Your Motor Mouth columnist Kevin Dyer (Oxford Mail, April 23) obviously experienced the same problem on the A34 as lorry drivers have all over the country (being unfamiliar with the road layout approaching the M40, and having to make a late decision to change lanes).
The worst road junction in Europe I have found is turning left in Headington at the traffic lights into Windmill Street.
In a 16 metre articulated lorry, you need to be right against the refuge in the middle of the road, or drive past the mouth of the junction and more or less jackknife into the street.
Cars, cyclists and, most probably, Motor Mouth will inevitably decide to ignore the lorry driver’s left hand indicator and try to push past.
I’ve driven in most west European countries and find the English drivers the worst.
Signposting could be improved nationally to help lorry drivers. Local signs for industrial estates could be put further away from road junctions (after all, we are least likely to know where we are going, with the worst maneuvering, the greatest blind spots and double the braking distance of a car).
The Highway Code gives braking distance for cars, but not for lorries or buses.
I have about one heart attack a day as I use the hard shoulder on the motorway, because my braking spaces are severely reduced by cars pulling in to join the queue I’ve sat in for the past mile.
I have a few questions for Motor Mouth: I estimate the stopping distance of a 44,000kg truck travelling at 50mph to be the equivalent to be of a car travelling at 120mph. So what is my stopping distance?
Where is a good place not to be?
And finally, why can’t they double deck the M25 with lorries, vans, caravans and motorcycles on the bottom deck and cars on the top?
I live on a fat-free diet on the road (I don’t pay for the fat) and the last time I weighed myself was on a 50 tonne weighbridge (it did show my weight and it didn’t break!).
Chris Minchin
Akeman Street
Combe
Woodstock
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