On 12/04/2019 11:40, NY wrote:
"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
Frequently the layout of places misses
basic common sense facts, like not everyone can reverse a trailer
into a parking bay.

I can reverse it fortunately, but that becomes impossible if the load
is low and I can't then see it at all unless its already turned far
out of line. I will get around to welding at least one and possibly
two tubes on at some point, specifically to hold corner marker poles.

I've seen people come in towing trailers, unhitch the trailer and
trundle it into the space resting on the jockey wheel, then park the car
next to it. Seems a fairly sensible way of getting round the fact that
they can't reverse the trailer, especially when there isn't room to
swing the car out to get the trailer pointing correctly into the bay.

Unfortunately my trailer has no jockey wheel. I could add one, but as it
has no brakes, it won't stay where its put then. I can manouvre it by
hand, but when it is heavily loaded, I don't want to put too much strain
on my badly arthritic knees.

I
have the greatest sympathy, because I cannot reverse anything
articulated to save my life: I can't even reverse in a straight line
without the trailer starting inexorably to swing one way or the other
without being able to correct it, never mind being able to do anything
fancy like pointing the trailer/caravan at an angle to the direction I
was driving in to fit through a gateway or into a parking bay. I'd
definitely be one of the naff "unhitch and manoeuvre by hand" brigade :-)

Some people find it easy, some find it hard, most struggle but can get
the hang of it with practice. Once you can get the hang of thinking
which direction you need to push the nose of the trailer and hence which
direction you want to reverse the car, you can set off properly. After
that it is just a case of making small corrections and switching to
following the trailer round rather than steering the opposite way as you
do to start the turn.

A caravan is far easier than a small trailer because the axle is so much
further back from the hitch and so it goes off course much more slowly
and makes overcorrection less of a problem too.

I saw one tip that was very sensibly laid out: as you approached, the
road divided into lots of parallel sections, each with a skip next to it
and each with its own exit back to the common exit road. That meant that
no reversing was needed, and no car's reversing impeded the exit of any
other car, apart from the merging into a single exit lane which was
consistently marked out so every lane gave way to the one on its right,
like roundabout rules. And the ramps where the cars parked were raised
off the ground so the lip of the skip was only slightly above "ground"
level - you let the car drive up to the correct height rather than
having to walk up steps beside each skip to get to the height to throw
things into the skip.

Sounds good. Ours has the skips all side by side along the whole length
of the site, with parking spaces angled, so reversing is required. The
whole area used by cars, plus walkways between the skips is raised up.
The skips for large appliances actually have a removeable, chain section
of the walkway fence and a fold down drawbridge so that you don't have
to lift a washing machine up off the (provided) sack truck.

The worst was Malton tip where there was no way for the lorries to
remove the skips while cars were driving in and out, so every time a
skip was full and a lorry arrived to take it away, they had to close the
tip and clear all the cars out while the lorry reversed up, picked up
the skip, stopped for a cup of tea and a chat with his mates (*) and
then drove out. Meanwhile a long queue of cars had to wait on the entry
road until the tip re-opened, queuing on a minor road and then round the
corner onto a more major road, which blocked access of all through
traffic, and also all traffic wanting to get to the rest of the
industrial estate.

When a skip is full at our tip, they close the gates to the walkways
either side and open the gates to another one. Meanwhile the wheeled
excavator packs the first one down using a giant, steel, toothed,
roller. If there is enough space, they reopen the gates, otherwise they
swap the skip for an empty one. There is plenty of space for a number of
extra full or empty skips to be stored and for multiple wagons to be in
the yard at the same time.

(*) I'm not joking: I did once see a driver stop for a natter with his
mates after he'd finished picking up the skip.

That's the sort of thing that gets me going over to them and pointing
out that they are holding a lot of people up.

SteveW