Most bizarre one I had trying to join the A14 was 2 motorbikes, one following the other. I come down the sliproad accelerate to 70 matching the speed of the first motorbike at which point the second motorbike closes the gap and sits level with me,which meant that I had to slow to pull in behind him. Fair enough, that's what it was my responsibility to do. Only thing was there was absolutely nothing else on the road for a good way behind or in front so why couldn't the bike have moved over, surely given the standards of observation of most of the public it would have been safest for the bike and it wouldn't have inconvenienced either of us.

Lorries is one that I had not had issue with until this week. Again joining the A14 at the same sliproad two lorries in close formation with only 3 car lengths gap between, with a little application of the brake I was able to match speeds and pull in to the centre of the gap but this only left 1 car length either end not really ideal.

Unfortunately, this slip road is not the best in terms of advance visability, the vegetation, banked verge and angle of sliproad, mean that you don't have any visability of what's coming before the last third of the sliproad. I prefer to acceletate to 70 then adjust my speed to suit when the road is visable, which in my cars is easily doable. In a 1.0l Eurobox it must be nigh on impossible.

ok ta, not to worry, to far.

i think the thing is, with MOST of "us" truck drivers, is that we do view ourselves as proffesionals, (and i guess thats more true of the ones here on pistonheads)as we are mainly just car nuts aswell.
you have to remember we cover some serious mileage each year, piloting what could be, at the blink of an eye a very deadly weapon, so for those of us that take pride in our work, we are prone to bite, when prodded
think its been done to death on other threads already, the whole "truck driver" issue.
most of us can take abit of constructive criticism, but i think if its deemed to come across as yet another pop at truck drivers, then there will always be a reaction

i think what rattles a PROFFESIONAL truck drivers cage more than anything, is when said criticism appears to come from people who have never been near, looked in/around or even been up the road in a wagon. it really is so much different when you've experienced it 1st hand.

as rog pointed out earlier, if your going to have an opinion on something, its always handy to have half an idea of what your talking about first.

Careless, inconsiderate and dangerous driving do not require specialist knowledge to judge.

Luckily enough it's the opinion of a reasonable person that matters.

Obviously a reasonable person would expect the truck to be pulling over once a long queue had formed behind too

/canofwormsopen!

been done - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

And then we get the blind spot collisions for which truckers are usually blamed

My experience of driving in Europe is that entry lanes onto motorways are MUCH shorter than in the UK, this makes it very difficult to get up to a speed where one can filter in without the risk of running out of road. Hence the slower approach and wait for a gap. Many are also only 2 lanes making a lane change to facilitate entry much harder.

Longer slip roads in the uk provide the opportunity to get up to the speed of lane 1 traffic and filter in. As most are also 3 lane roads a lateral lane change to allow room is also much easier to carry out.

tis true mate.
i hate it when cars dive in front of me, and brake hard last minute, just to make an exit slip. if i'm fully freighted at 44 tonne, you can't really start throwing it around.
i hope you are well mate.

The main problem is at least half the motorists, if not more, aren't doing anything like motorway speed when they are trying to join, and that causes a slack handful of problems, before you even get to the people not pulling out (if they can) to let you on etc etc,
I've seen a woman in a micro stopped at the bottom of a motorway slip road, she was trying to join it painful slowly (looked so slow, so maybe circa 35mph) - slightly dangerous!
What happened to being thanked for letting people out aswell. I'm not arrogant, but if I have made an effort to go out of my way to help you, a wave would be nice!

Yes, it's courteous to move into lane 2, if possible, to allow a driver to join. Unfortunately, a large number of drivers joining a motorway feel it's their right to join, and simply barge their way in. The Highway Code states that a driver without right of way can join only if they don't cause the driver with right of way to change speed or direction because of their actions...but that's because we've been conditioning ourselves by going from courtesy to accepted practice over the years.

Because of the this conditioning, you often see the driver with the right of way slowing down excessively to allow the joiner to join. I've had people actually stop to let me in - absolutely crazy when cars around are doing 70+. You now have a situation where the true legal priority is reversed, and situations arise where nobody really knows what's going on and who's yielding to who. Worse, because the guy on the motorway has slowed down/hit his brakes, the traffic behind him also slows down...you get queues, and the dreaded "Queue At Next Junction 40mph" advisory signs - which end up as a self-fulfiling prophecy.

So please, stick with your right of way, misplaced courtesy like this is having a real negative impact on congestion (and safety). At best, yield by moving to L2, but please don't slow down on the motorway to let someone on! It should be a basic skill for the joiner to adjust your speed on a sliproad and fit in with the next available gap seamlessly!