What The Person With The Caravan Wishes You Knew

Summer is the time of year when you’ll see a lot of people out on the road going to their favourite holiday destinations – or making the journey the holiday. Some of them have caravans behind them. Others have similar large trailer-type things behind them, such as horse trailers or even furniture trailers (which don’t have to contain furniture – they can carry all the camping equipment, the bikes, the kayaks and so forth). We won’t consider trucks in this article, as they’re a different story altogether.

It’s easy to get frustrated when you barrel along the road without anything attached to your towbar and see a caravan on the road ahead of you, getting gradually closer and closer (as you travel at the legal speed limit, of course). You may grit your teeth and start scanning the road ahead, looking for an opportunity to overtake. Why do they do it? Why do caravans go so slowly? Are they that heavy? And why don’t they just pull over and let people pass as soon as a line starts forming?

Well, I’m going to answer your questions. As you may have guessed, I have sometimes been that person with the caravan, and I can tell you exactly what’s going through the mind of a driver with a caravan. Believe me, we’re not going slow on purpose and holding everyone up just for the sadistic pleasure of annoying people.

Why Caravans Are Slow

There are several reasons why the person towing a caravan goes more slowly than you do. In other countries, the speed at which you can tow anything, including a caravan, is different from the maximum speed limit (usually lower, of course). However, that’s not the case in any of the states of Australia, where a caravan can be towed at the full legal limit, as long as the driver can do so safely.

And there’s the point of it: as long as they can do it safely. Because they’ve got that extra thing on the back, their car handles differently when it comes to corners and things like that. Strong winds can also affect how a caravan sits on the road, meaning that a driver towing a caravan may have to slow down when you don’t have to. What’s more, even a modern caravan has quite a bit of drag, which puts a lot of extra demand on the engine – even the most powerful engine. Nobody really wants to wring the guts out of the engine all the time, as this makes even the most frugal car into a thirsty beast. This means that the caravan has to go slower than you do, especially when going into a headwind and/or uphill.

In the case of horse trailers, the driver has to make sure that he/she drives smoothly without anything sudden. Horses are sensitive creatures, and travelling in a trailer is something that they hate. Anything surprising or startling will freak them out, and there’s a risk that they could hurt themselves in that confined metal box. This is why the drivers of horse trailers often go a little bit slower. They definitely don’t want you to honk your horn. Seriously – don’t do it.

Why Don’t They Pull Over?

While you’re looking at the back of the caravan and wondering why the heck the driver won’t just darn well pull over and let you pass, said driver is probably scanning the side of the road. You see, a caravan driver can’t pull over just anywhere. They have to look for a place that allows enough space for their vehicle and their caravan without taking out any of the “road furniture” (signs, markers, barriers, etc.) or any vegetation. They also don’t want to drive onto anything that they can’t get out of again, such as ditches or boggy patches. What a vehicle (and the associated caravan) can get into and out of will depend on said vehicle and whether or not it’s got 4×4 capacity.

A good place to pull over has to be a good place not just for the caravan driver but also for you. It’s no good if the caravan driver pulls over just short of a blind corner where you can’t see what’s on the road ahead (we’re not talking about lay-bys, passing bays and slow vehicle lanes here; they’re another story).

In short, it can take a while for the driver of the caravan to find the right place to pull over that’s good for both of you. It won’t happen the instant that you appear. The driver won’t start looking for a good place until you appear in his/her rear vision mirror.

If you are the caravan driver, make sure that you do look out for a good spot to pull over and let others pass to avoid a long snake of traffic building up behind you.

When You Overtake A Caravan

OK, so the driver of the caravan has found a place to pull over and now you can overtake. This driver may or may not have come to a complete standstill. Sometimes, the driver of the caravan will stop completely, especially if the road is winding and a lot of traffic has gone past. However, sometimes, the caravan driver will crawl along half on and half off the road, especially in the case of a long straight. Now is your chance to pass. You can also get a chance to pass if the road has a passing lane.

When your chance comes, here are some things that the driver of the caravan would like you to know:

• If the road ahead is clear for, say, 500 metres, then please go ahead and pass as soon as you can. Don’t leave it until the last 100 metres to make your manoeuvre. This doesn’t happen, you say? Well, it happened more times than I cared to count last time we were out with the caravan behind. I or whoever was driving edged over when the long empty straight came, but did that car that had been tailgating overtake straight away? Nope – he/she waited until the last possible moment to do it safely and then overtook. Nuts!
• Use your indicators, from when you start your manoeuvre until you’re back on the proper side of the road and ready to roar away.
• Make sure you actually do overtake, especially if you have been behind the caravan for ages.
• Use all the usual safety precautions when overtaking, like checking you have a clear view of the road.
• Don’t make rude hand gestures or angry honks at the caravan driver. He/she can’t help being slower thanks to the factors mentioned above.
• Feel free to wave and/or give a “thank you” honk!

New Cars, New Year.

Happy New Year to you all!  2023 sees some brand new cars coming into view, and we’re set to observe a considerable increase in the number of EVs sold on our shores.  Here’s a brief look at some of the exciting cars and SUVs you can get your hands on in the near future!

Alfa Romeo Tonale

Here’s the first of the Alfas that take the special brand into EV mode.  The Alfa Romeo Tonale Hybrid kicks it off with its hybrid engine offering the new 48-volt hybrid propulsion system.  You’d expect an Alfa to be sporty, and the nicely designed compact SUV delivers on this front.  Comfortable interiors and decent technology make this a good way of upgrading into 2023.

BMW iX1

The smallest X model from BMW comes in as the X1, and the iX1 is the EV model with a battery range up over 400 km.  Nicely laid out interiors, an athletic driving style (typical Beemer), and a good dollop of performance make this a great new compact SUV.

BYD Atto 3

The BYD Atto 3 is a new kid on the block for Australia.  Being an electric medium-sized SUV with a decent range makes this an efficient EV for the new year.  The Atto 3 also offers a comfy interior and plenty of the latest technology and safety features.

CUPRA Born

CUPRA cars are exciting.  They have plenty of performance and are generally a well-priced product with high-end features.  This new model called the CUPRA Born is an EV with a handsome range of beyond 500 km.  The CUPRA Born is an exciting car to look at, and it comes with advanced technology and great connectivity.

Ford E-Transit

Ford’s lovable Transit has a new ticker with the latest vans now offering electric power.  This is a brand new, full-size, pure-electric E-Transit that features a 68 kWh battery and a driving range of up to 317 km.  Ford say that it is possible to fast-charge the E-Transit from 15% to 80% in a bit over 30 minutes.

GWM Tank 300

One of the best vehicles to come out of 2023 will be the impressive looking GWM Tank 300.  Doesn’t it make a statement!  The Tank is powered by a 2.0-litre petrol-electric hybrid system, and the internal-combustion engine offers a juicy 180 kW.  Nappa leather, all the tech, and very handy off-road makes this a hugely appealing.

Lexus RX

Toyota has their luxury Lexus brand offering their latest RX.  If you’re wanting a new hybrid, these are some of the best ones out there.  Toyota make a great hybrid powertrain with smooth performance and impressive efficiency.  The RX interior sees an updated luxury interior design with ever-impressive build quality.  The RX is roomy too and very comfortable.

Maserati Grecale

Maserati is becoming ever more affordable.  That’s a great thing because they make great cars.  The new Maserati Grecale is a front-engine, medium-sized luxury SUV that comes with the promise of plenty of performance.  Three engines are available: two 2.0-litre petrol motors and a 3.0-litre V6 petrol.  Generous on the equipment levels, the Grecale will be rewarding to drive.

MG4

MG offers the new MG4 hatchback this year.  It is an affordable electric hatchback that has been packed full of innovation, style, technology, and an impressive 440 km driving range.

Nissan X-Trail E-Power Hybrid

Nice to look at, and equally at home off-road as it is on, the Nissan X-Trail E-Power Hybrid SUV is very comfortable and very well-equipped.  Rear cargo capacity in the 5 seat version of this awesome SUV is 575 litres (super handy for a family).  A 7-seat option is also available.  The entry point model is a mild hybrid version and uses a 1.5-litre petrol most of the time.  The other powerplant uses the same 1.5-liter ICE, but it doesn’t connect to the wheels directly.  Instead, it becomes the electrical generator of the system that works in unison with a small battery operating as a buffer.  The wheels are fed power via electric motors.

Renault Kangoo

Renault’s new Kangoo definitely can do, especially with its brand new E-Tech EV versions becoming available for the Australian market.  This will be Australia’s cheapest electric van.  The E-Tech has a 90 kW/245 Nm electric motor that drives the front wheels via a single-speed transmission.  You should easily run about town for well over 250 km before needing to recharge.

Keep your eyes open for these new models travelling our roads and on showroom floors across Australia.  Also keep your ears open via Private Fleet, where we’ll keep you up to date with what other new models are coming our way shortly.  All the best for 2023!

Are You Feeling Sleepy?

Anybody else feeling a bit tired at this time of year? What with all the build-up to Christmas, the Big Day itself, the weirdness of the in-between days at the end of December and the fun of staying up all night to see in the new year, it would be unsurprising if you weren’t a bit tired. This is especially the case if you’re one of the many who has to keep working during this time of year (because cars still need fuel, fruit needs to be harvested, cows need to be milked and people need to eat). Add in the fact that this is when quite a lot of people like to drive longer distances to visit relatives or to go somewhere on holiday, and you get a much higher risk of people driving fatigued.

Fatigue is more than just ordinary tiredness. According to the dictionary, fatigue is a state of complete mental and physical exhaustion, of being completely and utterly worn out or, as C.S. Lewis would put it “dog-tired, cab-horse tired, tired like a child in a factory”. You could refer to it as being overtired.

Why Fatigue Matters

Fatigue matters because it affects your driving. It makes you less alert and less aware of your surroundings, and it slows your reaction time. It also affects your thinking powers so that you make crappy decisions. In short, driving fatigued is at least as bad as driving drunk. In fact, the two are pretty similar. Both slow your reaction times and affect your ability to make decisions. However, people who drive drunk are likely to make impulsive, reckless decisions, whereas those who drive when exhausted are likely to be less alert, less aware of hazards and slow to make a judgement call. In fact, driving after having been awake for 20 hours is the equivalent to driving at the legal alcohol limit.

Fatigue also carries the risk of nodding off at the wheel. You can see why. It’s dark outside (signalling to your body that it’s night time and therefore bedtime), the white lines on the road flick by monotonously (which has a hypnotic effect), the car seat is beautifully padded and supportive, and the interior of the car is warm… Before you know it, you can feel your eyelids drooping and your head nodding. Not good. Even if you nod off for a second, that can be one second too many if your car swerves.

Unfortunately, although you can estimate breath or blood alcohol levels, you can’t measure fatigue. You can’t even pin it down purely to the number of hours you’ve slept for the way you can pin down the amount of alcohol you’ve had using the number of standard drinks. Although lack of sleep is one component of fatigue, it’s not the only factor. Someone who had had one bad night of sleep can be less fatigued when driving than someone who’s had a week or more of wakefulness and insomnia, even though the first person has had fewer hours of sleep last night. A lot of things influence your level of fatigue other than how much sleep you’ve had – there’s how stressed or emotionally drained you’re feeling, any mental fatigue you’re going through (hard day at work, anyone?), what exercise you’ve done and what you’ve been eating.

One contributor to fatigue, both mental and physical, is doing the same thing for hours and keeping alert and focused on one thing for hours. This is exactly what happens when you’re driving, especially if you have to focus intently the entire time (e.g., in very busy traffic). This makes long-haul driving especially risky.

Then there’s the little matter of your body clock. It’s natural for the hormones in your body to fluctuate during the day, although this can be influenced by what you’ve been eating and/or drinking (looking at you, caffeine). This means that you can be feeling fine in the morning even though you’ve only had five hours of sleep the night before, then feel sleeeeeeepyyyyy come midday. In fact, it’s natural for people to feel a bit lethargic in the middle of the day after lunch, and it’s not just because of the heat. Your body clock can be messed with by a number of things, including shift work, the changeover to and from daylight savings, having a new baby in the house… and even the very common habit of staying up late and sleeping in on weekends.

How Can You Avoid Driving While Fatigued?

The main cause of fatigue is poor sleep, so the obvious answer to how you can avoid driving while fatigued is to ensure that you get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis. The odd broken night, late night or very early morning probably won’t hurt you or your driving, but if it happens too often, you could be putting yourself and your passengers in danger.

This is primarily a driving blog rather than a health blog, so I can’t go into too much detail about how to get a good night’s sleep, but here are some ideas:

• Have a regular bedtime routine, which helps your body wind down and get ready to sleep.
• Wake up at the same time every day (yes, even on weekends!).
• Avoid blue light (e.g., screens without a filter) last thing at night.
• Keep your bedroom dark and minimize the number of devices you keep in there.
• Watch your caffeine intake. A good rule of thumb is to have your last cup of coffee at 4 pm, and switch to other drinks after that.
• Avoid thinking about, reading about or watching anything likely to make you stress, angst or worry – including the fact that you can’t sleep if you’re having trouble dropping off.

Other ways that you can help avoid fatigue when you’re driving are the following:

• Know yourself. If you’re a night owl, avoid driving in the early morning when you’re not fully awake. If you’re an early bird, then avoid driving later at night.
• Be aware of your natural ebb and flow of sleep-related hormones. If you know that you’re tired, it may be best to avoid driving during the early afternoon slump. This is a good excuse to get out and go for a stroll (which will ease some of the mental fatigue and give you a good oxygen burst) or to take a siesta.
• Having extra coffee – although this only works in the short-term and will wear off and leave you even more fatigued, so use this one with caution.
• Opening the window for fresh air and switching on some pumping music. Again, these are only short-term fixes to wake the brain up by increasing oxygen intake and getting some natural stimulation (in the form of music). However, these also wear off fairly quickly.
• Share the driving. If you know that you have to put in a long-haul drive, then arrange for the passenger to take a sleep first as you go (eye masks and a nice pillow help here), then swap.
• PULL OVER AND TAKE A NAP. It won’t kill you if you pull over somewhere safe, turn off the engine put the seat back and have a short nap (about 10 minutes or so). However, falling asleep at the wheel may kill you. If you’ve got kids in the car, then wait until they’re asleep before you do this if you’re alone. If there’s another adult in the car, then the other adult can keep an eye on the kids while they whizz around in a playground and you sleep. But get that nap. It’s better to arrive 10 minutes late than to not arrive at all.

AMG One Nürburgring Record

Doesn’t this car look immense!  The AMG One has become the fastest road-legal production car to run around Germany’s famous track, the Nürburgring.  The track is just shy of 21 kilometres long and is full of challenging corners with some scintillatingly quick straights thrown in for good measure.

The AMG One’s two-seat cockpit is accessed via doors that open up on the diagonal – forwards and upwards. The car’s seats are moulded into the structure of the car to save weight and are made of a magma grey nappa leather and black Dinamica microfibre.  The backrest can be adjusted to two different angles.  Despite the minimalist design, the AMG One comes with features like climate control, electric windows, an infotainment system, and a rear-view camera.

It is quite a car!  The exterior looks stunning, with the exterior having an airbrush finish to it that features hundreds of little three-pointed stars – like on the current Mercedes Formula One cars.  The car’s front wheels boast 19-inch rims, and the rear rims are 20-inch.  The push-rod spring struts are aluminium and can be adapted to three settings: Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus.  Anti-lock brakes, a three-stage stability control system, and a nine-stage traction control system all work in unison to keep the AMG One firmly in control and well-planted.  Shod with the best Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R M01 tyres, there is a load of grip to be had.

The car’s ride height can be hydraulically dropped 37 mm at the front and 30 mm at the rear.  A Drag Reduction System has been implemented into the design for reducing downforce by around 20%.  The drag reduction works by closing the louvres over the front wheels and retracting the rear wing so that the car can accelerate to higher speeds more rapidly.  This feature, of course, is deactivated automatically when the driver hits the carbon ceramic brakes or takes on a corner.

Designed with a carbon-fibre monocoque structure, the platform helps to reduce the weight and enhance the car’s stiffness.  AMG has managed to keep the kerb weight of the AMG One down to below 1700 kg.  A lot of special work has been done in the aerodynamics department.  That’s why the AMG One has an active front splitter, a massive deployable rear wing, louvres that are visible over the top of each of the front wheels, and even a distinctive fin that runs down the backbone of the car.  All of these important components are there to enhance the flow of the air over and around the car.

The AMG One has four electric drive motors, and Mercedes say that the car has an all-electric range of 18.1 km.  Two of the electric motors (located at the front) also work a torque vectoring system across the front axle.  When the ICE engine is running at the same time as the electric motors, the car is in full AWD mode.  The ICE motor is a 1.6-litre turbocharged unit, derived from the 2015 Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s car.  This engine runs alongside the MGU-K hybrid system, giving the AMG One a combined power output of 782 kW.

The AMG One’s official performance stats include a 0-100 km/h time of 2.9 seconds, a 0-200 km/h sprint time of just 7.0 seconds, and a top speed of 352 km/h.

Maro Engel was the car’s driver for the record lap time, and he was able to run the AMG One around the Nürburgring in a record time of 6 min: 35.183 seconds.  This time is eight seconds faster than the previous record set last year by Lars Kern in a Porsche 911 GT2 RS MR.  Maro mentioned that the track conditions weren’t ideal at the time the record was set, suggesting that the AMG One could definitely run the lap faster still with better track conditions.