Discussion
towman said:
Seesure said:
My worst experience of elephant racing was 11 miles behind two trucks up the A42 from Birmingham up to Nottingham. Neither had the brain power to look in their mirrors to see what mayhem was behind...
I`ve answered this one before, but can`t be arsed with the maths this time.
11 miles @ 56mph = about 11.5 minutes
11 miles @ 70mph = about 10 minutes
What did you intend to do with the whole 1.5 minutes you lost?
Hi Steve,
The problem in my view is the congestion caused due to the fact that there's two lanes of traffic forced to do virtually the same speed over a long distance.
It's a recipe for disaster - all you need is one driver (any vehicle) in the queue behind to not check blind spot before moving, have puncture, swerve whilst changing the CD, lighting a fag, picking his nose or whatever, and we have a recipe for a pile up.
Bunches of traffic aren't safe whether this is due to speed limited HGVs or over zealous speed limit enforcement.
At the end of the day I still blame the governors for this, but the drivers too must use common sense and take some responsibility for not doing this.
After all how much quicker does < 0.1mph get you there then the other bloke? I wouldn't dream of overtaking like this in a car!
Best Wishes,
Tim.
>> Edited by timtonal on Wednesday 7th September 06:22
towman said:
I`ve answered this one before, but can`t be arsed with the maths this time.
11 miles @ 56mph = about 11.5 minutes
11 miles @ 70mph = about 10 minutes
What did you intend to do with the whole 1.5 minutes you lost?
Putting it another way, if I normally cruise at 95mph, I'd have spent those 10 minutes getting nearly 4 miles further on my journey with better visibility in greater safety and breathing in fresher air.
This 40mph limit though. You know as well as I do that you could push that a little -- even 50mph would make those single carriageway stretches far less arduous and you'd not get a ticket in a million years. I firmly believe lorry drivers (especially bloody Tesco ones, for some reason) stick to their 40mph deliberately to make sure they get the biggest line of cars they can. And I'd really like to know how many frustration related accidents are catalysed by slowsters like this holding up miles of cars.
SM
I've noticed that with Tesco's wagons. Probably a directive from on high - not the driver's fault. The Tacho will show the speed, also vehicle tracking solutions are being deployed across fleets that show vehicle progress, speed, postion, telematics, etc., so east for this to be enforced and drivers bought to account, etc. I don't know if this is the case with Tesco's but the company I worked for with my old job are getting into this in a big way.
www.microlise.com/microlise_mfd_overview.html
Also there are alarming signs that the HGV40 is being enforced more rigidly these days.
>> Edited by timtonal on Thursday 8th September 09:03
www.microlise.com/microlise_mfd_overview.html
Also there are alarming signs that the HGV40 is being enforced more rigidly these days.
>> Edited by timtonal on Thursday 8th September 09:03
mojocvh said:
I always give a short flash of MB when approaching the offside of a HGV (after making sure there is no OBVIOUS reason for hgv driver to misinterprit the signal) Mojo
From my POV it would be too easily misinterpreted. For example, can you be absolutely sure that he is not right up the chuff of a car which you cannot see? I am an advocate of running with headlights on when using a busy motorway - it`s the law in Italy and works well (I was there last week).
timtonal said:
At the end of the day I still blame the governors for this, but the drivers too must use common sense and take some responsibility for not doing this.
After all how much quicker does < 0.1mph get you there then the other bloke? I wouldn't dream of overtaking like this in a car!
Tim.
Agreed that there is very little point, however it is human nature to "press on". Would you like to stare at the back of the same truck for mile after mile?Unfortunately the problem will never go away, so the best solution if you are stuck in a situation like this is not to sit alonside a truck - keep a few feet off his back doors just in case something happens.
timtonal said:
I've noticed that with Tesco's wagons. Probably a directive from on high - not the driver's fault. The Tacho will show the speed, also vehicle tracking solutions are being deployed across fleets that show vehicle progress, speed, postion, telematics, etc.,
Most big companies now have tracking systems. Tecso, Snaisburys et al. HGV40 is the bane of our lives - I work for one firm which is about 30 miles from the nearest dual carriageway and if your tacho shows over 40mph in the first/last hour you are in the brown stuff. It`s not our fault - we are just driving within the law. Incidently, have you noticed that most supermarket wagons cruise the motorway at 50mph not 56? These are the real sources of congestion. It`s caused by the drivers being salaried and knowing that if they get back to base too soon thay will be given another delivery to do.
supermono said:
This 40mph limit though. You know as well as I do that you could push that a little -- even 50mph would make those single carriageway stretches far less arduous and you'd not get a ticket in a million years. I firmly believe lorry drivers (especially bloody Tesco ones, for some reason) stick to their 40mph deliberately to make sure they get the biggest line of cars they can.SM
Sorry SM, but tickets ARE issued if HGV40 is contravened. Some scameras are aimed high just to catch the heavies. As for Tecso (and others), see the above post - they are satellite tracked.
In answer to the question about the 1.5 mins - its more than that obviously, 'cos the one truck isn't faster over 11 miles, its faster over its whole journey which could be a couple of hundred miles. But what diference does 1.5 mins make? About £45 on average, if I beat one of my oppo's back to the quarry.
Like the man said. Speed Matters.
Like the man said. Speed Matters.
One of the (IME) most frightening situations with truck drivers happened to me tonight.
Joining the M6 from the M56, I got to the end of the slip road, there's not all that much distance to assess traffic, adjust speed etc before you must merge with the main motorway.
I met with a 3-lane wide elephant race, with the trucks in lane 1 barely a car length apart.
So, I have no choice whatsoever but to merge into the space between these two trucks. If the front one brakes or the rear one decides to be a c*nt, I'm squashed.
There's no option to over-shoot the end of the sliproad & use the hard shoulder to merge between these trucks, as another sliproad joins from the left in about 100 yds. There's no option to brake and merge behind the second truck as there's yet another truck behind this one and the gap is even smaller. No option to slip between them straight into lane 2 as there's a truck in lane 2 in-line with the gap between these two. I have to deliberately put myself into a boxed-in position between 3 trucks, with no immediate escape route.
While I understand about not wanting to lose momentum and how it's human nature to want to "press on" I do think it's irresponsible to knowingly close up all the gaps in lane 1 like this when you know there's a major traffic stream about to join from the left. What's the benefit? You had to slow to the same speed as the truck in front anyway - why not do it 0.1 seconds earlier and leave a safe space for merging traffic?
Joining the M6 from the M56, I got to the end of the slip road, there's not all that much distance to assess traffic, adjust speed etc before you must merge with the main motorway.
I met with a 3-lane wide elephant race, with the trucks in lane 1 barely a car length apart.
So, I have no choice whatsoever but to merge into the space between these two trucks. If the front one brakes or the rear one decides to be a c*nt, I'm squashed.
There's no option to over-shoot the end of the sliproad & use the hard shoulder to merge between these trucks, as another sliproad joins from the left in about 100 yds. There's no option to brake and merge behind the second truck as there's yet another truck behind this one and the gap is even smaller. No option to slip between them straight into lane 2 as there's a truck in lane 2 in-line with the gap between these two. I have to deliberately put myself into a boxed-in position between 3 trucks, with no immediate escape route.
While I understand about not wanting to lose momentum and how it's human nature to want to "press on" I do think it's irresponsible to knowingly close up all the gaps in lane 1 like this when you know there's a major traffic stream about to join from the left. What's the benefit? You had to slow to the same speed as the truck in front anyway - why not do it 0.1 seconds earlier and leave a safe space for merging traffic?
towman said:
The point was aimed more at the car jockeys who complain about being held up for 7 billion years by a slow moving truck!
OK, I'll bite and give you the GCSE maths lesson.
Truck maxed at 56 mph probably average about 45 - 50 mph.
In my car, I average, according to the fuel computer, anything from 75 to 80 mph. I'll let you guess how much I set the cruise at.
300 mile drive at average 50 mph and no stops takes six hours. Add in a fifteen minute wee break every two hours, and that's nearly seven hours.
Same distance in my car takes about 3.75 hours without breaks, or four hours with breaks.
I've got no problem with trucks doing 56 mph, *provided* they stay in lane 1.
If they move into lane 2, they muck it up for *everyone* else, since they are the slowest traffic. As the sums above indicate, on a long run of 300 miles, up to three hours per car could be lost.
Germany has the best solution - at weekends, trucks are only allowed to use lane 1.
Works in a fast moving nation of eighty million folks in the centre of Europe - why wouldn't it work here ?
towman said:
A high proportion of Autobahns are only 2 lane.
Quite true. However, lane discipline is strict and the German Government has an extensive policy of building new autobahns and improving old autobahns, most unlike UK Gov, which appears to hate the things.
German Gov also says sensible things like "All towns greater than size X will have an autobahn within Y km by year Z". And they just get on and build them.
towman said:
And you still get queues behind slow overtakers.
I'd be hard pushed to deny this one. Sure slow overtakers do slow traffic.
Mind you, slow overtakers can be a relative term. I know I've slowed traffic down when I've pulled out to overtake at 110 mph before now.
From your reply, am I correct in assuming that you have conceded my point that the slowest moving vehicles on the road [ i.e. lorries ] do significantly slow traffic when they move out of lane 1 ?
Ok...i have digested most of whats been said on here and from my experience of doing 22k motorway miles a year ,the majority of British H.G.V drivers still up hold reasonable standards,....BUT However....the new breed of imports ie Polish Czech etc seem to work to different rules as witnessed on the M20 over the recent months. I have lost count of the times when they have given me the "one " second warning before before nearly sending someone into oblivion.
These drivers are abusing the system that our HGV guys have to work to...........Is that a fair assumption ?
Rant over
But waht about tipper lorries ???? now they really dont give a Sh*T
These drivers are abusing the system that our HGV guys have to work to...........Is that a fair assumption ?
Rant over
But waht about tipper lorries ???? now they really dont give a Sh*T
miles to pass the same lorry. 
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