Caravan's clogging up the road

[Loosehead]

Further to Fairy's question below, one group only slightly removed from tractors are people towing caravans. Do they feel bad about holding up the traffic? They do seem to potter along, seemingly oblivious to the chaos behind them.

[Shire]

It's taxed, paid for, and in front of you, so live with it!  If you didn't want to get stuck behind me, you should have left 5 minutes earlier.

But seriously, I have travelled many miles in my mates horsebox, which has a trailer on behind it, and yes we are slow, because you can't afford to make sudden stops when travelling horses, as they get thrown around.  I am constantly amazed, however, by the risks that other road users will take to get past us, especially on narrow twisty roads with blind bends.  Being patient never killed anyone, so the next time you get stuck behind a caravan, or tractor, or other slow vehicle, take a deep breath and chill out rather than trying to squeeze past and risk hitting some unsuspecting person coming the other way.

[ianess]

Well said Shire.   Far too many folk seem to think the only way to drive is with the right foot flat on the floor. Any chaos is caused by sheer impatience and/or arrogance.   A 10 mile journey takes 12 minutes at 50mph, or 10 minutes at 60mph.  Take it easy, calm down, lighten up, watch the blood pressure and enjoy the extra 2 minutes.  What did you plan to do with it anyway?

[smudge]

When you think how often this happens in a life time, it really isn't worth getting all wound up about.

[dmsjps]

Besides which, when you eventually get to overtake the caravan, you then finally find what's been holding everybody up: the guy in the Rover doing 20mph that the car towing the caravan couldn't get enough momentum up to overtake!

 

Seriously though, caravans have become much heavier in recent years (due to all the luxuries on-board), plus they're getting longer (I've seen 2-berth caravans at 18-feet! That's a family-sized van!), and yet people are still trying to tow them with an everyday saloon car! I don't agree that everyone should run out and buy a 4x4 if they don't need it for anything else other than the caravan, but they should run out and buy a heavy-duty diesel car with a bigger engine instead of a bog-standard one.

[ianess]

There are a couple of good "rules of thumb" for caravanning.

Firstly the fully laden caravan shouldn't weigh more than 85% of the vehicle pulling it [helps stability]..........and secondly the combined weight of the car plus caravan needs at least 65 BHP per ton to give a reasonable performance on the road.   Not law but sensible advice as put out by the responsible clubs of which I'd hope the more serious caravanners should be members.

[landie]

Dear Shire, whilst I sincerely hope that you continue to enjoy your peaceful plod along the open highway at 20 or 30 mph, I do hope that you will spare the occasional thought for the ten mile queue behind, many being unaware of the reason for the blockage.

Wouldn't it be courteous of you to stop frequently, at the side of the road, to let others pass. They'le thank you for it and you won't be hindered as you're not in a hurry anyway.

There may be emergency vehicles in the queue and, God forbid, lives at risk. A little consideration goes a long way.

And if you haven't got the time to stop regularly, just get up an hour earlier.