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Post by onlyMark on Dec 2, 2018 12:58:18 GMT
My little jaunt around the northern part of the country, where the roads are relatively empty, made me a little frustrated that within sight of home, the trucks ganged up against me and I had to take action to show them who was boss. Best to skip forward to 2:30 -
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 2, 2018 14:42:15 GMT
The quality of the pavement seems excellent, but those trucks are quite intimidating.
I was happy to see at least one bicycle on the road.
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 2, 2018 15:04:25 GMT
It is one of the most main roads in the country leading north out of Lusaka and it is generally kept in good condition. The ratio of bikes to cars/trucks increases as with most countries, the more rural you get. This is about 10km or so north of the capital so bikes are reasonably rare though they are about.
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Post by questa on Dec 3, 2018 0:24:39 GMT
Known here as "6 and 60 drivers"...crawl up a hill at 6 kph, then at the top instead of allowing the queue behind him to pass, he flattens the pedal and hits 60 kph, not giving anyone room to overtake. Next hill...rinse and repeat. My method of handling this is to close windows and vents and drive very close to the back of his truck, but out of sight of his mirrors. The way air flows means his truck is 'pulling' you and losing its own power and on faster sections the driver knows he is towing you. At the next fuel stop, he will threaten to punch your lights out, but just tell him he should let faster vehicles pass.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 3, 2018 5:06:16 GMT
My experience in France is that most drivers of slow trucks will help you to pass them on roads like that by either waving to indicate to you that it is safe to pass even if you can't see for yourself or else to squeeze over to the side as much as possible so that you can get buy easily. I can't say that it is a question of 'polite' French drivers, because at least half of the trucks on the road are foreign ones from other European countries.
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 3, 2018 5:09:41 GMT
Hmmm..... I'd like to politely disagree with the physics of that. I am aware that at some point the lead vehicle will actually go faster as a result of the trailing vehicle following extremely closely behind, as seen on Nascar racing.
It is common here that the truck drivers are actually quite reasonable and will assist you to safely overtake by putting on their left indicator to show it is clear ahead or the right one if they think you want to overtake and it isn't clear.
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Post by questa on Dec 3, 2018 13:56:50 GMT
Race speeds and degrees of aerodynamics might affect Nascar bodies, the 'boy racers' here feel that having a spoiler over the back window or boot of their Subarus keeps their back drive wheels on the ground as they hoon around doing 80 kph in 60 kph suburbs on Satdee nights. My son's rally car has a bit of work done on it but it spends much of the rallies doing over 200 kph and does make a difference.
Most of our trucks and coaches now have fitted air deflectors over the cabins to create a smooth airflow...up the windscreen and smoothly over the vehicle to dissipate away from the rear. Before, the air created a choppy resistant pattern that made the motors work harder, like a constant headwind.
Back when we talked gallons, a friend drove 600 km on flat plains. He tucked in close behind a Greyhound coach and 'hitched a tow' for most of the trip. (In a Mini) When we compared notes our Minis had averaged about 50 miles to the gallon while he had made 76 mpg.
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