sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

thats what i said

WRX_Dazza

Lorries should use the roads at night and not during rush hour IMHO

banny sti

iTrader: (68)

Valid point and one worth highlighting to be fair. You'll always get a select few morons but most HGV drivers are safe, courteous and very good at their job.

banny sti

iTrader: (68)

Yes Sara it's what you said.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

there is an echooooo in here

Maz

iTrader: (34)

I actually said what he said what you said.

tiny gsy

Have you tried driving ten hours at night with only two 45 minute breaks? Not ideal mate, I know some do it but still. Besides, why should lorries have any less right to use the road than anything else. It`d be surprising how many more lorries you would end up needing to compensate. HGV drivers hours are restricted anyway so limiting them to nights only wouldn`t really help anything

m1cks

So they should use the road at night? Is this because they hold YOU up during rush hour? Some HGV's pay £4000 (yes, thousand) in road tax and you think you should have preferential treatment

The worst people on the motorway are by far the people who go away for the weekend and come back on Sundays. They rarely drive on the motorways (unlike commuters) and often have little experience of how to react in certain situations blissfully un-aware of the chaos that they are causing around them.

With regard not allowing lorries to overtake each other:-
Tonight (Thu p.m. - Fri a.m.) Because of this thread and some of the comments, I decided to make a note of how many other lorries I passed and How many passed me.
I passed 33 and got passed by 16. This would have made a queue of 50 lorries. How would you feel if you were coming to your junction and had to sit behind 50 lorries at 56mph for 1, maybe 2, miles before your junction (because you wouldn't cut them up) So next time you see two lorries go at it at 56 and 56.5mph, just think how it would be if they didn't pass each other.

scoobynutta555

I use this section of the motorway several times a week. The worst bit is in the contraflow southbound (one lane). Nearly everytime I go down the contraflow there will be a long queue of cars behind some wally doing around 35 mph all along it.

As for the indicated speed argument, on my Impreza it'll show 5mph lower on the speedo than it does on a gps monitored system. So, quite a lot of people who think they're doing 45-50 mph are actually doing 40-45 mph.

As for lorry driver tailgating cars, well TBH I've only seen this where the car in question is in the incorrect lane and/or doing under the posted limit. I'm not condoning lorry drivers actions but I can understand their frustration with slow drivers.

WRX_Dazza

yes. - btw, what do foreign drivers contribute for their privilidge?

m1cks

Foreign vehicles unfortunatly don't contribute anything but if we go abroad, there are endless toll motorways which we have to pay. Got to admit this is a little unfair.

WRX_Dazza

i'm actually more worried about being hit by a foreign lorry, then the volume of lorries to be honest.
heard a few horror stories regarding insurance etc....

mind you, luck of the draw i guess and probably safer then being hit by the ever increasing uninsured UK-ites.

Lum

I have, admittedly not in a lorry though.

To be honest I greatly prefer it, on the single carriageways overtaking is easier because you can see the headlights long before the car comes into view and on the motorways they flow so much better.

Mainly I think it's down to the people on the roads at that time. There appears to be some kind of understanding between everyone. Lorries will tell you when it's safe to overtake them even if you can't see over the hedge, car drivers wont go up the inside of lorries on roundabouts, and both cars and lorries will flash a lorry in when the back end of their lorry is clear (I realise lorries do this for each other anyway, but cars usually dont)

I suppose it's down to the fact that everyone on that road knows that everyone else on there has a job to do and wants to get it done with as little hassle as possible so you help each other out.

During the day, the road is full of clueless selfish arrogant *****, and I include a lot of commuters amongst that. There is always one on the M4 who will try to undertake using the middle lane when there is a short gap in the lorries and the outside is "only" doing 80. It's always amusing to watch everyone in the outside lane bunch up until the gaps are less than a car length, then the **** is left stranded in the middle lane until everyone who saw what they tried has gotten past.


That said the "entitled to use the road at any time" argument, whilst correct, does have flaws for example there was an issue on a certain long single carriageway A road where some farmer decided to start moving his tractor from the shed to a field a mile away down that road at 8:30 every morning. I think the police ended up having a quiet word, but in reality there isn't much they could have done.

As for foreign lorries, perhaps we should be charging them a daily rate for use of the roads. They could be issued with a ticket similar to what you get upon entering an NCP car park, and then not allowed to board the ferry until they've paid said ticket (and if after six months they haven't left the UK then someone gets taken to court for not registering that vehicle with the DVLA)

m1cks

I do, 5 nights a week



Nail head on the hit - or in a similiar order, well said Lum

mart360

Well I've just come back from a weekend away, and have to say the standard of driving from some of these so called "kings of the road" is absolutely appalling.

remember i told you about being tailgated at 44mph through a specs system,

well today i was in a major 50mph specs system on the A1M, the lorry behind me wasn't happy at my 48mph, so he..

wait for it..... overtook me, and then tailgated the BMW in the other lane, to the point where he pulled in, whereupon the lorry accelerated, and dived back into the inside lane just before the repeater specs camera installation.

Mart

Lum

A couple of possible explanations.

1) He knows he wont get done doing 56mph through a SPECS installation as the prosecution threshold is 57 in a 50

2) He's doing the change lane trick to avoid getting done.

3) He doesn't know the difference between a SPECS camera and Truvelo camera.

3 is worrying, when your job depends on your driving licence, you should damn well learn the different camera types, so hopefully it was one of the first to.

In the interests of drama, did you notice what nationality the lorry was?

mart360

uk lorry, uk company

mart

scoobynutta555

I must admit, I enjoy it when a car undertakes and everyone in the outside bunches up and they're left there

Flatcapdriver

Why would you need to cut them up if they were leaving sufficient room for overtaking vehicles? That is the law, you know.

m1cks

Err If they are leaving a safe stopping distance, by going in to that gap, YOU have just made it unsafe. And most cars just HAVE to get past that one extra lorry.
Your actions should not cause another road user to take avoiding action, i.e. braking, accellerating, changing direction

Eddie Slowfart

I'd say reading from the original post, that the driver of the HGV in question, had been baking one since South Mimms, was therefore touching cloth, and was trying to get his foot down to Wolley Edge services in Sheffield before he got the turtle's head.

Or he could have just been an inconsiderate pillock. Personally, if I was the car in front I'd have just slowed down. There's no need for HGV's to drive as close as they do.

davyboy

Only a novice (or angry) undertaker would allow that to happen to him. A pro would have spotted a gap beforehand.

Lum

If you try it on the M4 heading to England from Wales in the morning, the gaps close up very very quickly. Everyone on that road does the same commute every day and they are wise to it.

davyboy

Then you need to try the "I'm not bothered technique" and do it very slowly.....and accelerate as you see the gap.

Queuing up to overtake is dumb, and I will take advantage.

Works well on the A34 just off the M40.

Lum

The issue with the M4 is L1 is basically completely full of lorries, L2 a little less so, you'll generally get a gap of 6-8 car lengths between lorries and thus all cars end up in L3 doing 90 (75 in the vicinity of bridges in Wiltshire), anyone moving into L2 from L3 will be spotted very quickly.

The whole thing works very well, like I said everyone is doing the same commute every day. undertakers are not welcome and the only things that **** up the whole arrangement are some bloody tourist (with or without caravan) or a crash.

Flatcapdriver

If you have left sufficient space, then you wouldn't need to take avoiding action. The only reason you'd have to if another vehicle was attempting to leave the dual carriageway/motorway and you were tailgating - not that we've ever seen lorries do that in this country, have we?

GC8

That post beggars belief. Idiots get killed every day by pulling into an HGVs braking area.

TopBanana

You need to keep left regardless of the speed you're doing.

noobyscooby

Regardless of whatever the speed limit is, The nearside lane is the cruising lane. All the other lanes are for overtaking. If the nearside lane is empty, use it . . . please. If people want to break the limit, let them.

But if traffic is heavy and the nearside lane is full, then by all means cruise in the middle at the legal 50 mph limit indicated - you cannot be certain how fast your speedo reads so stick to 50 not 52 - and ignore the truck but make sure you increase the distance between you and the vehicle in front so you have plenty of room to brake gently to avoid the truck rear-ending you.

I find that once a trucker realises his antics won't work they back off.

speedking

So, do you obey the "STAY IN LANE" signs or not?