Your opinion on extreme lorry "overtaking"
Discussion
Pothole said:
J1990 said:
car user said:
Any vehicle limited to 60 shouldn't be allowed outside of the first lane IMO. Should have the same rules regarding overtaking over solid whites so you avoid the obvious pitfalls of HGVs getting stuck behind extremely slow vehicles but otherwise let them sit and wait.
It's not a big problem on most roads but certain ones are terrible for it. The A14 is just miserable.
Perhaps a slightly better approach would be that any vehicle limite dto 60 shouldn't be allowed to overtake unless the vehicle is going <50 - 10mph, allows overtaking to happen but restricts those that seem to do it when they're doing 0.5mph more than the truck ahead.It's not a big problem on most roads but certain ones are terrible for it. The A14 is just miserable.
andburg said:
J1990 said:
Perhaps a slightly better approach would be that any vehicle limited to 60 shouldn't be allowed to overtake unless the vehicle is going <50 - 10mph, allows overtaking to happen but restricts those that seem to do it when they're doing 0.5mph more than the truck ahead.
problem with this type of approach is you don't know how fast the vehicle being overtaken is going unless you slow down and match it's speed. Do you think the following truck will slow down and match speed to see if they are 10mph faster? If they do, how far do they have to drop back to then being doing 60 when they actually pull out to go past?thing is the 10 on solid whites doesn't specify a minimum overtaking speed but because its so low the distance covered during the overtake is minimal, even if the overtaking vehicle is only 1mph faster.
the same overtake and speed differential at 50mph vs 10mph will obviously take 5 times as long
I dont know the figures but broadly speaking accelerating from 10mph to 20mph will be done much faster than 50mph to 60mph.
Lets face it who has ever heard of somebody being prosecuted for overtaking a cyclist doing 11mph by crossing a solid white line? It just doesn't happen.
the same overtake and speed differential at 50mph vs 10mph will obviously take 5 times as long
I dont know the figures but broadly speaking accelerating from 10mph to 20mph will be done much faster than 50mph to 60mph.
Lets face it who has ever heard of somebody being prosecuted for overtaking a cyclist doing 11mph by crossing a solid white line? It just doesn't happen.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
So the worst you was ever held up on one of the worst roads in Essex for this was 5 minutes? I spent 5 minutes following a couple of horse riders down a lane earlier because they felt there was no safe place for them to let me past. They gave me a wave and smile and I gave them a thumb up and crawled past because f
k it, it's only 5 minutes out of my day and I'll spend more than that trying to get through some stty roadworks at some point today.I'm regularly held up by caravans, wide loads, tractors, nobs in cars sitting next to eachother doing 48 mph for miles in a 50, all sorts of s
t every day without fail. I share the road with millions of other vehicles, I don't expect to be able to drive from one point to another on the speed limit everywhere unless everyone else is in bed.My opinion here is that unless you have driven a truck, you ae going to struggle to appreciate their dilemma at dealing with lots of things, awful joins, slip roads etc etc.
They do not help themselves with the "I am going .1 of a mph faster than you so will pull out and take 2 miles to overtake" But I have no issue with trucks behaving as other road users do, if you are intimidated by it, you really should not be out there.
there are far more intimidating people out there, mainly sitting in middle lanes for hours on end overtaking nothing, forcing people into dangerous manouvers routinely.
They do not help themselves with the "I am going .1 of a mph faster than you so will pull out and take 2 miles to overtake" But I have no issue with trucks behaving as other road users do, if you are intimidated by it, you really should not be out there.
there are far more intimidating people out there, mainly sitting in middle lanes for hours on end overtaking nothing, forcing people into dangerous manouvers routinely.
It is quite rare that I encounter inconsiderate HGV drivers. I get held up far more often by car drivers who think L1 is made of lava.
But... The difference is that when lorries hold you up through elephant racing, it often feels like a long time/distance before you can get on with your journey.
I think it was the A34 between the M4 and Oxford where I used to see the worst of it. Hilly terrain, two lanes, busy trunk road. It's been a few years but I'm sure I've been stuck for over 10miles before. I do recall one time I got annoyed by it enough that both drivers got the horn and the coffee beans when one eventually won their race.
Yes over 10 miles it is only 3.5 minutes difference in journey time between 50 and 70mph but they have saved themselves much less time than that wasted for all the other people they've held up.
But... The difference is that when lorries hold you up through elephant racing, it often feels like a long time/distance before you can get on with your journey.
I think it was the A34 between the M4 and Oxford where I used to see the worst of it. Hilly terrain, two lanes, busy trunk road. It's been a few years but I'm sure I've been stuck for over 10miles before. I do recall one time I got annoyed by it enough that both drivers got the horn and the coffee beans when one eventually won their race.
Yes over 10 miles it is only 3.5 minutes difference in journey time between 50 and 70mph but they have saved themselves much less time than that wasted for all the other people they've held up.
Reckon I've only ever encountered one deliberately and unpleasantly arsey heavy driver, dangerous too. Not elephant racing so it's a bit off topic, but heavy was in lane 1 on A14 near Kettering. Was about to overtake him when it seemed he spotted a vehicle coming up an on slip that was unsighted to me, so he just jammed it into lane 2 directly in front. Another second later and he'd have wiped me into the barriers. Close run thing.
No horn or flash of lights from me, just anchored up and dropped well back. Just to rub it in, when he'd pulled back to lane 1, as I went past he leant out of the open window with firmly raised digits. Thought about reporting him, but cba, if dashcam footage available would probably have sent it in though.
Valuable lesson learnt, avoid overtaking into a space with nowhere to go when approaching and passing slip roads.
No horn or flash of lights from me, just anchored up and dropped well back. Just to rub it in, when he'd pulled back to lane 1, as I went past he leant out of the open window with firmly raised digits. Thought about reporting him, but cba, if dashcam footage available would probably have sent it in though.
Valuable lesson learnt, avoid overtaking into a space with nowhere to go when approaching and passing slip roads.
FiF said:
No horn or flash of lights from me, just anchored up and dropped well back. Just to rub it in, when he'd pulled back to lane 1, as I went past he leant out of the open window with firmly raised digits. Thought about reporting him, but cba, if dashcam footage available would probably have sent it in though.
It's something to consider when someone's driving makes you think "what an absolute 24-carat " rather than "aha, he made an error of judgement" or "looks like he's been having a tough day". To put it into perspective, the times I've "grassed" on a few commercial drivers to their companies are where it wouldn't just be me and a few others thinking "what a knob". One where some dick was holding up an ambulance on blue lights and sirens that was clearly in a serious hurry (approached at 90ish, everyone moved over apart from a special little princess in his company Sprinter who was hogging L2 of a two-lane even when people were making room and flashing him in). Then there was the pair of throbbers in artics on the M25 who, after a serious fatal had us stopped for hours and we were eventually being funnelled off the road, decided they were better qualified to decide how traffic should flow off the motorway than the HA people who were guiding the merging of multiple lanes a mile or so up the road. So, they created their own rolling (and stopping) road block.
donk
This seriously annoys me too, when you get usually truck drivers and also other users who try and straddle lanes for hundreds of yards before a merge to try and become the filter.
OK, some people are arses and drive far too quickly up to the outside merges, but if you do it reasonably without being aggressive or pushy as I try to, I have never encountered anyone who does not let you in, and if they don't, just know that for the past few hundreds yards you did what was allowed, did nothing wrong and merely used the maximum road space for you to prevent backlog, if people don't like it, more fool them.
But it does get silly when people decide to become the filter 500 yards from the merge when everyone is only doing a few mph in one lane and the outside is completely free, there are two lanes for a reason, to make the traffic backlog as less as possible sensible driving and filtering is not hard, but people get so protective that once they have made their choice, everyone else should too, it's pathetic.
This seriously annoys me too, when you get usually truck drivers and also other users who try and straddle lanes for hundreds of yards before a merge to try and become the filter.
OK, some people are arses and drive far too quickly up to the outside merges, but if you do it reasonably without being aggressive or pushy as I try to, I have never encountered anyone who does not let you in, and if they don't, just know that for the past few hundreds yards you did what was allowed, did nothing wrong and merely used the maximum road space for you to prevent backlog, if people don't like it, more fool them.
But it does get silly when people decide to become the filter 500 yards from the merge when everyone is only doing a few mph in one lane and the outside is completely free, there are two lanes for a reason, to make the traffic backlog as less as possible sensible driving and filtering is not hard, but people get so protective that once they have made their choice, everyone else should too, it's pathetic.
MKnight702 said:
I take it you rarely used the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon (before the upgrade, I don't use it now so I don't know if it has improved, but I doubt it). I used to commute up and down this road and it was a rare day that I didn't get stuck behind an elephant race for at least one mile.
My maths makes it that for each mile you are stuck in such a situation is about 15 seconds on your journey...The one thing I really haven't missed over the last 12 month is the attitude of some HGV drivers on the A1 I drove it every week from Wetherby to WGC and back and some of the antics were at best selfish and lazy and at worst down right dangerous driving.
The elephant racing was a constant thing many of these drivers really couldn't give a toss about other roads users, but the goods need to be moved around and it's essential that they are so it is what is.
I suspect that to a greater degree, the poor behaviour witnessed is the result of the endless st that they have to deal with from car drivers. Even the Dalai Lama would pull out to overtake irrespective of whether approaching vehicles would have to slow down, after a day of the selfish stupidity that he would encounter.
t that they have to deal with from car drivers. Even the Dalai Lama would pull out to overtake irrespective of whether approaching vehicles would have to slow down, after a day of the selfish stupidity that he would encounter. 
Wills2 said:
The one thing I really haven't missed over the last 12 month is the attitude of some HGV drivers on the A1 I drove it every week from Wetherby to WGC and back and some of the antics were at best selfish and lazy and at worst down right dangerous driving.
Exactly. They are a law unto themselves.944 Man said:
I suspect that to a greater degree, the poor behaviour witnessed is the result of the endless st that they have to deal with from car drivers. Even the Dalai Lama would pull out to overtake irrespective of whether approaching vehicles would have to slow down, after a day of the selfish stupidity that he would encounter.
Threads like this always end up with car drivers getting the blame for the way that lorry drivers interact with each other. t that they have to deal with from car drivers. Even the Dalai Lama would pull out to overtake irrespective of whether approaching vehicles would have to slow down, after a day of the selfish stupidity that he would encounter. 
LukeBrown66 said:
My opinion here is that unless you have driven a truck, you ae going to struggle to appreciate their dilemma at dealing with lots of things, awful joins, slip roads etc etc.
They do not help themselves with the "I am going .1 of a mph faster than you so will pull out and take 2 miles to overtake" But I have no issue with trucks behaving as other road users do, if you are intimidated by it, you really should not be out there.
there are far more intimidating people out there, mainly sitting in middle lanes for hours on end overtaking nothing, forcing people into dangerous manouvers routinely.
While I do agree that your average car driver does moronic things the HGV drivers are held to a higher standard not to mention going on about being professional drivers all the time.They do not help themselves with the "I am going .1 of a mph faster than you so will pull out and take 2 miles to overtake" But I have no issue with trucks behaving as other road users do, if you are intimidated by it, you really should not be out there.
there are far more intimidating people out there, mainly sitting in middle lanes for hours on end overtaking nothing, forcing people into dangerous manouvers routinely.
I'm sure loads of lorry drivers are excellent but generally most bully other road users. I've had no end of lorries literally 2ft from my bumper in average speed zones (when I'm already doing 54 indicated).
I see many lorries parking on double yellow lines "because I'm a lorry" and many lorries use their size to bully.
Doesn't help that there is a minority of truck drivers I can only refer to as bulldog in their appearance and action. A bit over weight. Bald. Recently divorced and angry.
And that is the problem. Their speed is between them and the man, not you. If you are blocking them by hogging the centre lane with a self-entitled excuse like 'but I'm already going over the speed limit', then you are just as much a part of the problem as they are.
Read the Highway Code: keep left: drive properly and the problem that you described (and are the cause of) will disappear.
Read the Highway Code: keep left: drive properly and the problem that you described (and are the cause of) will disappear.
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