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[Weaver]

A couple of gentlemen came to the house to the house to bring us logs in a lorry. Although this was not threefold first visit, they took the ill-advised decision of turning left out of our drive and onto the Heasta-Broadford lane. Thus left turn is extremely sharp hairpin going steeply down a shirt distance. If you are leaving our house, the drive heads southwards and then there is the aforementione drop to the road, and those who find such a sharp turning circle difficult will do best to tune left by keeping very much to the right so that the circle’s radius dill be maximised and you may have a chance if avoiding the drop near the centre of the circle. That, or forget the whole idea and turn right not left, which means just continuing down the Heasta road, and very close by there are easily accessible drives that are ideal for the purpose of doing a turn without undue stress.

Here is a picture, taken looking north; as mentioned before, the lorry came down and got hooked up on a rock at the left hand edge if the road, and then had no rear wheels touching the ground. (Correction: the word ‘rear’ should in fact read ‘front wheels’)


first the insertion of pieces of wood was tried, which failed, so a tractor was summoned to drag the lorry back up my drive. The amount of damage done to the underside of the lorry is at present unknown, until the photographer, my wife, returns from her freezing duties.

(Correction : see next post )


I was just musing. This photo was taken from janet’s iPhone, she uploaded it to some ‘cloud’ storage service and then sent me a message to tell me the pic was available. I then uploaded the saved picture file and uploaded it into my own cloud storage server. Next I uploaded the saved image to an image hosting website so as to get a url that points straight at the the image itself, the image being parked there in a web server which is quotable in a reference.

Madness. First: I am so stupid surely.    All that messing about - surely there has to be a sane alternative? A reference is all that was was needed in the first place - but mind you, getting one is the hard bit!     Second: I feel like that lorry, getting hooked up and then hoisted.

[Weaver]

Total re-write: I didn’t see what the photograph properly and had had speculative reports from before Janet got down there to take the pic, or some such. Details are confused.

I was completely wrong in my earlier account : Our man had not cut the corner, I suspect he had done the opposite : in  trying to turn left going round the widest possible circle, incredibly he ended up with wheels (how?) off the edge of the ‘main Heasta’ road, on the far side of the road, so he came out, turned left but just nowhere near enough or not early enough and maybe not from a position sufficiently far over on his right that he could begin early to make a wide circle. Anyway what actually happened, however it happened, in conflict with my earlier incorrect account, was that his front wheels have gone off the far side of the road while failing to turn left. He perhaps though there was some flat ground there which does not however exist, rather it’s a cliffside dropping away and the frond wheels are both in the middle of nowhere. Absolutely unbelievable. He had simply driven the whole thing straight off the road. Maybe putting a ton of lock on far far too late when the back wheels were by now to far down the drive and maybe didn’t have his foot firmly on the brakes already, because the end of our drive goes down so very sharply and suddenly where it adjoins the road.

I’m not sure how much damage done to the drive or mess made to the side of the public road. Truly a ‘Black Friday’ for somebody.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Just a theory, but...

...supposing the lorry accidentally allowed the offside front wheel to stray onto the soft verge and then, having realised his error, braked too hard, locking the rear wheels while one or both front wheels were in soft mud with no friction.   Would the vehicle perform something similar to a  handbrake turn?

[burakkucat]

Having a fairly good idea of the topography at the end of your driveway and its junction with the Harrapul to Heasta road, I was somewhat surprised to see that photograph.

On an inward journey to you, be it car, van or lorry, I would probably proceed past the end of your driveway, stop and then reverse up the driveway. For the return, outward, journey (assuming you have sufficient turning space up by the house, garage & stables), I would turn around and then reverse down & out of your driveway thus having the vehicle facing the correct direction towards Harrapul.

To get a lorry stuck, as in the photograph . . . 

[Ronski]

I've driven everything from little vans up to 44t artic's and even 11 car car transporters (the ones that bend in the middle) and I still do, I certainly wouldn't attempt a left turn in anything bigger than a long wheel base transit. The truck in the picture would simply not have the turning circle to turn left out of your drive no matter how wide you took it given the obstacles and potentially soft ground. Looks more like he's forgotten to apply the handbrake, got out to take look and it's rolled away.

[burakkucat]

I've tried, as best as I am able, to capture the same view (without the lorry) using Google Maps Street View. Unfortunately Google's photography car was not as far to the edge as Mrs Weaver, when she took her photograph.

[Ronski]

I was looking at Street view this morning, and figured Mrs Weaver was standing on the grass, in Weavers picture you can just make out the bush (without leaves) which can be seem clearly in the street view image which is June 2011. The street view car even drove a little way up Weavers drive.

[Weaver]

In ronskis shot one can get an idea of how steep the last few feet of our driveway is.

Those ‘without lorry’ shots are very helpful, good idea, thank you.