Thread: Merging onto a highway, when there is a pilot vehicle

Originally Posted by TimNZ

So, I may be in the wrong.... Today I was merging onto the Roe Highway, there was an escorted load with a pilot following, and where I was going to "naturally" merge was between the truck and following pilot.

The pilot gave me no indication he was going to be unhappy with me being between him and his truck, until the last minute when he sped up, lent on the horn, and forced me out of the way with his vehicle. There is no way he couldn't' have seen me coming onto the hwy as I was in front of him.

I do have dash cam footage, it will show I didn't try and speed up, or otherwise try and force my way in front of the pilot. So I suppose my question is, was I in the wrong for trying to merge between the truck and pilot?

Cheers,

i would say in my opinion you were wrong to merge .
I dont know if there is a law maybe unwritten .
I would have thought it was courtesy not to get inbetween .
The pilot car is there as a buffer for all traffic and to warn the truck driver if you were between them then there isn`t a buffer

I am a WA Accredited Pilot. Had my own business providing pilot services, and also driving heavy vehicles / oversize loads for a few years a while back.

You have not broken any law. If there was sufficient room for you to be able to merge onto Roe Hwy behind an oversize load, but ahead of his following pilot, then the pilot was not doing his job properly.

One of the reasons why I got out of the game was due to the number of totally useless and incompetent dickheads becoming pilots in recent years - especially capital city based examples. It used to be accepted that before you could escort a heavy vehicle, you could actually drive one. In fact, this was the law in Queensland, which had the best system in the country a few years back. But now, like so many other functions in the transport industry, the pen pushing bureaucrats who wouldn't know the first thing about the job have relaxed the standards to the point where any idiot can become a "pilot" these days. A lot of the pilots I come across wouldn't know their arse from their elbow, let alone the turning circle and clearance required for an oversize load.

From what I've seen in Vic the tail end escort vehicle can have 5 or 6 'civvies' between them and the load, never seen it much different.

Maybe it was a really big load or maybe it was a mate of mine who does that over there as a contractor (an angry ant) just trying to save fuel by drafting.

Can you elaborate please Chris, just interested?

thanks, DL

Does a Pilot vehicle have the authority to "direct traffic"? I would think they are there to warn other users of the oversize load and to warn the truck of potential obstacles, but cannot direct other road users as such. Do they have authority for example to make a driver cross an unbroken line?

Originally Posted by cjc_td5

Does a Pilot vehicle have the authority to "direct traffic"? I would think they are there to warn other users of the oversize load and to warn the truck of potential obstacles, but cannot direct other road users as such. Do they have authority for example to make a driver cross an unbroken line?

Yes - a WA accredited pilot does have the authority to direct traffic. In fact, they have the same authority as a Police Officer in this respect, and they work under the same constraints. The term "when it is safe to do so" features prominently in the descriptions of what a pilot is allowed to do - as it does in describing the authority of a Police Officer.

if youe seen the pilot vehicle and you know about the oversize load then they have done the minimum spec of their job.

what you did was not illegal especially if the oversize load was already past you, a very weak case is makeable if you pulled out in front of the oversized load but behind the lead pilot.

Originally Posted by BMKal

I am a WA Accredited Pilot. Had my own business providing pilot services, and also driving heavy vehicles / oversize loads for a few years a while back.

You have not broken any law. If there was sufficient room for you to be able to merge onto Roe Hwy behind an oversize load, but ahead of his following pilot, then the pilot was not doing his job properly.

One of the reasons why I got out of the game was due to the number of totally useless and incompetent dickheads becoming pilots in recent years - especially capital city based examples. It used to be accepted that before you could escort a heavy vehicle, you could actually drive one. In fact, this was the law in Queensland, which had the best system in the country a few years back. But now, like so many other functions in the transport industry, the pen pushing bureaucrats who wouldn't know the first thing about the job have relaxed the standards to the point where any idiot can become a "pilot" these days. A lot of the pilots I come across wouldn't know their arse from their elbow, let alone the turning circle and clearance required for an oversize load.

Brian, I used to haul Viccar Homes, pre built houses on their own chassis and small wheel tri-axle, I was driving through Gosford early one morning (still dark) when the escort cop and rear pilot allowed a Cyclist pass them and me on the inside.
The load was 60' long and 15' wide with about 20' overhang at the rear (one half of the house), the cyclist decided to undertake me as I was turning a 90 degree bend. The rear of the house batted and him and his bike about 20m. into a roadside park.
The rear cop escort stopped and booked the cyclist for overtaking on the nearside and disobeying signals from himself and the and the escort pilot, didn't even know about it till we had to pull off the road at daybreak, cyclist had some gravel rash and a thinner wallet, Regards Frank.

When travelling to Doomadgee (& from) I often come up behind Oversize loads with Pilots in front & at the rear,
Normally they call you up on the 2 way & let you know what to do, if they don't.
I call them up.
But when overtaking them you are between the pilots & the load & can spend sometime there, would be no different from merging between them. Would it?
Jonesfam