Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Driving lesson #47

Phyllis drove Sunday before last, but he was unwell this weekend with perhaps a viral infection. He has recovered Monday. He has been masked when he leaves his room, which was rare. I've learnt girlie man sickness is even worse than man flu. 

Anyway, I gave him a driving lesson regardless, from the balcony. I took photos. Now sorry, but it will do my head in to try and explain this to those of you who drive on the wrong side of the road, but the pictures should help you understand. Just to note, while in England at least, you cannot overtake on a multilane road on the left. We can here, leading to more lane changing. England does it better. Are you allowed to do so in other countries? That would be can you overtake on the right on multilane roads?

This truck in the right hand lane of the two left turning lanes is a very long semi trailer.  


Here the truck approaches the corner. Fellow motorists are wisely giving it a wide berth, but they don't always. 


The cab is still in the same lane, but the trailer is going awry. 


The cab is still in the same lane, but the trailer is completely in the next lane. When a truck is labelled at its rear, 'Do not overtake turning vehicle', take that seriously.

In what I paste below, there is a single left turn lane and the truck mounted the footpath. A temporary solution was to mark footpaths to keep pedestrians back from the corner. Why penalise pedestrians and treat them as the problem on a footpath when the truck driver was clearly in the wrong? The problem is that there is only one left turn lane, and semi trailers simply can't turn without using a second lane. 

Victorian police have charged a man over a serious crash in Southbank that left five pedestrians injured.

Police said the 64-year-old driver from Wyndham Vale was arrested after the incident on Thursday night. On Friday night he was "initially" charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing serious injury.

In a media statement, police said it was alleged that while turning left, the truck cut the intersection corner and mounted the footpath, knocking over a traffic light.

Five pedestrians — four men and a woman all aged in their 20s — were injured.

The driver has been remanded into custody and will face the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court today.

Earlier, investigators said the B-double tanker was turning left from City Road on to Power Street about 7:00pm on Thursday when it mounted the footpath. 

30 comments:

  1. It does look very messy.
    Hope Phyllis has recovered now?

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    1. Much better. I think he is going to work today.

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  2. On the country roads, they are most deadly ever. They even try to overtake cars on a single lane with ultra high speed.

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    1. Roentare, as I rarely venture into areas where you drive, so I can just imagine. I don't know why they tailgate on freeways when I'm sitting on the speed limit in the centre or left lane.

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  3. Well done on the driving lessons. I do hope the viral illness is gone.

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  4. A mult-lane road looks much more chaotic from above than when you're actually driving on it. Still, it pays to be careful.

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    1. Kirk, that is quite true about intersection, but even so, many drivers find the intersection confusing and they shouldn't.You want to turn right, right lane, left, left lane, straight ahead, two centre lanes.

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  5. Yes there's the same rule here in multi-lane highway driving. We can pass on the LEFT but not on the right. Though many break it. Dangerously.
    Good idea for a lesson.
    XO
    WWW

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    1. WWW, I think Australia is unusual with allowing that manner of overtaking.

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  6. Those truck turn photos are wild though… proof that ‘Do not overtake turning vehicle’ isn’t just fine print. Stay safe out there, and may Phyllis’ girlie man flu never return

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  7. Huge trucks like that will always have mountng the kerb problems in cities and I have no idea what any solution might be apart from keeping them out of cities.Let them deliver to a depot where a smaller truck or van can take over for the city part of the run.
    On a side note I went to the city to get a shower mitten from the reject shop and found the reject shop is no longer there. Too bad.

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    1. River, most trucks use tunnels to get under the area where the accident was, but overheight, loaded with livestock and carrying anything combustible aren't allowed in the tunnels. I can see on Street View that the corner has been narrowed for pedestrians and the kerbing moved to give trucks more space to turn.
      I thought you were going to the mitten wasn't there, but haha, the whole shop has gone. Damn.

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  8. Some vehicles are just too big. I'd hate to have to drive a rig like that.

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    1. They are JB, and just seem to getting bigger. I've seen clips of a couple of large trucks get very stuck in small English villages.

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  9. City streets were never designed to accommodate big lorries* with trailers like the one you pictured.
    *"trucks" is an Americanism now widely adopted in relation to big lorries but a few old pedants like me resist it.

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    1. YP, that's quite true about large trucks. Trucks is an Australianism too. I only knew about lorries from a young age by the word being used in books.

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  10. The older I get, the more patient I am in traffic.

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    1. I'm outwardly patient but inside my brain seethes with anger.

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  11. To complicate your question even more, driving rules in the USA are state-specific. So while one state may outlaw overtaking on the right, another could allow it!

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    1. As are ours Steve, but many have become standards throughout the country. But not all, and I don't know about this one.

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  12. Yes, driving. I never post about driving. When I was in high school. I think it was a $20 fee we had what is called driver education.

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    1. Dora, I hope what you were taught was worth the $20.

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  13. We can pass on the right here. The people who drive those big rigs are amazing when you see the tight spots they get into, Andrew.

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    1. Pat, then what WWW says in then contradicts what you have said, so either I've not understood. , it's hard for my brain to cope with driving on the other side of the road, or it varies from one province to another.

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  14. So Mr Trump is driving a Melbourne taxi now?

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    1. Once again MC, too cryptic for me.

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    2. "#47"; "driving lesson"; taxi in the lane to the left of the semi.

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    3. Got it. I didn't connect the two. I thought 47 was a random number in my head.

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