This went into the problem of foreign drivers staying out on the roads for too long and not taking their compulsory rest breaks and lorries not being roadworthy.

I want to go into another subject that was touched on; the blind spot caused by the vehicle being left-hand drive.

Many of you will have seen stickers on the back of a lorry or truck saying: "If you can't see me in my mirrors I can't see you."

This can obviously be a problem with domestic lorries as well, or any large vehicle where the driver either has no rear window or can't see through it. As you drive up alongside a large vehicle, you will lose sight of the driver in his door mirror. Therefore he also loses sight of you.

So the longer it takes you to get past him, the greater the danger is of being 'sideswiped'. This is where the lorry, or even a bus, moves over to the right (where you are) to pull away from the side of the road or to change lanes on a dual carriageway or when turning right.

With our righthand drive vehicles this can be a problem but at least the driver can look out of his door window to see you. Foreign lorries have the driver sitting on the left and so it is much harder for them to see anyone coming up alongside. If you do find yourself in this position, either get past as quickly as possible (without breaking the speed limit) or hold back until it is safe to get past.

What you do not want to happen is for you to be driving for any great distance alongside or slightly behind the driver's cab.

There are, of course, other dangers that larger vehicles present. When negotiating a roundabout or turning right, the larger vehicle will need to cut the corner to safely get round, due to its size.

When turning left, they will need to swing wide and even need to approach the turn in the right hand lane to avoid driving up the pavement as they go round the corner.

It is because larger vehicles need more space to turn that you often see traffic lights where vehicles waiting to turn right will have their stop line further back than the vehicles turning left or going ahead.

If the traffic waiting to turn right was closer to the junction, any large vehicle would not be able to turn left into that road. A good example of this is at the Dale Street traffic lights next to the fire station.

So if you see a lorry in the righthand lane with the left indicator on, don't try to drive alongside it unless you want to be squashed!

The turning circle of larger vehicles is much greater than it is for a car and so you must respect this and give them more space.

We have all been in the situation where a lorry or bus has pulled out or across us, apparently without seeing us but whose fault is it? It may be the other driver who did not look properly, but it could also that you did not think about the possibility of being in the blind spot where the driver cannot see you, however hard they try.