I will now try to tell you just what I mean by calling you the Founder Members of The One Eyed Club.
Just how many of you all each day or week actually check your lights on your car to see if they are all working correctly and to see whether your car is fit for the road ahead?
I bet a lot of you have never checked to see if your cars lights are working properly and that you leave that job to the Garage where your car is Serviced.
"If a bulb blows it doesn't matter they are plenty more to do the job just as well" isn't that what you say?
As a lorry driver I get penalised for leaving the yard with so much as a side or marker light out so how come you all, in your fancy cars, can get away with at least 1 headlight blown/out and/or sometimes both headlights out and even a side light as well so that anybody coming the other way would think that maybe what is coming towards them might be a scooter or even another cyclist so that would give any lorry driver enough room to pull out and drive past the cyclist only to realise that it isn't another cyclist coming the other way but you in your car that has only 1 sidelight showing and the lorry driver has to suddenly swerve out of the way of the oncoming car otherwise the lorry would be ontop of the car if he didn't get back to his side of the road.
You see that if a lorry were to try to overtake a cyclist he would have to cross to the other side of the road for fear of the cyclist getting sucked into the path of the lorry by sheer vacuum so the driver should cross the road or at least give the cyclist a wide berth to be able to pass him/her without any damage to either party.
And the Moral to this Complaining Lorry Driver is PLEASE check to see that all your car's lights are working properly and PLEASE check them regularly.
We have to check our lights, indicators and bodywork everyday to ensure that everything works as it should do and there are no peices of bodywork falling off that is going to injure someone or cause a crash somewhere along the road.
I will be very interested in what you lot have to say about this now and in the future.
Here's a test for you all to do when you next go out in your car and that is just count how many cars there are on the roads with only 1 headlight showing.
To give you an example I drove my lorry up from Redruth in Cornwall to Southampton Docks just 2 weeks ago and counted 357 cars with 1 or more lights out.
Did you know that if you have 1 or more lights out on your car that your car is not roadworthy and should therefore not be on the road until the fault has been fixed?
busy my self too Andrew....but I do know what you mean. laters
yep, one eyed wonders are a real nightmare and a danger especially when it's the off-side light that's out. on a very dark night you think there's a motorbike coming towards you and only at the last minute do you see the rest of the unlite car as it comes into dipped headlight range... last minute swerve out the way on narrow country road! Yes most lorry drivers are excellent and really professional. the biggest problem especially on the A9 in your area are those, mainly eastern european apparently, who watch dvds in the cab whilst driving - stand on a bridge over the A9 and look into the cabs as they pass by and see the drivers faces lite up by their computer/dvd players etc. Big police crack down on that at the moment though ;-)
Must get back to the translation though...!
@ Andrew, it is a daunting thought that one eyed people will be on the roads... as it seems you are confirming that assessing the three dimensional is made more difficult, in this eventuality. Road safety, and correctly maintained vehicles are most important factors, especially as there are more and more people clambering to get mobile, despite burgeoning fuel costs. My own father died in a car crash over 30 years ago, but it was his fault , as he was drunk. I carry that guilt with me to this day. Ironically his car was superbly maintained, as he was a former REME mechanic.
I got to know many lorry drivers when I pumped fuel on the A34 for Fortes, and happily dispel the stereotypical notion of the trucker as being Taco-tampering, Derv-fiddling, prozzy-poking-people-smugglers. As our author points out the rules and regulations for the Knights of the road are rightly stringent, but no more so than for any other road user...'rules are rules and' and in my view, to isolate other road users, and assume that they are irresponsible and unlikely to check safety elements as much as the professional driver, would is short sighted. I also think that it is equally possible that a discriminatory and angry driver, counting head lights or otherwise and not concentrating on the job in hand, may also be a danger on the roads.
I'll look out for him next time I'm on my bike/driving around the Pézenas area! I had to wear a patch over one eye years ago, after getting a metal splinter in it, and for the couple of weeks I was wearing it I bumped into things and had no idea of distances at all. It really is very unnerving and very difficult so I sympathise with him but that ought to make him more cautious/less "mr angry" at the wheel...!
Lack of cats eyes, yes it takes a bit of getting used to not having them, they are a great thing but I don't miss them any more, well I'll let you know if I ever get back to the UK to see the difference!
Andrew, I do have a friend who has only one eye, you wouldn't know as the 'glass' replacement is excellent. However he openly admits that his ability to judge distances is impaired due to his lack of stereoscopic vision.
I remember we were out it the countryside a few years back and he couldn't 'read' the road signs...he was also, if I dare say, quite an angry driver, hated lorry drivers, and cyclists, quite scary really.
I wasn't really, I don't drink alchohol... just joshing..but at night time, the lack of cats eyes in France, does, in my opinion, make night time motoring less safe than in the UK.
I was coming back from Pézenas the other night ( rissed as a pat ) on the back roads, less chance off getting stopped, but with no cat's eyes highly dangerous... I saw a lorry come hurtling towards me ... but the headlights just got further and further apart, and I went through the middle..nearly drove in the ditch! It was 2 kids on mopeds
Hi Andrew...Rules is Rules, as you say
Only if one of your headlights is out Ron, rules are rules after all! ;-)
used to check them regularly, don't have to anymore - the car's computer does it for me, even tells me which one is out ;-)
But I do agree with you that they're a danger and some people only find out at the MOT or CT
Redruth, now there's a blast from the past, I used to manage the Jose Collins office in the town centre, lived in Camborne and Truro, also worked at their Falmouth office and later for GA in Truro, nice part of the world but prefer France now ;-)
No, The One Eyed Club belongs to cars with only 1 headlight working or only 1 side light working - not what youre thinking
