Things that annoy you beyond reason...(Vol 4)

[Ted2]

yellowjack said:

They have on some dual carriageways. Or at least they have done in the past. A14 Cambridgeshire was one place I seem to recall.

It didn't really work because the truckers soon learned that it wasn't well enforced so they just ignored it

It didn't really work because the problem isn't the trucks along that stretch, it's simply the volume of traffic. When the ban came into force and all the truckers behaved themselves and stayed in lane 1 like they were supposed to, did the traffic flow any better? Nope! What actually happened was that lane 1 with all the trucks in flowed fairly smoothly at a decent speed and lane 2 (you know, the one filled with all the car drivers complaining that truckers are the cause of all the problems?) ran at somewhere between a crawl and a standstill with everyone desperately trying to force their way into the nicely flowing lane 1 containing all the trucks.....

[Frank7]

phazed said:

silverthorn2151 said:

the HGV drivers on the A1 today. Whilst they were not breaking any rules the fking s were elephant racing like it was the fking elephant racing olympics.

any truck in the right hand lane of a dual carriageway should be destroyed by a ray gun from orbit.

s

I think this annoys the pants off just about everyone.

Why not just make it a rule that trucks can’t overtake on dual carriageways?

Obviously contributed by two people with zero idea of what it's like to hack a 38-40 ton artic around, no trucker overtakes another truck slowly just to get up your nose, it's often just a case of meeting a gentle up gradient while in the process of overtaking, and the truck on the inside having a slightly more powerful engine than the one overtaking.
Sure, the guy on the inside could ease off the gas for a few seconds, but if he doesn't, the guy overtaking gets the flak, and the numbskull driving the car thinks its a game they're both playing.
You'd probably also like to ban people who pay by cash in a supermarket, as they take 3-4 seconds longer than the person who pays by card.

[phazed]

Ted2 said:

It didn't really work because the problem isn't the trucks along that stretch, it's simply the volume of traffic. When the ban came into force and all the truckers behaved themselves and stayed in lane 1 like they were supposed to, did the traffic flow any better? Nope! What actually happened was that lane 1 with all the trucks in flowed fairly smoothly at a decent speed and lane 2 (you know, the one filled with all the car drivers complaining that truckers are the cause of all the problems?) ran at somewhere between a crawl and a standstill with everyone desperately trying to force their way into the nicely flowing lane 1 containing all the trucks.....

I agree in the rush hour but at other times it would work really well.

I had a contract in Canterbury a few years ago and travelling from Surrey involved several dual carriageways in that neck of the woods with trucks, (lorries) often overtaking and taking several miles to do so when there was hardly any traffic around. Hugely frustrating

[phazed]

[redacted]

[Europa1]

The piece on the PM programme last night on Non-Disclosure Agreements (in the context of Harvey Weinstein and similar). They're not NDAs, for fk's sake - they're settlement agreements, one clause of which concerns confidentiality. An NDA is something different.

[Ted2]

phazed said:

Ted2 said:

It didn't really work because the problem isn't the trucks along that stretch, it's simply the volume of traffic. When the ban came into force and all the truckers behaved themselves and stayed in lane 1 like they were supposed to, did the traffic flow any better? Nope! What actually happened was that lane 1 with all the trucks in flowed fairly smoothly at a decent speed and lane 2 (you know, the one filled with all the car drivers complaining that truckers are the cause of all the problems?) ran at somewhere between a crawl and a standstill with everyone desperately trying to force their way into the nicely flowing lane 1 containing all the trucks.....

I agree in the rush hour but at other times it would work really well.

I had a contract in Canterbury a few years ago and travelling from Surrey involved several dual carriageways in that neck of the woods with trucks, (lorries) often overtaking and taking several miles to do so when there was hardly any traffic around. Hugely frustrating

I completely agree, it is highly frustrating and I say that as both a car driver (who likes to do 85-90 if conditions allow) and a part-time trucker. I would also fully support outright banning any trucker that doesn't knock the CC off or otherwise reduce their speed a little to aid an overtaking trucker who clearly has a higher set speed limiter and will be making faster progress. There is absolutely nothing to gain by making it as difficult as possible for the overtaker - he's going faster than you anyway so just ease it off for 10 seconds and let him be on his way. Unfortunately the vast majority of truckers are complete and utter throbbers and come out with crap like "he shouldn't be overtaking if he hasn't got the legs to get past" or "if I eased off for every truck overtaking I'd run out of hours and Tesco would refuse my load of baked beans". It's a crock of st and any trucker heard uttering those words deserves a good slap imho.

[RizzoTheRat]

phazed said:

Let's be reasonable, there won't be miles of lorries in one continuous line. They are all more than powerful enough to keep to a constant 56 miles an hour with only a few that drop below this on the steepest of hills.
Being a regular of towing my car on a trailer on the back of my old Transit motorhome, I am used to travelling at 56 miles an hour behind these lorries and I am happy to do so.

Except they won't all be doing 56, dunno what the tolerance is on the speed limiters but I'd have thought it would be a couple of mph at least. So you end up with all the quicker ones catching up with the slowest and then a massive line of trucks doing 54mph nose to tail.

[V8mate]

RizzoTheRat said:

phazed said:

Let's be reasonable, there won't be miles of lorries in one continuous line. They are all more than powerful enough to keep to a constant 56 miles an hour with only a few that drop below this on the steepest of hills.
Being a regular of towing my car on a trailer on the back of my old Transit motorhome, I am used to travelling at 56 miles an hour behind these lorries and I am happy to do so.

Except they won't all be doing 56, dunno what the tolerance is on the speed limiters but I'd have thought it would be a couple of mph at least. So you end up with all the quicker ones catching up with the slowest and then a massive line of trucks doing 54mph nose to tail.

And then the ones traveling at 60mph trying to overtake them all

[MartG]

RizzoTheRat said:

phazed said:

Let's be reasonable, there won't be miles of lorries in one continuous line. They are all more than powerful enough to keep to a constant 56 miles an hour with only a few that drop below this on the steepest of hills.
Being a regular of towing my car on a trailer on the back of my old Transit motorhome, I am used to travelling at 56 miles an hour behind these lorries and I am happy to do so.

Except they won't all be doing 56, dunno what the tolerance is on the speed limiters but I'd have thought it would be a couple of mph at least. So you end up with all the quicker ones catching up with the slowest and then a massive line of trucks doing 54mph nose to tail.

Then you'd also get blockages in lane 2 as cars want to exit at a junction but can't as they can't get into lane 1 as the lorries are driving too close together

[V8mate]

[redacted]

[MartG]

[redacted]

[talksthetorque]

People who tar all lorry drivers with the same brush.

[DRFC1879]

Long lines of trucks all doing the same speed? I'm sure we all saw the recent news of trials in which a convoy of trucks could be controlled by one driver thanks to the miracles of modern technology. If only they could have their own road too so that none of the problems mentioned above occurred. Of course, such vehicles would be quite hard on the road surface so maybe putting them on some sort of specially designed metal rail would be better...

ETA: I'm not actually going to claim credit for that. My old man is a bit of a pompous smartarse at times but I couldn't fault him when he mooted this a couple of weeks ago.

[DRFC1879]

Yeah, but they'd get clogged up with selfish, lycra-clad middle-aged rowers in boats two abreast...

[AstonZagato]

yellowjack said:

phazed said:

I think this annoys the pants off just about everyone.

Why not just make it a rule that trucks can’t overtake on dual carriageways?

They have on some dual carriageways. Or at least they have done in the past. A14 Cambridgeshire was one place I seem to recall.

It didn't really work because the truckers soon learned that it wasn't well enforced so they just ignored it because "drivers hours", because "schedule to keep", because "limiter, innit" and because these oafs think that simply because they drive for a living it means they know better than the rest of us.

Or perhaps they were too busy frapping themselves into a lather watching internet porn, or buttering toast with both hands (yes, I've actually seen this happen on a continental motorway!) to notice the signs forbidding them from overtaking on sections of the DC.

Truckers? Worse than bloody cyclists! Not quite as bad as BMW/Audi drivers though...

They did it on the M11 for a period as an experiment, on the two lane (4 total) stretch from Stansted to Duxford. Traffic was definitely better in my experience but I didn't see any report of conclusions. That said, there were still the elephant racers, just fewer of them, so I'm not sure what conclusions one could draw.

Also, I hear this argument that the lorries would all bunch up and cars would not be able to rejoin L1 quite often. That was not the experience on the M11 trial, as far as I could see. L1 was the same mix of lorries in convoy, with the odd car/caravan and van. It didn't look any different and the gaps seemed the same. L2 just moved better.

[Europa1]

AstonZagato said:

They did it on the M11 for a period as an experiment, on the two lane (4 total) stretch from Stansted to Duxford. Traffic was definitely better in my experience but I didn't see any report of conclusions. That said, there were still the elephant racers, just fewer of them, so I'm not sure what conclusions one could draw.

Also, I hear this argument that the lorries would all bunch up and cars would not be able to rejoin L1 quite often. That was not the experience on the M11 trial, as far as I could see. L1 was the same mix of lorries in convoy, with the odd car/caravan and van. It didn't look any different and the gaps seemed the same. L2 just moved better.

There is still a stretch northbound near Duxford with the scheme in place.

What it, and the similar scheme they trialled on the A14, proves to my mind is that a lot of the time it is not a lorry overtaking another lorry that's the problem, it's the drooling inadequate in a car who thinks that anything over 55mph on a motorway is a reckless, dizzying speed that will result in a nosebleed or render them unconscious through lack of oxygen if they exceed it.

[V8mate]

AstonZagato said:

They did it on the M11 for a period as an experiment, on the two lane (4 total) stretch from Stansted to Duxford. Traffic was definitely better in my experience but I didn't see any report of conclusions. That said, there were still the elephant racers, just fewer of them, so I'm not sure what conclusions one could draw.

The few times I've been up there at the requisite times, every time I've seen a truck 'go for' the overtake about 100m before the first sign and manage to pull back in about 100m before the end of the zone.

[MartG]

Europa1 said:

What it, and the similar scheme they trialled on the A14, proves to my mind is that a lot of the time it is not a lorry overtaking another lorry that's the problem, it's the drooling inadequate in a car who thinks that anything over 55mph on a motorway is a reckless, dizzying speed that will result in a nosebleed or render them unconscious through lack of oxygen if they exceed it.

And invariably they insist on driving in what they refer to as the 'fast' lane

[mko9]

mko9 said:

That annoys me beyond reason. There is basically nothing ironic highlighted in that entire song.

Vocal Minority said:

The bit where the man is scared of flying, gets on a plane and it crashes...that is.

That is the only thing mind, - but 'isn't it a pain in the arse' didn't scan.

Sorry to derail the vent about the elephant races to flash back to this, but there is nothing ironic about dying in a plane crash if you are afraid of flying. That would be a well founded fear of flying. It would be ironic if the man with the fear of flying took the train instead, then died in some horrible train crash while the plane landed without incident.

[Frank7]

talksthetorque said:

People who tar all lorry drivers with the same brush.

Go to the top of the class.