Safe Speed Forums

Damn good point - how do automatics cope with the situation? From the 'feel' of mine it stays in the highest gear until it needs to change down but I don't know that.

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Andrew.

[edited by moderator]
The HSE staff at Tilcon introduced sheeting regulations at all their quarries, sheeting up is a pretty dangerous thing to do, at least for the driver and especially in high winds. We always sheeted dust anyway but now everything had to be sheeted, no exceptions in high winds ( you could stop dust blowing off by using the hosepipe to " deg it down " and form a crust ), it was murder sheeting in snow. It was not a very safe thing at all, if it was raining you were wet all day with the cab windows steamed up, plus it put an average extra 40 minutes on your day for no extra pay. Tilcon had sold its transport to Fewston so it wasn't their problem any more, the older more experienced divers were leaving, no prospect of a pay rise with fuel duty rising rapidly and the old hands were replaced by idiots who had just passed their HGV test. These circumstances directly led to the Sowerby Bridge disaster, where several people lost their lives, a Fewston eight-wheeler driven by an ex-police officer ran out of control down the steep hill there. Its a long way down from the summit of the A629 through Denholm, and even being careful with a five axle artic your brakes are beginning to fade by the time you get down North Bridge at Halifax, Sowerby Bridge is down again. I suspect he missed a gear trying to change down, then pumped the brakes, the last thing you should do with air brakes as every press you lose effort, then put the parking brake on in desperation ( not as powerful as the foot brake ) which instantly wore out the linings on the two park brake axles. I wrote more extensively about it the Will Murray at Huddersfield university, and suspect that's why the foreman fitter was never prosecuted even though the were going to charge him with manslaughter. I knew him and he was a great bloke and would do anything to help people, the stress of impending prison wrecked his health and I believe that he got MS or something similar in the meantime. Its hardly surprising that the accident happened to an ex-police driver, I recently went on an advanced driver training course, ( the way the police are taught to drive ) it relied too heavily on the brakes to be safe for HGV practice. I didn't know said driver personally, remember that there was one oldish bloke who was generally a leg iron, the garage staff probably had no idea just how incompetent a wagon driver he was, checks on brakes safe for " normal competent drivers " were insufficient in this one case and, perhaps compounded by temporary traffic lights on the road over Denholm the fitters probably knew nothing about. Once upon a time it was easy for Tilcon drivers to nip into the garage at Swinden to request a brake adjust, however Fewston had moved the garage to out of your way Skipton Rock because the national park authority was squealing.

Goodwin's Law ends the thread

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Don't be daft, dcb.

OK but I do wish that brossen would stop referring to decent people, including me, who have no intention of committing genocide as Nazis. It is a very offensive term especially to people who lost relatives in WWII. And it contravenes the forum rules.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Yeah, let's not bother wth Health and Safety, let's do away with risk assesments.

You could say it's been taken too far in some circumstances, but to completely dismiss the concept of Health and Safety and risk is plain nuts.

Having spent a few years working as H&S Manager, for companies large and small, I can understand the cynism shown to risk-assesments.

I always understood that the principle was to use any assesment to find a better methodology which also reduces the risk. Simultaneously harnessing the knowledge, skills and contribution of the person(s) most familiar with the task assessed. I can count on the fingers of one hand the examples of tangible success, and they weren't judged solely on accidents'-reduction.

I always found that losses-realisation/cost-management of a 'suspect process', for those holding the purse-strings, gave real momentum to change, and a win-win for all involved. Trouble is the title H&S Manager, whose role can directly encroach upon the authority and territory of other Managers in the organisation.

I also managed HACCP (hazard analysis critical control point) for a major dairy. The related risk-assesments for food quality ain't that much different to those performed for occupational-safety purposes.......but boy-oh-boy are the results regarded with far more interest and commitment.

Funny old world, ain't it?

My cars do approx 20MPH-25MPH per thousand revs in fifth gear. So at 25-30MPH the car is labouring and not in its peak torque curve (usually over 2000revs), slowing even further before changing down (e.g 20 or 15MPh is going to seriously labour the engine and do your big ends no good at all......if you need to accelerate for any reason...forget it. I would have failed my test for driving so badly.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I had a look at the site to see if that piece was dated in the early/mid '90's because the bold section above is just really not true now. One of my cars was made in 1999 and weighs 1250Kg, the modern version weighs 1600Kg, it has the same power output too.

That aside I find block changes fine, I even use them in a 1991 car, you will find up changes easier to start with as you will seldom be in a rush to select the gear. The problem with a block down change is that you will usually be approaching a junction or other obstacle and you do not want to be worrying about deciding what is the right gear. Sequential changes tend to feel more natural as there is not such a large mismatch between the engine and gearbox rpm. A blip on the throttle (or if you want to be really smooth steady pressure to get exactly the right revs) as you change down can help. It just takes a little bit of practice and you will be doing it unconsciously, just make sure you have plenty of space/time to sort yourself out in case it does not go smoothly the first few times.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Brossen wasn't on about premature clutch wear but premature synchro clutch wear which is part of the gear box. I have heard of a few modern gearboxes needing new synchros, the car (1993) that I bought a year ago has 2nd gear synchro wear and it is supposed to be common). Now this is interesting because in the 35 years that I have been driving cars, I have never had a synchro problem on any car but now I do and I was talking to a guy in the pub who also had synchro problems on another different make of car. Could this be due to modern gear change problems? Changing fro 5th to 2nd without matching the engine speed will cause meshing problems, if you don't believe me try doing it without the clutch dis- engaged. Changing 5th to fourth is easy without the clutch if the engine revs are matched but you would have to increase the engine revs quite considerably to engage 2nd from 5th without using the clutch.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.