Is truck "elephant racing" against the law?

[heebeegeetee]

10 Pence Short said:

I used to live there and agree with him.

Also, if it "won't affect lorry drivers one bit", you have to ask, why are they overtaking in the first place? Relieving boredom? I don't believe relieving boredom is excuse enough to hold up drivers of smaller, faster vehicles for mile after mile.

Trucking is just a basic manual job fulfilling an essential, but ultimately mechanical process. It should be done expediently, but not at the expense of more important journeys with more pressing needs.

I would never be so naive or foolish to imagine my journey is any more important than the next man's.

I imagine that this attitude lies at the bottom of a lot of what is wrong out there on the roads, indeed if not in the whole of society.

I can't imagine that there that many more important journeys than moving the nations goods, tbh. Going to the shops, going to work, going to talk to somebody can all be done very expediently. None of these journeys need impede on a multi-billion pound logistic miracle.

[daz3210]

No journey is more important than mine!

But then the next bloke probably thinks the same.

[10 Pence Short]

The motorway network is usually full of guys making deals to give truck drivers somewhere to go from and to. Truck journeys are typically the result of business that's already been done- they're a symptom of business, not a cause.

Truckers are essential to getting a job done, absolutely. But overtaking another truck over a 3 miles distance and achieving another 1mph for a short period of time is going to make very little, if any difference to the successful delivery of the goods. With respect to the working time directives, mandatory breaks and the time issues created during loading, unloading, the actual driving element is the least effective measure to altering productivity of the job.

The evidence is in the fleets running to lower speed limits than mandatory to save fuel- it's calculated that losing 3 or 4 mph will provide greater savings in fuel without harming the timely delivery of goods.

So the question has to be asked- why do trucks need to block the lanes of dual carriageways and motorways to pass other ones doing 1 or 2 mph less?

[Getragdogleg]

I would like to see a law banning cars from overtaking, then the problem would go away completely and everyone would be doing the same speed as the slowest truck.

[R0G]

I think all decent reasonable truckers would say that overtaking because the one in front is a couple of MPH slower is in reality a waste of time and effort

The problem comes when the minority do this sort of thing because something that is that big stands out like a sore thumb and then other drivers form the opinion that ALL or MOST truckers do this sort of thing

How many times has anyone seen a crashed police car or one not indiicating etc and formed an overall opinion of police drivers......

[R0G]

One more thing that seems to have escaped this thread ....

Many 3.5 to 7.5s are now legally speed restricted to 56 or less so those 7.5 tonne overtaking limits are not going too make a huge difference

[jazzyjeff]

daz3210 said:

No journey is more important than mine!

And what do you do that's so important?

[daz3210]

jazzyjeff said:

daz3210 said:

No journey is more important than mine!

And what do you do that's so important?

Doesn't matter.

Just read what I put again, then you think of yourself the same.

In essence we all think our journey is more important, when in reality its not.

[jazzyjeff]

daz3210 said:

jazzyjeff said:

daz3210 said:

No journey is more important than mine!

And what do you do that's so important?

Doesn't matter.

Just read what I put again, then you think of yourself the same.

In essence we all think our journey is more important, when in reality its not.

I don't see my journeys as more important as anyone else's. I like to think I try and drive to make progress but not unnecessarily impede the progress of others. I'd also like to think all other road users have the same thought process (but I'm frequently disappointed).

[heebeegeetee]

10 Pence Short said:

Truckers are essential to getting a job done, absolutely. But overtaking another truck over a 3 miles distance and achieving another 1mph for a short period of time

I always think that most people posting on these threads are fundamentally wrong.

Your statement that a truck is going to be 1 mph quicker for a short time is fundamentally wrong. The speed of the faster truck is not going to change (assuming we're talking m'ways and dcs), and the faster truck is going to be 1 mph more than the slower truck all the time and at all times both are on the limiter

I've seen this mistake stated repeatedly on different threads and different forums.

[10 Pence Short]

heebeegeetee said:

I always think that most people posting on these threads are fundamentally wrong.

Your statement that a truck is going to be 1 mph quicker for a short time is fundamentally wrong. The speed of the faster truck is not going to change (assuming we're talking m'ways and dcs), and the faster truck is going to be 1 mph more than the slower truck all the time and at all times both are on the limiter

I've seen this mistake stated repeatedly on different threads and different forums.

And you're making the mistake that trucks are permanently on a limiter, and that attention span and topography have no bearing on the speed of one.

And yes, your problem is in your first sentence.

[heebeegeetee]

10 Pence Short said:

And you're making the mistake that trucks are permanently on a limiter, and that attention span and topography have no bearing on the speed of one.

And yes, your problem is in your first sentence.

I think everyone is on the limiter, and most are on cruise. If the speed limit is 60, and by having your foot on the floor you can do say, 55 mph, why would you modulate your speed between I dunno, 52-55 mph?

A truck on the m'way is going to get to it's maximum limited speed, and stay there. I don't think i've ever seen a truck increase it's speed by 1mph to overtake and then reduce by 1 mph afterwards.

But then again, what would I know, I only did the job for 30 years. I'm fully used to being told i'm wrong by people who have never sat in a truck in their lives.

[10 Pence Short]

I've never known a vehicle unaffected by such things as hills, for example. Some drivers will be willing to subvert the limiter in a variety of ways.

In any case, you're attempting to subvert the point being made- a 400 mile journey in a day, for example.

A truck managing a consistent 56mph instead of 55mph is going to gain 8 minutes. A car driver doing that same 400 miles at 70mph, would only need to be held up by trucks at 56mph for 10% of his journey to lose that same 8 minutes.

Hence the effect of truckers repeatedly blocking the road to gain that 8 minutes is amplified 10 fold on other drivers who really can make a difference by driving a faster pace.

[heebeegeetee]

10 Pence Short said:

I've never known a vehicle unaffected by such things as hills, for example. Some drivers will be willing to subvert the limiter in a variety of ways.

In any case, you're attempting to subvert the point being made- a 400 mile journey in a day, for example.

A truck managing a consistent 56mph instead of 55mph is going to gain 8 minutes. A car driver doing that same 400 miles at 70mph, would only need to be held up by trucks at 56mph for 10% of his journey to lose that same 8 minutes.

Hence the effect of truckers repeatedly blocking the road to gain that 8 minutes is amplified 10 fold on other drivers who really can make a difference by driving a faster pace.

I'm 53 years old. I like driving and drive a lot. Driving is my preferred choice of transport for going everywhere, including holidays. I'd sooner drive to the Dordogne than fly to Tenerife, for example.

I have never ever been late anywhere because of a truck, except perhaps maybe onw or two occasions in my life-time due to an accident, which may or may not have involved a truck, that happened in the SE in England and gave us a hard time catching a ferry.

My wife used to drive a lot to meetings. She was never ever late for one.

When I was a lorry owner driver, sometimes paying as much as £2,600pa in VED and £100 a day in fuel tax, I used to lose an hour out of each working day due to the number of cars on the road.

As an ordinary car driver, I'm not aware of trucks losing me more than a few minutes a year of my life; but then as I buy stuff, I'm putting those trucks on the road anyway.

[10 Pence Short]

'A' truck?

I know you're not stupid, so stop trying to convince me different.

[Panda76]

liner33 said:

There is a recent restriction on the A34 at Gore hill which is between Newbury and Oxford banning vehicles 7.5t and over from overtaking , unfortunately it is widely ignored by 99% of the hgv's. So now they are calling for a blanket 50mph limit

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/2012/old-news-articl...

This article again highlights how misinformed people are.The speed limit is 50mph anyway.Knee jerk article lacking research.

[heebeegeetee]

10 Pence Short said:

'A' truck?

All the trucks in the UK, or indeed Europe, have never made me (or my wife) late anywhere.

The only thing that ever costs me time anywhere is a) my own incompetence, and b) millions and millions and millions of cars.

[R0G]

10 Pence Short said:

In any case, you're attempting to subvert the point being made- a 400 mile journey in a day, for example.

A truck managing a consistent 56mph instead of 55mph is going to gain 8 minutes. A car driver doing that same 400 miles at 70mph, would only need to be held up by trucks at 56mph for 10% of his journey to lose that same 8 minutes.

Hence the effect of truckers repeatedly blocking the road to gain that 8 minutes is amplified 10 fold on other drivers who really can make a difference by driving a faster pace.

How many driving hours can a car driver do in a day?
How many driving hours can a lorry driver under EU regs do in a day?

I am not saying that the planners should arrange deliveries so tightly with legal hours that a driver is under pressure to get the job done in that time

There is also the point that a car driver has the POSSIBILITY on a motorway of gaining back some lost time perhaps by going slightly over the limit (not that I condone speeding but am being realistic) whereas the trucker cannot

Edited by R0G on Friday 24th February 13:44

[10 Pence Short]

heebeegeetee said:

All the trucks in the UK, or indeed Europe, have never made me (or my wife) late anywhere.

The only thing that ever costs me time anywhere is a) my own incompetence, and b) millions and millions and millions of cars.

I don't agree with you, on the basis that you fail to take into account the fact that the relationship between the delays caused by trucks on faster vehicles versus the opposite, is not an equal one.

I have already pointed out that a truck overtaking everything possible to garner a 1mph advantage over a whole day's driving, will save only 8 minutes over the whole day, whereas the car driver being held up by those truck drivers as they overtake, will lose 8 minutes by being so held up for only 10% of his journey.

The point being, that a smaller number of trucks causing cars to slow down, causes an inordinate delay into the road system. When you consider this behaviour, to require the extra 1mph, delivers only an 8 minute saving in 400 miles of driving, shows how pointless it really is.

Within reasonableness, trucks don't need to overtake other trucks to run to time, assuming they're all generally sat on the same limiters and are generally capable of doing so and, there is little benefit, if any, to the opposite position.

Your argument seems to revolve solely around "I was once a trucker, I'm in my 50s, and I'm right". No evidence, other than you're getting on a bit.

[10 Pence Short]

R0G said:

There is also the point that a car driver has the POSSIBILITY on a motorway of gaining back some lost time perhaps by going slightly over the limit (not that I condone speeding but am being realistic) whereas the trucker cannot

Absolutely. Car drivers can take advantage of making up reasonable time, but trucks who do not need to or cannot, are impeding those cars unnecessarily.