Last Friday (01/09) we were pottering northbound along the road between
Hebel and
Dirranbandi in Qld in our tray back Cruiser, with an old 20 ft van behind. This rig is not the fastest on the road, and that part of the “highway” is not the best so we were not in any hurry. That is to say we were driving to conditions as we saw them.
A convoy of 27 tag along vehicles caught up with us. There was a variety of vehicles, some without trailers, some with, at least one poptop and one big unit (probably Cruiser wagon and at least a 20 footer van).
Once I realised that it was a convoy, I scanned them up on the UHF and listened in.
We were not impressed with the manners displayed by this crew:
1. I felt that the leader or lead vehicle should have made contact with us on Ch 40 (we have a
sign on the van) to let us know that there were 27 vehicles in the convoy. Then I could have decided whether to put up with that many overtaking us or pull up and let them go by.
2. There were some comments about our “old trayback” or somesuch, making heavy going of it. We took these remarks to be disparaging and uncalled for.
3. One person commented that they were “Stuck behind the van”. They were not stuck behind the van: they were just temporarily delayed by it, as I was quite happy to let them by when it was safe to do so.
4. At one stage, someone called to say that the road ahead was clear for a couple of kilometres, thereby encouraging overtaking on a corner or otherwise blind. To their credit, that offer was not taken up by cars behind us.
The convoy was in a far bigger hurry than us, but they were not masters of that domain simply because of that or their number. We were equally entitled to be on that road at that time and to be travelling at the pace that suited us. Their needs were no more important than ours and a little bit of courtesy on their part would have been appropriate.
A local in
Dirranbandi agreed about the manners. He said that they did not wave back to him as they went past.
The vehicles in the convoy had a number of stickers on the side, but then most prominent one was “Tillys”. I could not find “Tillys
Tag Along Tours” on the net so that didn’t help.
If you were in that convoy last Friday, your recollections may
well be different, but that is how it struck us.
Thank you for allowing me to have a rant.
Alister Wells.