Your opinion on extreme lorry "overtaking"

[Trackdayer]

You're driving on a reasonably busy dual carriageway. Lorry A pulls out to overtake lorry B. After 9 minutes of lane blockage, he still hasn't got past. There's a tailback of 50+ vehicles. Nobody has gained anything.

In your view is this selfish? Inconsiderate? Wrong? Does Lorry A's potential saving of a few seconds off his journey justify delaying the journeys of dozens of others by almost 10 minutes?

Or is this a normal part of everyday driving where lorry drivers are essential workers, can do no wrong and should be exempt from any scrutiny?

Edited by Trackdayer on Monday 12th April 14:12

[Trackdayer]

rev-erend said:

Stuff

Very interesting.

[Trackdayer]

Fastdruid said:

It was annoying on the A42 as well, although not as bad as the A14 particularly where the HGV's would ignore the "no overtaking" sections.

I started using the M69 to avoid the A42 for that exact reason

[Trackdayer]

Glenn63 said:

But to play devils advocate people are complaining they have to wait but what makes their journey more important than the hgv’s? Why don’t you wait?

I have no issue with waiting for a lorry to overtake another. I know they can't just sprint past.

But when there's a blatant stalemate or it's taking several minutes, it's just bad road manners (IMO).

[Trackdayer]

wazztie16 said:

I was getting ready to go insane today with something like this, I was driving a 3.5t van behind a large class 2 size lorry driving through 30mph urban villages and 50-NSL country lanes, narrow at times.

This went on for roughly 7 miles.

Did the driver think to pull over at a safe point and let me and the 5/6 cars behind me past, no they didn't, so we all had to keep switching between 10 and 50 mph rather than being able to make progress, no consideration for other drivers is the norm now...

Dashcam is your friend here.

Record. Report to their employer.

[Trackdayer]

wazztie16 said:

It's such a shame so much went wrong.

I agree. Although it does vary by area and time of day. Inner city morning commute isn't much fun. Rural evenings are all good.

[Trackdayer]

Triumph Man said:

it always seems to be a trucker, who straddled both lanes 800yds before a merge point...

I think they do that deliberately "to stop people pushing in".

Despite merge in turn being an established part of driving.

[Trackdayer]

Pothole said:

I love slipping past these road captains on my motorcycle...

[Trackdayer]

RJWR said:

More than hilarious. The arrogance of ill-qualified car drivers.

An HGV licence is not needed to judge poor manners and stupidity.

[Trackdayer]

IroningMan said:

Road wear-and-tear is proportional to the fourth power of axle weight, isn't it?

Apparently so

https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage...

[Trackdayer]

mikecassie said:

You were not delayed by 10mins... You were still moving along at the speed of the trucks, so the delay was the time to go the actual distance minus the time it normally would've taken you to go the same distance. Probably 1 min delay? It always feel worse being slowed down, but leave 10mins earlier and any delays do not cause you to be late. Check FB or whatever ste social media you chose upon arriving early rather than checking social media and leaving the house with no time to spare.

You have no idea how much I was delayed by as you don't have the data to make that calculation. Granted my maths was off too, I'll admit that. It's more about manners and courtesy. As others have said, a minority of drivers (lorry and car) are utterly inconsiderate.

ps - If I parked and blocked your driveway for 10 minutes in the morning and told you to set off earlier / spend 10 minutes less doing your stamp collecting, how would you feel?

[Trackdayer]

FiF said:

It could be argued, to be completely fair, that those most affected and most delayed by this, are those who plan their travel based on being able to consistently exceed the national speed limit by some margin.

[Trackdayer]

In fairness, for every inconsiderate or dangerous HGV driver we all see, there are hundreds if not thousands we don't see. Because they are unremarkable and just part of the background noise on our roads.

[Trackdayer]

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.