hugo

...bring in a law to stop lorry drivers overtaking each other on hills! It's driving me insane. My commute to work involves several protracted inclines and invariably some fcukwit truck driver decides to overtake another truck halfway up a mile long hill, taking about 3 hours to travel half way up its length and resulting in a half mile long tailback of irrate drivers. I lived in the states for a few years a while back and they had signs prohibiting trucks from doing this on hills. Am I just a grumpy old barsteward or what?

leonpoole

I'll agree with you on that. It drives me mad

druddle

In Holland they have signs preventing trucks using the outside lane of the 2-lane motorways between certain hours (morning and evening rush hours). I thought that was a good idea.

Dave

Chip

Yep

Chip

CrisPDuk

If it makes you feel any better, you must be, because when I complain about this same thing, I get accused of it too, so you're in good company mate

I have found in the past that slowing right down in front of the offending rolling roadblock goes a long way toward soothing your anger Especially if you can do it at the foot of the next hill

Whilst we're on the subject of banning, farmers in tractors should not be allwed on busy A roads during rush hour either

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It's a goverment initiative to get truckers to cause congestion. And thus, create a reason to increase taxation and introduce pay per mile tracking systems...or make you use public transport <spit> instead

Chip

Whilst were at it why not ban all cars from going over 70mph shall we.

Chip

Richard_P

Nah because then we couldn't overtake all the speeding truckers doing 70mph

hugo

This is what we need!

hedgehog

The problem the truck drivers have is that, for the most part, their vehicles are now all limited to 56mph but, by the nature of the limiters, some will do 56.5 while others only 55.5. They didn't ask for the limiters to be fitted and, in fact, deaths of truck drivers increased dramatically in the year after the limiters were fitted. I have a feeling that they actually doubled but can't find a reference for that right now.

So, truck drivers don't want this and struggle to make the best of it. Even more annoying is that the police are now being encouraged to enforce the 40mph limit for trucks on single carriageways. The green nutters and anti-car lot, who hold considerable sway in the current administration, had demanded that all single carriageway roads be limited to 40mph with all motorways limited to 55mph. It would be hugely unpopular for the administration to introduce such limits in an open and honest way. However, by enforcing these limits upon truck drivers they are, in effect, enforcing them upon all road users.

Once the administration get the ISA systems fitted to your car then you will be limited in exactly the same way as the truck drivers currently are and you will get to experience what they have to put up with, including an increase in the deaths of drivers.

If you really want to do something about it then join up to an organisation such as the ABD who exist to defend the motorist and to campaign for sensible road safety measures that are not driven by a secret political agenda to pacify some group of green and anti-car nutters. You can then join the truck drivers in fighting against these mad limits and the way they are enforced.

hugo

I take your point hedgehog, and largely agree. However given these irritating limits within which truck drivers operate it still doesn't make any sense for one truck to initiate an overtaking manoevre on an incline in the knowledge that it will take forever to complete and irritate the rest of the road users and create a potentially dangerous situation of temporary congestion behind.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Even in France, where the road-transport lobby is as strong as ours is, they have "No overtaking by lorries" signs on gradients.

Mind you, they also have crawler lanes on most long gradients, and that takes MONEY to build them Cue: our governemnt won't spend the money, they'd rather spend it bombing Iraq

In France they also have almost every town of any size, bypassed, with new ones being built all the time, and "No entry for heavy loads, except for deliveries" signs on every entry. We have neither

Take my own town: TWO motorway exits. Most of the traffic comes from the west. The main lorry destination is in the east. What do MOST (about 99.9% ) of lorries do? Come off at the W exit, rumble through town to get to the works. If they came off at the E exit, they'd do about 4 miles further, that's all, but miss out all of town.
Will the governemnt, or our local council MAKE them do it, like the French do? No chance

Lorries rule in the UK, except when they take on Tone's Crones.

Alcazar

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

I used to drive a lorry a couple of years back that was limited, if another lorry was overtaking me due to me maybe carrying more weight on a hill, i would simply let of the power for a couple of seconds and he would be past.

Why they have to keep their foot bang on the floor whislt being overtook i will never know.


Cookie

scoobynut555

Now come on people these are professional drivers we are all talking about - and due to that they do obviously own the roads.

hedgehog

I understand this completely as well. On the other hand you know how frustrating it can be in a car when you are behind someone who is travelling just a little bit slower than the speed you are nicely fixed at. I, certainly, just have to pass them even if my additional speed will mean that I will only actually make up a few minutes on the road over them.

Perhaps the truck drivers feel the same and it is also easier for them to sit with their foot right to the floor, brain in neutral and let the speed limiter drive the truck. So if you were driving a limited truck behind a slightly slower vehicle it is easy to understand why you might pass it as it makes life so much easier for you.

It was suggested by someone with experience of such things that the truck being overtaken could ease off. I have no direct experience driving trucks and so can't argue with his statement that he did this. However drivers that I have worked with have always said that you don't want to ease off on an incline as you lose speed that it can be difficult or impossible to make up again. I suppose, also, it comes down to the "foot to the floor" tactics that the limiters encourage.

There are a lot of complex factors here but there is no question that the speed limiters, which cause trucks to all travel at about the same speed and so to "bunch" up on our roads, have a lot to answer for. Or at least the people who introduced them do.

Chip

Yes HGV drivers are professional drivers and in the norm drive to a much higher standards than most car drivers.

If you lot spent a few hours sitting in a truck and watching what was going on around you you would see what I mean. Drivers are also trained to a much higher standard than car drivers as well.

Chip

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

I agree about letting off on a steep incline as you would drop too much speed off, but on a gentle incline and as someone previously mentioned some restricted vehicles can maybe squeeze 1/2 mph more than others, this would be the time to lift off a tad.

Trucker Ted

Gotta keep the momentum going, 460 brake and cruise control, ye can't beat it. The most annoying thing for us is coming up behind a car that has some idiot doing 55.9 mph cos hes read up on fuel consumption and the extra 1/2p he'll save every mile,he's cursing you for being right up his ar*e ,but when you go to pull out by him he starts to speed up, arghhh!!
99% of truck drivers know the score and are good, though the same can't be said for car drivers,and its down to poor driver training and tests that are too easy with not enough emphasis on roadcraft.

Apparition

CrisP : "Whilst we're on the subject of banning, farmers in tractors should not be allwed on busy A roads during rush hour either"
Dunno what sort of farmers you have round your way, but if the ones around here see a few vehicles building up behind them, they usually pull in and let us all pass. Very nice people !
Yve

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Dust carts blocking the whole road in RUSH HOUR, never known such a daft idea


That should be banned

Lum

what's that?

No driving your Nissan Micra so bloody slow on the motorways that all the speed-limited trucks are overtaking you?

I'll definately support that one!

Edit:
And those complaining about trucks should try driving for a living, whether that's as a field engineer or a van man or whatever. The extra couple of minutes gained from that 4 mile overtake, when multiplied by a 12 hour day can easilly make for a good hour or so saved, or an extra 60 miles covered. Anyone who's left 15 minutes late and as a result gotten stuck in rush hour should know where I'm coming from here.

I've not driven a truck, but I'm sure the conflicting nature of delivery times to make and tacograph regulations limiting the working day and stipulating when they must take a break may well mean that every minute can make a significant difference.

hugo

Fair enough. Just don't overtake on hills!

boomer

On the M42 between J10 and J11 Northbound (and on a long slight incline) they are going to try an "experiment" banning HGVs from lane 2 (during peak hours only i think).

Of course they could have avoided such measures if they had built the 42 as a three lane motorway for it's entire length, rather than 2 lanes which revert to an A-road (thus no hard shoulder). To twist the knife a bit more, they made sure that ALL bridges were dual-carriageway width only, so they won't be able to upgrade it

mb

Leslie

Most of the tractor drivers around here will do the same as Yve says and pull over as soon as they get a a chance.

Its really only a matter of thinking about someone else rather than just yourself really, maybe thats too old fashioned a view these days. That goes for truck and car drivers of course.

Les

poo2y

iTrader: (2)

Trucker Ted is bang on with what he says , I lose count of how many times I catch up with cars on m/ways doing 50 then when nearly passed them they speed up and either sit along side in your blind spot or pass on the inside then slow down again after youve pulled back in behind them !!!!!

Lum

Indeed, the worst vehicles to be stuck behind are horse boxes, closely followed by old men in Rovers and probably a certain old man in an MX5

mattvortex

One of my mates drives a HGV about 3 nights a week and he quite often pulls the fuse for the limiter- Went with him one night and he hit 75mph on a deserted slight decline with 20 tonnes of orange juice in the back! The lorry uses sh1tloads more fuel with limiter off though and there could be legal issues apparently!

Lum

Your mate will eventually get caught and done for that. Tell him to keep a blown fuse of the correct rating that he can pop into the limiter for that purpose instead.

mad_dr

Hope he pulled the fuse for the Tachograph scratcher too - otherwise it'll be very obvious that he's been a naughty boy when the tachographs are read.

mad_dr

Just seen this too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/c...re/4302688.stm