What are the rules on when lorries / breakdown trucks should flash their roof lights? I assumed it would be only for when they are parked at side of road rescuing vehicles but you see them driving along the road with nothing more hazardous than a Ford Focus on their back but lights are a blazing!
Saw an incident on a snowy M8 this morning when a car driver flashed his lights to let a breakdown truck move into his lane. Where a car driver would maybe give a wave of the hand or a flash of the hazards, this idiot flashed his roof lights and rear flashing red LEDS, which was enough to make the car driver slam on his brakes in fright!
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I used to put the beacons on whenever I was attending or loading a car. I've still had the idiots run up the ramps !
Didn't use them on quiet residential roads in the dark after bedtime. No point in getting the neighbours up when there's no traffic about.
Always switched off when out into the traffic safely....no point in having them on........me leccie bill's too high as it is !
Ted
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Always amused me with the single car recovery motor that BG describes thundering down the motorway with one car aboard completely within it's borders lit up like a sea front arcade.
Truck breakdown recovery a bit different, they can become very long combinations when a full length artic is suspended behind a mehusive lifter thingy.
If you get stuck behind one of these things in heavy night time traffic it can be unpleasant for the eyes.
Agreed with idiots and ramps Ted, there'd always be one wag that would aim straight for the ramps and change course at the last moment usually to impress his female passenger...oh how i laughed, i'd be unstrapping beside the truck on the outside and said idiot would barely miss me...that's quite apart from London drivers who really would try deliberately to hit you for daring to park outside a garage or rental office.
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Round here the council lorries and trucks have them flashing all the time. It just means "I'm on a mission".
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Really i don't see the problem the gritter has them flashing away, I may get some on the vectra all different colours just to confuse you.!! lol..............................
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Must admit that the single vehicle on the back recovery trucks having their ARB's on is annoying, I really don't see the reason if there is no overhanging load or somesuch.
But you've really hit my pet hate, Cliff, and it's not the ARB's on council vehicles; it's their hazards.
I can understand the rubbish lorry having its ARB's on, after all that's what they're for, to warn of workers around and warn of a slow moving vehicle but why do they have to have their hazards on? In a busy urban environment when one of these is at a roundabout or a busy junction the rest of the traffic is expected to suddenly become psychic and know where the truck is going and often, due to its job, it's the last place you would expect. Had a row with one guy when he just suddenly pulled across the main road part of a crossroads totally blocking the road right in front of me and then proceeded to reverse into an alley, I hadn't got a clue he was going to do it as he had every light on the vehicle flashing. When I pointed out to him that he could have turned his hazards off and used indicators for what God intended his answer was along the lines of, 'Well, I do that every week, mate.' It was totally lost on him that he might do it every week but I'm not there every week.....
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if you are doing a suspended tow from a breakdown then roof lights on are de riguer
if its a beaver tail and the stricken vehicle is on the back then no lights please
ive not fitted lights on my truck roof for 20 years now as i too dont want to be seen as a wannabbe failed police officer with orange rather than blue lights
if i was doing recovery i would fill my trucxk with lights though and use every single one so the morons might not kill me (and trust me as gb hinted at there are lots and lots of morons on our roads)
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Tut tut - it's not a recovery truck, it's an 'Incident response vehicle'. One has a single flashing light, the other has numerous, plus strobes, LED's, and of course all the reflective chevron stuff.
By the way, a delivery truck is now a 'Freight forwarder and international logistics vehicle'.
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We used to have an orange beacon and a Michelin man on the roof of the Minor pick-up used for motorway breakdowns.
Trouble was the extra wind resistance knocked a fair bit off top speed.
Compromise was to remove Mr Bibendum and leave the beacon.
I used to turn the beacon on as I pulled up to the breakdown, but rarely used it when dragging the car back to the garage.
Different days, though.
We towed with a chain, nothing else.
Nowadays, the police would shoot you for dragging a car off the motorway in that way.
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>> We towed with a chain, nothing else.
They don't know they're born today.
In the dim distant past when i was about 19 i broke down with an empty 7.5 tonner at Barlborough Sth Yorks, Ron one of the other drivers brought the gaffers Mk1 Granada estate up and towed me back on a stout rope...to St Albans, i wonder how far we'd get trying that now...it was quite safe they were normal vacuum servo brakes, so just needed a bit more pedal pressure to keep the rope taut.;)
We got back quicker towing than under the trucks own steam.
Seems a lifetime ago, before elfinsafety deemed such a thing needed a £500 recovery performance and more flashing beacons than you could shake a stick at.
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Western Bankers. Should be linked with the Hi-viz thread. Imbeciles.
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Glad I'm out of it now......thoroughly enjoyed the game, though.
I remember just having loaded a BMW in a lane near Dunham Massey. I still had the ramps down and I was bending between them putting the back chain on the car....no ratchets then !.
Straight road, beacons and flashing lights on, daylight, dry, and a woman in an Alfa drove her nearside wheels up my offside ramp, at some speed. She bounced off from about 18 inches up and disappeared up the road !
As an aside, I dropped the driver at work and found out what the strange shell shaped building on the west side of the M6 between the A57 and M62 gates was.
We pulled up, there were no windows and a man with a gun was at the door.
My customer turned out to be the manager of the place, which he told me was a bullion store for one of the major banks.........spooky !
Ted
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...We got back quicker towing than under the trucks own steam...
Funny you should say that, me and the garage foreman used to reckon we could go just as fast towing each other in two cars as not.
It's very satisfying when the pair of you can work so well together.
I once towed a full-size Lambourn horsebox with a Land Rover Series 1, albeit only for about 15 miles.
When we dragged cars off the motorway, it was the customer who had to pilot the towed car.
One or two drove over the chain, or 'tried to overtake' as we used to call it.
Other than that, we never had any serious bother.
Last edited by: Iffy on Tue 30 Nov 10 at 22:21
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>> It's very satisfying when the pair of you can work so well together.
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Yes it is, in the case of me and my old kerbside cowboy mate i would tow and he would follow, i think we were a good team and we towed hundreds of miles at speeds i dare not quote..;)
Tried it the other way round, him towing, only the once, strange we couldn't get along anywhere near as well that way.
I bet Ted's got some steamy recovery adventures he could recount for us....
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...Tried it the other way round, him towing, only the once, strange we couldn't get along anywhere near as well that way...
Same here.
We got on better with me being towed.
My foreman was a lot braver than me, so he would dominate traffic at roundabouts and junctions in a way I never could.
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Lorries - flashing roof lights - Ted
