Friday night, travelling with the family to visit the relatives in the Midlands pre-christmas. Just passed junction 6 M6 Northbound and the overhead gantry signs were indicating lanes 2 and 3 were closed up ahead and the flashing yellow arrows were telling you to get over into lane 1. Then, STOP. Traffic ground to a halt and you think 'ok maybe there's an accident etc'. We started crawling again and long story short 30 minutes later we were approaching the 'problem' as the gantry signs were now flashing with a red cross indicating lanes closed etc.

During this time, all 3 lanes were moving (albeit slowly) with the odd one or two drivers switching over to lane one. As we approached the roadworks we found 3 articulated lorries driving 3 a-breast across the 3 lanes at 5mph....the only thing I can think is they took it upon themselves to enforce the over-head signs and stop people over taking, and I guess, cutting in at the last minute.

I have never been so 'car related' angry in my life!. These idiots had caused a 5 mile tailback just by deciding they would be kings of the roads. The actual roadworks were at Junction 7 so in normal circumstances people had the 5 miles between junctions to merge into lane one in a nice orderly fashion and with the odd one or two leaving it until the last minute to cut across.

Unfortunately, I didn't realise what was going on until we got to the roadworks otherwise plod would have been called. Dangerous driving in my opinion

This kind of martyr behaviour really annoys me. Who are they to police the roads?. Not let a truck out on the motorway since!.

Anyone else had this kind of experience?

 

Its Road manner like this that induces others to break the law , I can appreciate what they were trying to achieve, but at the end of the day, as you say they have no authority to behave this way and no truck should be in the outside lane at any time .

 

Could be strikes mate

 

did think they could be protesting about something but as there were only 3 of them still believe they were trying for their 'road captains' badge.

 

This really ***** me off as the do it at any lane closure be it roadworks or whatever. Do they not realise that if both lanes are used properly and cars / lorries filter in 1 & 1 the traffic will flow, they queue will be shorter in total length & everyone will get to where they are going quicker.

Simon

 

Totally illegal what they were doing.

Not only do Lorry drivers KILL, they drive in a dangerous reckless manner at times, I do feel the police are FAR FAR TOO LINIENT with truck drivers because there's a shortage of drivers they're lothe to ban poor drivers.


Lorries don't just JACK-KNIFE; they're driven in such a manner to cause the problem,

Heard what happened on the M4 on Saturday lorry hit a car and kiled the driver and passengers, I wonder if the lorry driver will get off Scott-free.


Rant Over; ship freight by rail like the French and Germans, trains rarely kill.

 

[QUOTE=mikepaul
Heard what happened on the M4 on Saturday lorry hit a car and kiled the driver and passengers, I wonder if the lorry driver will get off Scott-free.
[/QUOTE]


drove past that on Sat at 9:30am on the way to London. Car was about 3 foot high . Not a nice sight.

 

i'm not sure which is the more stupid statement there this one:

Not only do lorry drivers KILL - sorry but what a load of rubbish, true maybe some lorry drivers may drive recklessly and they should be banned in the same way as some car /van/bus/ motorcycle drivers/riders who drive recklessly should be banned , it all comes down to the person behind the wheel not the whole industry and sweeping statements like that are completely inaccurate.

Ship freight by rail - i'm sure you won't mind spending all your time sitting at rail crossings at the end of every street then due to the huge increase of railways needed to serve all the places currently serve by road

 

A similar thing happened to me this morning - driving past Ascot racecourse at 8:30 - two roadsweepers driving side by side at 4 or 5 mph. Why? Or more to the point - why in rush-hour? Can't they do it at 4am like they do in other countries?

 

The worst is the M26, where you always get a lorry doing 51mph overtaking one doing 50mph, therefore taking up both lanes.

 

I can see where youre coming from










































BUT



and its a big one...







Drivers in the UK are incapable of merging sensibly,

you could run two lane right to the point of mergin, and then as per other countrys have a dam simple sign


"merge like a zip"

makes it bloody obvious, and works..


but because our roads are full of testosterone fuelled captain zod and his supercar they will never allow it.


thats why lorry drivers get p*ssed off,
Mart

 

Well said and as for saying that lorry drivers kill, that is just a total load of bollox. They (we) are as a matter of fact the safest drivers on the roads.


Chip ( not a lorry driver but HGV licence holder)

 

how about this...

HGVs travel only between the hours of, say, 2300 and 0600, but the price of diesel for them is slashed dramatically...

is that possible...?

 

yer great idea that way the roads would already be snarled up before rush hour trying to cram 24hrs worth of trucks in to 7hrs pmsl

 

Be better if it was like some parts of Belgium/France etc. where trucks can't be in any lane apart from lane 1.

Any truckers like to point out why this would be a bad idea? Apart from the weirdos who drive cars so slowly on the motorway they get overtaken by trucks (wtf?) that is; probably have to have some sort of minimum speed limit to get rid of them (lol, speed cameras set to flash at anything under 50mph!).

 

The Highway Code indicates that people should merge in turn - so thats what I do & if its at the head of the queue, what am I doing wrong?

 

if the road in front is empty i'm using it all the way to the point its closed off- then merging, in a blacked out Galaxy someones always gonna let me in (black van man )

 

you sir are a bellend
what about the little tw*ts that try and cut in front of trucks at the last possible second jus so they dont have to sit behind a truck for 200yards up a slip road? it's d!cks like that that cause the accidents.a loaded truck takes a long time to stop and if that gap suddenly gets smaller due to some pr!ck cutting in the driver will have to brake a lot harder, if he then changes direction even slightly it will cause the truck to jacknife.
bad drivers are bad drivers whatever they are driving.
do you or have you ever driven a truck? do you have any idea how hard the test is? i bet the answer to both is a resounding NO!! i can tell you its a damn site harder than the car test.
i can also tell you the police are harder on truck drivers than the ordinary motorist as we are considered proffesional drivers and are expected to drive like it at all times.
before you go slaggin people off i suggest you at least have a cursory look into facts


edit:the truck in the "fast" lane was breaking the law as no vehicle classed as lgv should go into this lane. have no idea why he was doing it other than a bit of vigilante action. in which case he was being a d!ck

 

Not a trucker but I can think of one:

Wondered how you join or leave a motorway with nose to tail trucks in lane 1?? <- that's how

 

Agreed


Out of interest - what about the 2 mile overtake? Being a victim daily of the M11/A14 makes me highly concious of this.

 

some trucks have bigger engines which obviously generate more horses although still limited to 56, unless they are foreign (i think irish 1's are 60 not sure about the rest but deff higher than 56). therefore climbing hills or even slight inclines will reduce the speed of the smaller engine whilst the bigger engines hold it. truck drivers are the same as the rest of us, we don't want to be stuck behind someone doing 5 or even 1 mph slower than us why should trucks be any different?
on 3 lane stretches there generally isn't to much of a problem, it's the 2 lane stretches which you point out. can't speak for other drivers but i generally sit behind the slower truck until there is a big gap, others don't.
i drive the m26 in my truck and scoob (lovely early weekend mornings ) and most of the time its ok.

 

there is sometimes a difference by about 1 mph in the limiter even the "newness" of the tyres can make a small difference, if this happens or there is a slight incline (read above post) the (quite frankly bloody annoying) situation can occur.
sorry to hear about your daily struggle but most truck drivers don't set out to pi$$ people off. trucks are big and you notice the crap drivers easier coz you can't speed off in 1 or hide in traffic

 

From

http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/15.htm#140

In particular

http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/15.htm#144

Not saying you do it but thats the Highway Code governing it.

 

spot on!. I have always tended to be considerate of HGV drivers as must be tricky to say the least keeping one of the big un's on the road and hard excelerating and slowing down etc. But it is the small majority, like some car drivers I guess, that need rounding up and talking to!.

Was hoping one of the vehicles stuck behind them was a van load of glaswiegen scafolders late back from a week working in plymouth whoes gaffer's wife had jsut left him for a truck driver. but no joy. everyone just sat in their cars and was very politely english

 

as i said above i wait for a big gap.
a big gap to me is one where i can get AT LEAST half way past the truck in front before holding up any cars that wish to overtake. this can (in busy periods) be a bloody long time.
i also drive a car and hate being held up by tw*t truck drivers with no consideration. i'm not a hypocrite.
i get paid the same for a days work whatever i do so i have absoloutly no need or want to rush