Did I do anything wrong here? Driving

[Azzywhatty]

I drove home from rural Northumberland today. On a single track road my sat nav fell out of its holder onto the passenger side floor. There was a lorry behind me. I continued along the single track road until it widened into two lanes, then indicated left, slowed down and stopped so I could pick it back up.

The lorry behind me beeped as I stopped. Did I do anything wrong here? I indicated and slowed and waited until the road went back to two lanes and it was safe to stop. I can’t work out why he was beeping.

There was no other traffic in either direction.

YANBU - you did nothing wrong
YABU - you did something wrong (what and why??)

See! I rest my case.

Why are you talking about dual carriageways?

So why didn't you pull off on to the first one of those you came across instead of making the lorry go around you?

You don't stop on a dual carriageway! If you had to stop then put your HAZARDS on. People switch indicators on to turn off the road, which the lorry driver probably assumed - that you were about to pull in a layby, or you'd accidently put on your indicator. Lorries can't quickly stop or change speed or pull out. This was really stupid op.

🙄

So why didn't you pull off on to the first one of those you came across instead of making the lorry go around you?

Why should she? How do you suggest she gets back on the road safely?

Because they’re the same roads.

😂 Of course I shouldn’t. You don’t whack hazards on when you’re pulling over.

Chat GPT is a terrible, unreliable tool to use for anything significant. Why wouldn't you quote from the Highway Code?

Because I couldn't be arsed

When I was learning to drive, this was something my instructor asked me to do a lot. He would say ‘find a safe place to stop’, and I would pick a spot on the road with good visibility, away from junctions and no yellow lines to stop. I would indicate as you did. Sounds to me like what you did was fine and the lorry driver was just in a bad mood.

Why would she agree with that? Indicating to pull over is a perfectly correct thing to do.

😁😁
But you seem to be dismissing everyone who has an opposing opinion to you or OP because some people are having trouble following the thread, and that’s not really fair, is it?

There were still other roads joining it.

But you said 'other' roads, so how can a road join a road that is the same road, yet it be an 'other' road.. am thoroughly confused now.

The same type of road?

I was pulled over to the left. Like millions of cars on our roads this evening. You don’t put hazard lights on because you’re pulling to the left and causing people to have to overtake you.

You use them if you’re broken down, or to warn about a hazard ahead. A car pulled into the left, stationary with an indicator indicating left, is clearly pulled over.

Same type of road. This wasn’t an A road with residential streets joining it. It was one country lane which met other country lanes.

I think on the other country lanes you probably wouldn’t have had a lorry behind you though, perhaps making it safer to pull in to retrieve the satnav? I think that was pp’s point.

If there were junctions, then there were places to pull off the road to let the lorry pass, rather than obstruct them.

I'm not saying you were necessarily wrong and you weren't doing anything illegal, but you could have considered that the lorry would need quite a bit of room to swing around you and stopped in a more courteous place for them.

Maybe, but maybe I would. Maybe I’d have had more cars behind me, maybe I’d have had horses behind me, or 100 other situations. Having something behind you doesn’t mean you can’t pull over.

As I said in my last reply to you, I’ve haven’t been dismissive at all. For those that think the OP was ill-advised to stop infront of a lorry for reasons of self-preservation, fair enough. But it’s not my fault there are a bizarrely high number of posters on here who are simply wrong about either the OP’s scenario or the contents of the Highway Code. Or both. And they just seem to keep coming!

So now I should pull into another country lane and find somewhere to safely do a three point turn so that the lorry doesn’t have to slightly move over? What if that lane was also one the lorry wanted to be on? Do I drive until the lorry turns off?

because some people are having trouble following the thread

I would put it to you that if some people are having trouble following the thread, then they really shouldn’t be commenting/voting. No doubt these people are the 57% who have voted yabu.

I drive on this type of road every day. There is absolutely no way I would ever stop as you did. I would consider it dangerous.

I would have driven until there was a safe space to stop.

These are not roads that you stop on unless in an emergency. Comparing them to residential roads in low speed areas with parked cars is not a reasonable comparison. You don’t find parked or stopped cars on 60mph roads, and that’s for a very good reason.

I’m not sure quite what you are after from this post, unless you just fancy a good old fashioned argument with some strangers