Lorries to be banned from middle lane

[falcemob]

What happens when you have granny sitting in lane one at 45mph and a 30 mile queue of trucks behind?

[filmidget]

What about 4 lane sections? I assume HGV's would be allowed in lanes 1 AND 2?

Except in most of the 4 lane sections, lane 1 becomes the off-slip lane (usually having started as an extension of the on-slip)...

So no HGV is going to want to go into it for fear of being 'trapped'.

If this report is accurate, somebody at the HA is being very very silly .

Cheers, Phil

[IOLAIRE]

I will absolutely guarantee you that the idiot that came up with this has never driven a Class 1 with 44 ton on the back for hours on end behind utterly mindless car drivers in the middle lane doing 40MPH, who refuse to pull in to an empty inside lane to let you overtake them.
THAT is the lane discipline problem of the century.

[Mon Ami Mate]

All that this will achieve will be to essentially consign all private transport to two lanes only. Lane one will now become even more of an unofficial HGV-only lane than it already is. Lane two will be coach and numpty lane and the rest of us will be scrapping it out in lane three. As ever this is way too simplistic and clearly ill conceived.

[FourWheelDrift]

What about the M4 and it's outside lane "bus lane".

With Lorries filling the inside lane that would only leave the middle lane for all car traffic.

Can the general public by consitution or magna carta'esque law post a vote of no confidence in the current government, like the Queen can?

[JamieBeeston]

Imho.

If the overtake is committed, and the other lorry is obviously 'winning' the inside lane driver should concede defeat and throttle off for a second or two, manoeuvre completed in FAR less time.

[falcemob]

Obviously an MP has been inconvenienced by a truck at some time and has come up with another ill-conceived scheme.
What will happen is there will be the lane 1 is for trucks only and 2 and 3 will be for cars only mentality. There will be long queues in lane one which will lead to stationary traffic a certain points as we all know that as soon as traffic bunches you get a concertina affect. Then Mr car driver wants to leave the motorway or go into lane 1 for some reason and has to stop in lane 2 while a gap appears, hey presto lane 2 has a queue behind Mr I want to leave the motorway and hence more stationary traffic. This will escalate onto lane 3 and you then have a major hold up and even more accidents. This happens all day long on the M25 when a slip road becomes blocked and stationary traffic spills onto lane 1.

[Phil S]

I have thought about this myself years ago, I decided to only feasable way it could be done was during busy periods only (no point having it at night!) but then that would be even harder to enforce!

[SPRITERACER]

Perhaps the person who has come up with this does alot of night-time motorway driving and just wants to sleep while driving, there are already sections of the M4 between Bristol and Swindon where Lane 1 has such deep ruts developing that you can pretty much take your hands of the wheel, set the cruise control and let the car carry you along. If all heavy goods are restricted to the one lane then this will be the case on every motorway in the country!

As a worker in the freight industry i can see some slight problems with this bit of rule making! possibly the best solution is to follow France and Germany by making known busy days in the year "Non Driving" days for heavy goods, like bank holiday weekends, first weekend of summer hols etc.

[jeremyadamson]

I agree with you all about the ill-thought-out nature of this latest scheme. However, I would say that the French system (especially the no-lorries-on-Sundays rule) is a good one.

I'm actually surprised that more of the freight running on the roads during the day isn't transported over night. Surely it's miles better from the HGV driver's points of view for stress free, traffic free motoring. And the haulage company concerned is getting goods out to places in considerably less time, using less fuel and less wear on the vehicles.

The down side being unsociable hours for the drivers.....but I feel really sorry for these poor drivers that have to sit in traffic all day (rather than the hour a day that I do, which is maddening enough). Surely the haulage companies could organise things better with their clients?

[corozin]

falcemob said:

Obviously an MP has been inconvenienced by a truck at some time and has come up with another ill-conceived scheme.

Not at all. It takes an entire hierarchy of Transport Dept Officials to undertake all the brainstorms, reports, meetings, presentations, review commissions, select commmittees, approval committees and policy review & recommendation committees to get an idea as poor as this off the ground.

It's only your taxes after all...

[Fatboy]

Plotloss said:

Gazboy said: Get rid of those sodding limiters, and fit an overboost button, gives you an extra 200bhp for 10 seconds. Problem solved. Good call. I rather like the idea of a Volvo FL12 with nitrous

I've stood next to a few doing burnouts

Propane injection works almost as well for diesels...

[Mrs Miggins]

catretriever said:

john_p said: (as posted above, I can't see Mrs Miggins forcing her way onto the motorway between a chain of arctics forced to stay in lane 1) Hmmm perhaps we are all missing an unexpected and welcome side effect ? >> Edited by catretriever on Friday 3rd December 12:19

Excuse me ! I'll have you know, I'm a dab hand at carving up artics !!!!!

[philthy]

As a HGV driver I can tell you if they set the speed limiter at 65, and left the speed limit at 60 for motorways, we'd be in and out in a flash.
I hate holding people up. I usually back off if another heavy is trying to overtake, the exception being on the approach to a hill. Stupid law, stupidly enforced. Ever clock how fast an Irish truck overtakes?......do they leave a crowd of irritated motorists behind them?. They have the same legislation as us, they just choose to ignore it.
Phil

[LongQ]

jeremyadamson said:

I'm actually surprised that more of the freight running on the roads during the day isn't transported over night. Surely it's miles better from the HGV driver's points of view for stress free, traffic free motoring. And the haulage company concerned is getting goods out to places in considerably less time, using less fuel and less wear on the vehicles. The down side being unsociable hours for the drivers.....but I feel really sorry for these poor drivers that have to sit in traffic all day (rather than the hour a day that I do, which is maddening enough). Surely the haulage companies could organise things better with their clients?

As one who much prefers the relatively predictable journey times that can be achieved at night might i observe that there are already a HUGE number of trucks shuffling up and down motorways in all darkness hours. M1, for example, at 1 or 2 am can be as busy as it used to be at peak times 15 or so years ago.

If you have a few tens of thousand invested in a truck you want it to be earning. Same model as the airline industry. If it is sitting still it's burning money.

And I am sure the drivers want to maximise the few benefits available after the driving hours rules are enforced. If you know any ask them what they and their employers think about enforced stops and accomodation/Parking charges when they run out of hours 40 miles from home on a Friday night having been stuck in a post RTA queue for 9 hours after 10 days on the road.

But the worst case scenario is that the result might be more of them giving up tho motorways and travelling cross country. 40mph convoys everywhere all the time.

Come to think of it, maybe that is what is behind the idea ...

[cptsideways]

It works perfectly well in germany even when busy, so why not here. They then wont to need to bunch up so tightly either as there is no where to go.

I'm all for it & I'm an ex truck driver who's driven over there & think its a great system. As soon as you hit the Belgium border it all goes tits up again.

[bor]

The no overtaking rule is in force on the autobahn between Munich and Stutgart, at least in part. The ban is during daylight hours and is due to the hilly nature of the area and the limitations of a two lane road.

I have little sympathy for truck drivers. You have selfishly blocked motorways while they inch past each other. If they had some sympathy and co-operated with each other during the O/T, and the slower truck backed off for a couple of seconds, then it wouldn't be necessary to legislate against this type of driving.

It's your own fault.

[towman]

Blimey.. How did I miss this thread?
Unfortunately I did, and started another on SPL. Here is wot I rote.......

after failing to search correctly towman said:

You will of course be expecting me to try and discredit this idea, so I will (in a moment). On the face of it, it is an excellent way of speeding up the traffic flow in lanes 2&3. Good news for the car driver, or is it? Before putting a truckies slant on this, lets look at it from the point of view of cars. The Highways Agency are making a huge assumption - that cars will travel at or near the NSL and will observe correct lane discipline. I think that what will actually happen is that lane 2 will have the odd car happily bimbling along at 60-65mph, while lane 3 will have the usual train of cars at 80-90mph with barely a fag packet between them. Time will tell. From a truckies perspective........ Prior to the restriction. I believe that severe congestion will occur here as trucks merge into lane 1. We know that trucks travel fairly close together (too close I agree), so it will undoubtedly lead to trucks braking in lane one. Given the "caterpillar effect", the 2oth truck in the line will be reducing speed to a crawl. I seriously wonder if there will be enough space at rush hour given the amount of heavies on the road. In the restriction. Thuck speed will be limited by the slowest. Not all speed limiters are the same - they vary by up to 5mph. This is why we end up with elephant racing. I forsee large gaps in the convoy, with any number of trucks following the slowest. Inevitably, they will bunch up and be travelling far too close. Now consider the car driver blatting along in lane 3 who suddenly sees the junction he wants. He will have to negotiate a wall of trucks in order to leave the motorway. Many numpties are unable to match their speed and filter in. Most will see a gap, go for it and hit the brakes, slowing down the truck behind. Again considering the caterpillar action, somewhere back down the line, a truck will end up doing an emergency stop. Similar problems will occur for car drivers wishing to join the motorway. after the restriction. All the trucks which are capable of 58mph will pull out to overtake the slow one travelling at 53mph. We will then have one slow truck in lane 1, with a convoy virtually blocking lane 2. This has solved the problem in the restricted area, but just moved the elephant racing further up the road. I dont even want to think about the chaos which could be caused by a special types truck (wide or heay load} cruising up the motorway at 40mph. And what about Mr & Mrs numpty caravanner who crawl along at 50mph or less? I realise that many will disagree with the post, but that is how I see it. just another ill thought out idea in order to avoid constructing a workable infrastructure. And before anyone posts that this is how it`s done in Germany - I know. I have spent many frustrating hours crawling along in a convoy stuck behind some piece of crap east european truck. The system doesn`t work! Successive governments have screwed up this country`s transport system so much that almost all of the freight goes by road now. Given that truckies simply cannot drive a bit longer if they are held up, massive investment (not just in roads) is required to ensure that goods arrive at the right place at the right time, therefore ensuring that the country works eficiently and economically. "Quick fixes" such as the one proposed are simply not the answer. Now off to don my flameproof suit. Steve

>> Edited by towman on Saturday 4th December 14:37

[cortinaman]

towman,your spot on.

[dcb]

mcflurry said:

More capacity = easy GET NUMPTIES OUT OF MIDDLE LANE!!!

Couldn't agree more. There are plenty of roads for everyone, it's just that they are badly used.

The golden rule should be that if there is enough empty tarmac on your left for you to reach a complete stop, then you should be in it.

For a car, the UK Government says that distance is 100 meters.

So if there is 100 meters of empty tarmac on your left, you need to move into the left lane.

UK lane discipline is rubbish. Building more roads is pointless while they are so badly used.