What would you think was about to happen?

something random? By the nature of following a van, and the suspicious behavior of indication you know it's not going to be anything logical.

So would you think that for the whole process, particular the latter half involving hazard lights and moving into a position from where the van could be potentially reversing into a driveway, staying about a foot from the van's rear bumper was:

a) a good idea?

or

b) a bit daft to say the least?

Agreed. So, 180 degree handbrake turn, flat out reversing then 90 degree J turn followed by full throttle forwards into a drive on the right (right from our pov). All done with the Stones - Satisfaction blarring out of the windows and the van driver being a naked 20 year old Swedish chick with huge baps.

Rule 116.... "You MUST NOT use hazard warning lights while driving or being towed unless you are on a motorway or unrestricted dual carriageway and you need to warn drivers behind you of a hazard or obstruction ahead."

I love this newsgroup.

And what happened didn't involve the Stones blaring out, nor did involve any form of handbrake turn or J-turn. And I'm not a 20 year old Swedish chick. And I was clothed.

I think given the penultimate sentence, we are all grateful for the latter.

So what did happen? Did you hit them?

I've played this game, though without the hazard lights trying to confuse things. I just sit there looking dumb with my reversing lights shining at them till they get the hint.

Reverse into the road, entrance or driveway to its left.

YAWN.

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:02:03 +0000, AstraVanMann spouted forth:

Reverse into a driveway or opening on the left?

Mike P

Nah, though had I more violent tendencies it would have been tempting....

It's one of those things where most people work out what you're doing, but for some people there's no helping. If I just use the left indicator someone inevitably thinks I'm just pulling over to the left so nips past my off-side, if I just use hazards they still often think you're doing the above and try and pass you anyway, so I've settled on indicating the direction of where I'm backing in to a good 100-150m in advance, whilst keeping a steady speed, then whacking the hazards on and getting in position to reverse. And 99% of people get it.

This one woman today just stayed put a foot or two from my back bumper, with me sitting there with hazards and reversing lights on - had to wind my window down and ask her to move backwards, to which she initially replied "there's no room - it looked like you were turning right". I pointed out she had a good 4-5 feet spare behind her and she started backing up, and afterwards in a loud muttering style mentioned that the left indicator should have made it fairly obvious, and then her husband (who was one of these people with a smug middle class face that just wanted punching) in the passenger seat wound down his window, said nothing for 5 seconds or so, and then said "it wasn't obvious".

"To you, clearly not", I replied, and carried on backing onto the driveway.

On a different note, VW LT vans have got a brilliant feature on the gearbox - when you push the gearstick against the spring to put it in position to select reverse (i.e. move it to the far left before pushing fowards to engage), it puts the reverse lights on. So you can be going along at 20-30mph, doing whatever sort of indication/hazard flashing that's bound to confuse some people, and make it that bit clearer by having the reverse lights come on when you're still going forwards.

Amen brother - 10 out of 10! (and to Mike P, won't bother with the same reply to both)

It's something where I don't think there's any "textbook" way of doing it, but it's just a bit of common sense - use the lights you've got to make it as obvious as possible, and just hope that the people behind you use some common sense as well.

But thanks to Dan for a typically amusing answer, and to Tim for a typical Tim answer :-)

"It's a good answer, but it's not the one I was looking for. But you keep the TV - that's safe"

Hmmm. Has the driver's face fallen to one side?

"AstraVanMann" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

It's a van. All bets are off.

Suspension of disbelief ended for me at the word "indicating"

I'm waiting for the punchline, tbh... as in, how much damage was done to the van and whatever else was involved. ;-)

I spent three hours having the highway code drummed into me last month - you're all gonna benefit from that experience...

Including the bit at the beginning that states that it's not actually a book of law?

Which reminds me, I'd better send off my acceptance of the local plod force's offer to "educate and not prosecute" me......