Overtaking a stopping trotro before a blind crest
You are driving a loaded pickup at about 70 km/h on a two-lane rural road. Ahead, a trotro is crawling at around 30 km/h and has already stopped twice without warning to pick up passengers. Beside you the centre line is broken, but about 60 m ahead it becomes solid where the road climbs to a blind crest, and beyond the crest the road bends left. A hatched island runs up to the crest. An oncoming lorry is visible roughly 300 m away and closing. Your load shifts and settles whenever you change direction. The trotro's brake lights flicker on and off.
1. Work through whether you can start an overtake now. What are the deciding factors, and what is your decision?
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1. Room to complete the manoeuvre. You are doing 70, the trotro about 30, so you close on it at roughly 40 km/h - about 11 metres every second. You must also accelerate past it, which a loaded pickup does slowly, and the broken line runs out in about 60 m.
2. Time available. With an oncoming lorry at, say, 60 km/h, the two of you close at about 130 km/h combined - roughly 36 m per second. 300 m of gap is therefore around eight seconds, and it shrinks fast once you are alongside.
3. What you cannot see. The solid line, the hatched island and the crest all tell you the same thing: beyond that point there is no view and no legal room.
4. What you cannot control. A trotro that stops without warning may do so mid-overtake, and a shifting load will not help you brake or change line.
Decision: do not start it. Hang back at a distance that lets you see past the trotro and stop if it brakes, and wait for a clear stretch with a view and a legal line.
2. What do the solid line, the hatched island and the crest mean together, and why is 'start the overtake and abort if it goes wrong' a bad plan here?
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Each marking removes an option:
- Solid centre line - you must not cross or straddle it to overtake. It is placed where the road layout makes overtaking unsafe, not where it looks empty at this moment.
- Hatched island - an area to be kept off. It is there because the space is needed for vehicle paths, or to separate traffic that would otherwise meet head-on.
- Crest - no view of oncoming traffic, of a broken-down vehicle, of a pedestrian, or of the bend.
Why aborting is not a safety net:
- Once committed, aborting means heavy braking or swerving with a shifting load, probably in the curve beyond the crest.
- The trotro driver may accelerate, or swerve to avoid a passenger, taking away the gap you were aiming for.
- On the far side of the crest the escape routes are the hatched island and the oncoming lane - the two places you must not go.
A plan whose failure mode is 'swerve blind over a crest' was not a plan. The decision has to be made before the wipers are on the line, not after.
3. The trotro suddenly stops dead in your lane, just before the crest. What do you do?
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- Brake firmly in a straight line. Do not swerve blind onto the hatching or into the oncoming lane to preserve speed.
- Keep the wheels rolling if you can - with a shifting load, locked wheels and a change of direction is how loaded pickups end up on their side.
- Warn those behind: hazard lights, and a touch of the horn if someone is tailgating.
- Stop short with a margin, then decide. If you must pass the stopped trotro, wait until you can see over the crest, and check whether it has stopped because of something in the road ahead rather than a passenger.
- Expect people: passengers stepping off into your path, a child running round the front, the mate walking out into the lane to wave it on.
Nothing about the situation justifies going round it before you can see what is over the crest.