The joys and fears of caravaning

Told to me by a Dutchman in the South of France:

We were on route to Perpignan from our last stop at Nevers tootling along listening to Elvis on the CD in our nice Mercedes and nearly new Caravan fitted with all the gadgets one could buy including ATC for added safety.  We were at the first long climb South of Claremont Ferrand, the traffic was quite heavy with HGVs.  We left them behind up the accent, then, upon reaching the top, we started to descend – turn up the Elvis.  As we were approaching one of the first viaducts where the Catabolic and Adiabatic winds blow across, there are signs for caravans to slow to 30/40mph. By now the trucks were approaching quite fast (58 ft x 44 tonne artics). Turn down the Elvis and watch as the first of the trucks bow wave hit the van, it pushed us on to the hard shoulder then sucked us back quite hard. Normally and at this speed I could easily cope with this but on this occasion the ADC kicked in to slow us down even more.  The trucks behind were coming very fast behind and sounding their horns loud – very scary.  Suddenly they were upon us on both sides waving angrily and swerving all over the place.  At the next Aire service area we all pulled off to recover.  The drivers told us we had a very lucky escape from even a tragic event.  They have exhaust brakes and retarders to slow them down on steep hills to keep the main brakes cool, but it was a hot day and very busy they have to still use their main brakes, their sensors were warning of overheating and in danger of fade so when we slowed down without warning they could not stop and could only swerve to the sides – thankfully there were no obstructions on the hard shoulder.  ADC for sale – anyone?

 So 8 lives left turn up the Elvis.