How far would you drive in a day?
Several drivers contacted Richard Allinson on Radio 2 in the early hours of this morning.
Many were on mega-journeys and this set me wondering about how far is too far.
One guy was headed to John O'Groats from Milton Keynes - only 500 miles to go, he said cheerfully.
Another driver was in the middle of two back-to-back round trips from Hull to Kent - collecting daughter and possessions from university.
I occasionally do a 200 mile trip in a day, which is far enough for me.
What journeys have you done? How do you tackle a long trip?
And am I the only one who thinks many hundreds of miles in a day is verging on the irresponsible?
|
I like most truck drivers cover many miles every day, my longest days see 650/720 kms, doesn't give me any bother.
Similar in the pick up, long distance no problem.
However i'm a terrible car driver and get bored easily and ratty with idiots that don't phase me in the slightest when at work, it's my 'should be at home time' in the car i suppose.
100 miles is plenty for me in a car especially in the dark, any longer and SWMBO usually drives, whilst i recline and snooze, thats me though and others seem to manage long trips with no problem.
|
Regularly ( most weeks ) do a run into central London and back. 380 miles round trip. Averagely my weekly mileage is 1000 - 1200 miles so do the maths as they say. Years ago I used to drive from Florence to London or vice versa in one go a distance of about 1100 miles. South of France to or from Cheshire for holidays once in a while. Couple of times a year drive to and from Dusseldorf easily in a day, about 500 miles. Regular runs up to Scotland and back in a day.
No special prep other than usual weekly fluid, tyre checks etc. Used to it. I can honestly say I never feel tired while actually driving. Sometimes pretty cream crackered when I stop though.
|
Its not distance, its time that matters. I have done home to Glasgow in one hit with one 5 min wee break - 7 hours 450 miles, That was about my maximum I could do
|
|
A lot depends on the roads;French autoroutes allow you to cruise at 81 mph. for hours.No effort hitting up large milages.
|
I once did over 750 miles in a day, and decided I never would again. These days I would tend to keep it to 400 miles in a day.
But as others have said, it's not the distance that counts - it's the time, the roads, and the vehicle that you're driving.
|
|
I usualy think I have done a lot if I have done 30-40 miles in one day! Although that is usualy all city traffic.
|
I frequently do 1,000 - 1,200km in a day. Normally easy to do in Germany plus I really enjoy driving and I have a half decent company car so I don't consider it a chore. If I get drowsy I stop at a service area and doze for a while.
This winter has seen some really extreme weather with corresponding holdups though and I've ended up taking the train instead which works well if my journey is from city centre to city centre.
|
Did about 650 miles plus 22 acrossc the channel on the bike a couple of years ago in one hit. Had about another 120 to get home which I would have done had it not been pouring with rain for all of the English bit and I was close to a cousin's house. Gave up at that point and bedded down for the night.
Still pouring down the following day !
Ted
|
A couple of times a year I do my house to Hook of Holland which is 812 miles in one go (about 16 hours at a gentle pace) then ferry to Hull and 106 miles to South Manchester.
It's perfectly do-able, enjoyable even, I have a "Europe" playlist on the ipod which is full of sing-alongs and guilty pleasures or the kids will play the same dvds over and over.
We made a huge mistake last year and sailed from France or maybe Belgium and landed in some South East port. I forget where. This left me with an extra 100 miles or so on the Europe end and a 270-odd-mile drive to Manchester in the dead of the night. That was too much. The last 4 miles between the manchester airport motorway junction and my dad's place in Cheadle Hulme seemed to go on forever.
On the reverse journey I play the "don't fill up till you've crossed the German/Polish border" game. This involves tanking up at the last station in Hull then nursing the car across Europe at 60mph.
|
|
About 40 miles on average these days. Longest trip in recent years was around 500 miles on the bike in one trio broken by a channel crossing. Weather was crap and was a stupid thing to do.
|
I once did 1400 miles without sleep, took about 28 hours. But that was on US freeways and I was a whippersnapper of 35 at the time. 400 or 500 miles is about the limit for a reasonable person without the benefit of wake-up drugs.
Minicabbing in London in the seventies, used to do about 150 miles in the 12-hour day shift, which included two rush hours, and over 200 in a night shift. The day shift was incomparably more exhausting and much harder on the car, but the night shift involved unsocial hours.
|
Time is something I hadn't really thought about.
Last summer I did a mini tour around Scotland, starting with 100 miles to Perth, then Inverness, then Ayr, with a night in a hotel in each place.
That was plenty - I found myself stopping for a lunchtime snooze on the way to Inverness.
Taking things steady, each leg took a good few hours.
I once sat through a death by dangerous court case in which a lorry driver had probably fallen asleep.
The prosecution was most interested in what he had done the previous day.
I got the impression it counted against him that he'd only had a few hours kip on the sofa before getting up at dog o'clock to start his shift.
The moral of the story is that if you have a long journey planned, make sure you don't do too much the day before, and get to bed in good time.
Or, of course, make sure you don't drive into the back of a Highways Agency cone wagon and kill two of the workers.
Last edited by: ifithelps on Sat 13 Mar 10 at 14:50
|
Never really done more than about 300 miles in a day, not an enormous fan of driving long distances.
Tend to set off late evening / midnight and drive through the night when there's no traffic. Have been doing Gatwick - Devon and back every couple of weeks, journey is beginning to bore me rigid now!
|
About 500 miles in a day is the longest distance I can recall. From Isle of Skye via Edinburgh to Buxton in the late 70's. In a Maxi with the brakes gradually binding on. Typical of my not much missed BMC cars.
Recently, decades later, driving for about 7 hours in the day has been my limit on holiday in France.
|
Not really mileage for me, but I did about 7hrs driving last year fromk Eastbourne to Frankfurt (plus add on Norfolk Line ferry crossing from Dover and an Ikea stop for lunch in Holland).
Did it in my Volvo S60 and I didn't feel tired at the end, leaving home at 5:30am and arriving about 4pm. Had a snooze on the ferry and just felt like I'd enough of driving when I got there.
I wouldn't want to drive through the night though...........
|
About two hours, or 100 miles is my limit.
Any more than that and I'll gladly take public transport (preferably a train).
|
Regularly drive from Surrey to Switzerland or south-west Germany in one hit - about 650 miles and tend to only stop when the car needs fuelling or I need emptying. But that is in an E-class, that are in their element with that kind of driving on largely empty French autoroutes.
Busier roads or an inferior, especially noisier, car is far more tiring.
Last edited by: Boxsterboy on Sun 14 Mar 10 at 18:08
|
My Sisters 'boy' drove a Fiat 131 to Malaga in 24 hours after I'd tuned it for him, that's about 1000m (not sure), he was a minicab driver in SE London at the time and they used to call him speed!
He's about 55 now - still mad, but a millionaire :)
I drove from Nth Cornwall to Hanover once in an old type 230CE, when I hit Dover on our return, I could hardly keep my eyes open, but managed to drive on to Hastings somehow.
A few years ago I drove an old BMW 320 from Cornwall to London, attended my Brothers wifes funeral, and drove back to Cornwall, I was ok til I pulled over for a snack and 40 winks but when I hit the road again, I was dropping off all the way from Honiton to Bodmin :(
|
|
We live just outside Glasgow, and the in-laws live just outside Guildford so we do that a few times a year - about 430 miles. Regularly visit our friends near Manchester which is 210 miles - 190 in the middle on continuous motorway - did it once, and as I lifted off at J22 on the M62 realised my ankle had gone to sleep, and remembered that I had not lifted off or braked since getting on the M74 - 190 miles before. Wish I had cruise. Most I have driven in one day is approx 600 miles from France back to Reading - which was knackering!
|
|
Have been up to my parents in the Lakes and back in a day a few times - about 550 miles round trip. Set off early and come back late so it's relatively quiet, probably about 9 hours' driving in total. I don't find driving stressful as a general rule so don't find it too bad.
|
On our Euro-trip a couple of years back, our longest days were:
Reims to Millau - just under 500 miles
Stelvio to Linz - About 300 miles
Linz to Frankfurt - 350 miles
Frankfurt to Southampton - 550 miles. Although that might include the distance across the channel, not sure.
|
Furthest for me was Munich to Lichfield in a day. There were two of us sharing the driving, but it was still 847 miles.
It was a lot better than you would expect, my Accord is a great mile-muncher (especially with cruise set at 115 mph), but I wouldn't recommend it and I wouldn't do it again.
|
This is a combination of miles and time really. When I was on the coaches the company I worked for subcontracted to one of the larger coach holiday companies. We regularly got a tour to the Highlands and I used to be the first in the queue to drive it.
It meant getting to the yard for 0445, then taking the coach around five or six towns in the North West, picking up my passengers then driving up to the Highlands, quite often not getting to the hotel until 1730-1800. Obviously I had to take my legal breaks but I was still pretty exhausted by the time I'd unloaded the last suitcase and locked the coach up. Mileage wise, I'd reckon on about 400 which is plenty enough in a coach, especially when the destination was Braemar. That last 30-odd miles on the A93 from Blairgowrie was a killer - you couldn't let your concentration drop for a minute.
I always used to work the day excursions so that I did a half day one the next day - neither me nor the passengers wanted to spend too long on the coach after the mammoth day the day before! Generally, it was a 30-mile round trip which seemed like a day off.
|
0330 alarm, 0400 leave. 140 miles to Dover (2hrs 20). Two hours on the ferry.
0930 local leave Calais, drive 3hrs plus, never more than 4. Stop for 30 mins and return to Calais more slowly. ferry etc, home by 2200.
Typically about 650-700 miles in a day.
All to collect a rare 60s/70s caravan. And I've done it a few times. When it's just to Gent (90 mins from Calais) it feels like a day off!
|
I've been keeping an eye on this thread in utter amazement at the more extreme mileages that have been achieved.
Do none of you think you may habe been tired?
That probably you may not have been firing on all 4 cylinders?
That you may even have been a danger to other road users?
In all my years of lorry driving the most I have managed is 814KM's (503miles) in a strictly limited 10 hour driving period. And that is only allowed twice a week.
It is also only achievable with a an almost 100% motorway run.
Surely the fact that we can be prosecuted for exceeding that by even 10 minutes ( about 6 miles) is grossly unfair when car drivers can do these sort of mileages without any threat to their licences.
It is far easier to drive a lorry for long motorway distances than it is a car, we have air suspended seats and cruise control now as well as cars.
Please can someone tell me how a lorry driver can be castigated and prosecuted for 'driving tired' while car drivers can do some of the extreme mileages mentioned and get away scot free.
Pat
|
Pat, I completely agree with you. I may have done it, but I wouldn't do it again.
Incidentally, I did the 800 miles in a work context, so I probably could have been prosecuted had something bad happened.
|
I agree with you but a lorry crashing can cause far more damage than a car, I think this why the rules exist. I agree that they are sometimes too harsh if the time has only been exceeded by minutes.
Motorists do get prosecuted for being too tired often for careless driving.
I personaly do not drive if I feel tired, I have legs, buses, trams and a push bike all the car is to me is a time saving device and something to keep me out of the rain.
|
The driving rules for lorry drivers are there as much to protect you from cowboy slavedriver haulage operators as they are to protect the public against tired lorry drivers.
Its a win win situation.
There is no simlar rule for private car drivers, as its not measurable (no tachographs) not enforceable and an invasion of privacy.
However as someone said, if its for work, and a long drive kills someone, someone in the company will get jailed, and if the driver survives he will get prosecuted and jailed.
|
The thing is Rattle how many times do those tired car drivers do silly things in front of an alert lorry driver and cause him to brake or swerve into another vehicle?
>>> cowboy slavedriver haulage operators <<<
I do agree with you Zero, and there are a lot of them still around the Fens:)
Pat
|
|
Indeed and if that happens hopefully that driver would be prosecuted for careless driving.
|
Unfortunately Rattle they usually carry on completely unaware of the mayhem caused behind them.
Pat
|
Yeah the same thing happened to me on the bus last week, mentioned it on another thread. Ended up with me being an hour late while I waited for the ambulance to come (I lent the injured and in shock woman my coat).
One mans stupid actions ended up knowing a years live of the poor driver, a woman in hospital me an hour late for a job and people waiting a very long time for a bus that wasn't going to turn up. Then there is the insurance claim to the bus company.
The driver that caused this was completly unaware but it was all captured on CCTV so he may get prosecuted.
|
|
In my case I had two two-hour breaks on the ferry, plus good meals, and a full night's sleep the night before. In terms of driving hours it'd come to about twelve hours, which is as much as I felt safe with, but not excessive I don't feel.
|
I must admit to driving when very, very tired - dangerously so in the past!
But I've been into Alternative/Complimentary medicine for 10 years now and I realise where I went wrong,
(apart from the driving bit!)
Stay away from simple carbohydrates when stopping for a snack, have a protein based light meal,
drink coffee = *Good* coffee - strong & black.
|
I do 80 miles everyday.
Longest 400 miles a day. After that really feel tired.
|
I've previously driven from Perth to Crewe, then Crewe to Oxford and back solo.
Last year driving with A N Other I drove from Prague to Crewe within 24 hours, I napped in the car and on the ferry. 17 years a shift worker and it was easy enough
|
|
I drive an 80 mile round trip to work and home each day. It's a nice relaxed journey at the time of the morning that I get in to the office. I also regularly, well once a month or so, drive a 400 mile round trip in a day. That is about as far as I would like to travel in a day including working in the middle too.
|
How many miles in a day? - -
