I must be a glutton for abuse from car drivers.

Zombie_donkey

Yes! On Thursday I go on my very first caravan holiday. I normally do camping but I got sick of broken poles and slumming it.

Quiz time! Between Northampton and Strathclyde........How many car drivers will abuse me as they overtake?

CiB

None, as long as you keep a decent speed up, don't hog the middle lane, don't dither, don't wear a hat of any kind when towing etc. You don't have to drive like an old fart just because ther'es a heavy object on your boot. </pers experience>

redjeepǃ

Congratulations, you've managed to find the one species of road user that motorists hate more than cyclists

Runoutofgears

OT-I got serious abuse from a van driver last night, as a little loop of velcro on my ruck sack brushed the edge of his thumping great mirror as I walked my bike past him at a junction.

Poor, poor mirror.

Please, get a sense of proportion.

There, I feel better for that!

BTW I drive a motorhome from time to time, nobody likes those either.

tgotb

Runoutofgears wrote:

OT-I got serious abuse from a van driver last night, as a little loop of velcro on my ruck sack brushed the edge of his thumping great mirror as I walked my bike past him at a junction

I can beat that.

Was waiting for traffic lights at Parliament Square last night; lights went green, van driver next to me crept forward 18" and in the process smacked my elbow with his mirror. The scooter in front of me was stationary, so I hadn't moved at all at that point. Mirror folded in (thankfully) and the van driver instantly unleashed off a torrent of verbal abuse which was still in full flow 30 seconds later when I finally made it out of earshot...

Kieran_Burns

If you get passed by a Silver Peugeot (206 or 307) with a Saints banner in the back window anywhere on the M1 between Northampton and Ripon and there's a bear in a Saints shirt being abusive...

Write this on a piece of paper:

"Hello Eric. Mr Bear says you smell"

He'll probably crash in shock

The Rookie

The biggest problem with shed dragging is being forced to wait behind lorries in the middle lane, even worse if you have a tiny trailer as they can't see that your not allowed in the third lane.....

'Back in the day' I recall having a race up the M1 from the very bottom (no M25) to Northants, us towing with a Merc 230E and the other chap towing with a Range Rover, at times we were doing over 85......allowed in the third lane then.

Simon

Drysuitdiver

CiB wrote:

None, as long as you keep a decent speed up, don't hog the middle lane, don't dither, don't wear a hat of any kind when towing etc. You don't have to drive like an old fart just because ther'es a heavy object on your boot. </pers experience>

nobut you do need to keep to legal speed limits which most nobber drivers don't know for a vehicle towing a trailer

Speed Limits in mph >

cars towing caravans or trailers
(including car derived vans
and motorcycles)
Built up area (street lit) 30
Single Carriageways 50
(National Speed limit) Dual Carriageways 60
(National Speed limit) Motorways 60.

unless the trailer states a lower limit.

not a caravanner but tow a trailer regularly.

as an aside did you pass your driving test before 1997 or after ? if after then you may need to take a towing driving test.

the rules get complex with trailer weights car weights etc.

CiB

Drysuitdiver wrote:

CiB wrote:

None, as long as you keep a decent speed up, don't hog the middle lane, don't dither, don't wear a hat of any kind when towing etc. You don't have to drive like an old fart just because ther'es a heavy object on your boot. </pers experience>

nobut you do need to keep to legal speed limits which most nobber drivers don't know for a vehicle towing a trailer

Speed Limits in mph >

cars towing caravans or trailers
(including car derived vans
and motorcycles)
Built up area (street lit) 30
Single Carriageways 50
(National Speed limit) Dual Carriageways 60
(National Speed limit) Motorways 60.

unless the trailer states a lower limit.

not a caravanner but tow a trailer regularly.

as an aside did you pass your driving test before 1997 or after ? if after then you may need to take a towing driving test.

the rules get complex with trailer weights car weights etc.

Quite. But there's no need to take half a mile to creep up to 50, and for a lot of roads it's more about keeping the momentum up and making reasonable progress, not braking for every slight bend in the road.

Anyway. Pre-97. By quite some time.

Aidy

CiB wrote:

None, as long as you keep a decent speed up, don't hog the middle lane, don't dither, don't wear a hat of any kind when towing etc. You don't have to drive like an old fart just because ther'es a heavy object on your boot. </pers experience>

... remember you aren't allowed in the outside lane of the motorway, pull over when possible on single carriageway roads to let people past, etc.

CiB

Aidy wrote:

CiB wrote:

None, as long as you keep a decent speed up, don't hog the middle lane, don't dither, don't wear a hat of any kind when towing etc. You don't have to drive like an old fart just because ther'es a heavy object on your boot. </pers experience>

... remember you aren't allowed in the outside lane of the motorway, pull over when possible on single carriageway roads to let people past, etc.

Check. Anything else you'd like to flag up that I already do?

Best approach is to keep in your mind "what do other drivers do that I wish they wouldn't?", and then avoid doing any of those things. And - nod to Aidy here - read the Highway Code. It does cover these things, and no-one ever got strung up for reading it too often.

CiB wrote:

...as long as you keep a decent speed up...

I'm thinking of giving it up anyway; everytime we arrive at a site the van is always full of broken crockery, cutlery, tins etc all over the floor and the bedding's all piled up at the back under the seats. I never hold anyone up though.

The Rookie

I recall getting a lot of abuse from a pair of bikers, they wanted us to slow down to 50 as they couldn't get past (just after that race with the Rangey) at the speed we were doing, pulling over was what we wanted the slow moving solo cars to do!

Simon

Confusedboy

Beginner, even in those 'no speed limit' days there were limits for towing, which you were exceeding by a large margin, and clearly driving powerful cars you were not competent to handle. Only idiots race on public roads. You deserved your abuse!

I, of course, have never done anything I might be ashamed to admit to now, certainly never drove from Kidderminster to Cardiff with my head out the window to see where I was going because my windscreen wipers didn't work.....

gtvlusso

I guess it depends if you are trying to tow a huge twin axle piece of road tuppaware with a 1.6 Ford Mondeo......i.e. hopelessly underpowered.

Thats the little f3cker that deserves the abuse!

Otherwise, enjoy your holiday!

:-)

The Rookie

Confusedboy wrote:

Beginner, even in those 'no speed limit' days there were limits for towing, which you were exceeding by a large margin, and clearly driving powerful cars you were not competent to handle. Only idiots race on public roads. You deserved your abuse!

Be serious, it wasn't really a race (maybe I should have used inverted comma's and given a full description, if it had been flat out we'd have been doing a lot more than 80!), besides we left the Rangey on the M1 so he was no-where about when the bikers were getting irate.....

Simon

veronese68

One of my former bosses got pulled at a little over the ton towing a trailer with a Marina pick up a long time ago. He told them that was impossible as it could never do anything like that even without a trailer. He got away with it. Lucky they didn't see the large V8 under the bonnet.
He was indeed a complete lunatic.