u/aaaron64

i passed my test in January, have gotten over the new driver anxiety, and am very comfortable with my route to and from work.

So I’m driving home from work. One of the sections is a tight, narrow, two way road. This is in London so it’s not out of the norm, but on this occasion a 7.5 tonne lorry comes from the other direction. I see them come so I stop, but i’m already too far forward. When I look back, a van has stopped behind me, and a car behind him.

The lorry comes upto me and flashes a bunch. I reverse back as much as I can up to the vans bonnet behind me, and I see the car behind them also reverse back.

The driver and passenger in the lorry are signalling something with their hands, which I assume to be to the lorry to move back. After 30ish seconds, the van reverses, and I reverse back too. What I don’t realise, is there is a bend behind me, and because I reverse in a straight line I end up hitting the kerb which has a bollard on preventing me from moving further back. I didn’t hit it, but I need to move forward to readjust.

As I reversed back, the lorry has gone as far forward as possible, and has ended up infront of my bumper. So now I can’t move forward, and I can’t move back. My only option is to mount the kerb to my left (not a small one, those sharp 90 degree ones), as the lorry is to the right of me. I do it slowly because I drive a mini which is already low to the ground.

This creates enough space for the lorry to get past, but before they do, one of them throws a huge bunch of empty McDonalds cardboard at my car, and I realise they blame ME for the manoeuvre.

I’ve looked at their view on Google Maps and they passed 3x no entry signs for 7.5t lorry’s.

Did I do anything wrong? Can provide the dashcam if need be but except for misjudging the reversing, I don’t see how they could have expected me to mount the kerb (which is illegal in london), and feel like they made the situation worse by not waiting the extra 5 seconds for me to readjust and reverse back

I passed my test in January and got a mini soon after. Every time it rains, water fully beads up on the windows and side mirrors meaning I can’t see anything if a car is behind, or if it’s bright out, due to light reflection

I’ve tried Glaco and RainX but with London’s almost city wide 20 speed limit, I don’t think i’m going fast enough for the water to roll off. As a result, I can barely see anything to the sides of the car and I’m always scared i’m going to hit a bike or motorbike not seeing them.

Does anyone know if this is normal? Or if there’s a way around this? I have tried lowering the windows to see but yesterday was basically storm conditions so I was getting drenched, not really a long term solution