way flips them back against the door. I'm forever opening the window and pushing them back...I've tried a bungee but it just pulls them the other way.
Ted
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Interesting report on snaking caravans on some programme I had taped from the late 90s (Yes summer telly is that bad) that I watched the other night - the received wisdom is to accelerate when a rig starts to snake. Some boffin came up with the theory that it was better to slow down. This was proved to be right in the filmed test with the resulting carnage being less when the driver slowed down (limited to the caravan - whoopee !) I, for one, a glad that there is now a separate towing test. I have that class on my licence but did a one day "course" when I got my nice little trailer last year. Pays dividends that.
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Can someone clarify the legal position. I thought towing mirrors are a legal requirement if your caravan is wider than your car, as the law states that you must have adequate view of the rear of the car and along both sides of your caravan.
Would ordinary door mirrors meet this requirement?
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ah smokie and 1400ted. your mirrors might be big and you can angle them out BUT that still means you can't see down the sides of the caravan, unless you have one thinner than your car.
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Dont some trucks have stickers on the back saying "If you cant see my mirrors, I cant see you!"
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BUT that still means you can't see down the sides of the caravan
Thats why proper caravanners overload the back of the van, then in the ensuing wobbles a good driver can get rythmic pendulum views down both sides during controllable snaking, better than those pesky mirrors..;)
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i hope you are joking, although the added benefit of negative hitch weight is reduced rear tyre wear, when they aren't on the ground.
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It does depend on the car and 'van re extended mirrors, you should be abke to safely see down the side of the 'van, many newer tow cars are so wide you can do that without extra mirrors and many small 'vans are very narrow... so its not compulsary to have extended mirrors... and there's also some 'vans where you can see through the 'van, we had a couple where you could do that, so rearward vision was quite good...
Edited by b308 on 17/08/2009 at 10:19
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The law specifies you must be able to clearly see down both sides of the caravan and 4 metres either side, at a distance of 20 metres behind the caravan.
Therefore, only the widest of cars towing the narrowest of caravans would be legal without towing mirrors.
Pat
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You'd be surprised how many of the 4x4s, MPVs and larger cars fit that criteria, Pat. Cars are a lot wider than they used to be!
Though I've not heard of many (if any) accidents being caused by this issue, the issues are more rubbish driving by people, both those who are supposed to be "professionsals" and the rest of us... Which seems to be the knub of this thread.
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Slightly off topic but last night, when driving back from the Suffolk coast, an Audi A6 3.0 TDI overtook me and the 6 cars infront of me while towing a large sailing dinghy (wayfaryer size). I was almost literally speechless. The road was a narrow and bendy B road and most over the cars being overtaken were closely spaced. I felt quite shaky afterwards!
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Some of the ones I saw were indeed being towed by 4x4s. But they were still narrower than the caravan they were towing, so what excuse for the smaller family saloons driving in the same manner.
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can see through the 'van we had a couple where you could do that so rearward vision was quite good...
I can see through our van if I leave the shower room door open....unfortunately, with the fashion for sloping front windows, the light shining on the perspex means vision is bad most of the time.... better years ago when windows were single glazed glass and more or less vertical....probably better in the dark but I tend not to be on the road at night with the van on.
Ted
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I owned a caravan that you could see through when towing.
Unfortunately the front and rear window sills lined up such that you could just see the rear sill above the front sill in the mirror.
The amount of twist in the body was frightening on undulating roads. I can't understand how it remained watertight.
Perhaps all vans twist that much.
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