Your closing remark 'After all he/she is in reality a much better and safer driver than you' is frankly laughable.
Peter, You obviously missed the smiley face which if I remember correctly can be construed as indicating a tongue in cheek comment. However, seeing as you have had a sense of humour bypass lets be a little more serious.
Why is the above so, as you put it, laughable? Where is your proof, statistical evidence? Have you in fact driven an LGV?
Because something is designated a profession, it does not mean that every single member of said profession will be to a high standard, as you appear to stipulate as a requirement. Your white van man is technically a professional driver if he is undertaking multi drop deliveries but it is widely held, incorrectly IMHO, that they are amongst the worst drivers on the road.
And I beg to differ there are as many bad LGV drivers as car drivers. The incidents I witnessed in my original post all involved cars. I saw nothing where an LGV was seen to commit a dangerous or stupid manouvre. And I am being impartial as I do not rely on LGV driving to make a living.
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My sense of humour is quite intact thanks Dave, in fact your original post made me lol.
You are entitled to your opinion and that is fine, but your opinion is quite worryingly blinkered.
You appear to believe that every car driver on the road should be able to understand the logistics of driving an LGV. Those car drivers who in your opinion don't give you enough room are then assumed to be bad drivers, when in fact a lot of them are just plain ignorant.
I have no proof, or statistical evidence, as I am sure you don't either so what's the point of that question?
You say that you have seen nothing where an LGV was seen to commit a dangerous or stupid manouvre - do you mean never?? I see badly driven LGV's quite often, sometimes just driving over pavement corners, other times using their vehicle's size to bully their way along. How many car drivers do you see doing that??
White van man doesn't need a vocational driving licence to do his job, so what is your point?
LGV drivers can be as bad as the rest so get over it.
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The problem here,is the average car driver,never sees half or a quarter of the idiotic moves,that their fellow car drivers do,whereas,we as HGV drivers,because we spend nearly all of our working day on the road,and not in a office enviroment,tend to see a hell of a lot more,as was clearly detailed by Dave E.
However,I won't be drawn into the debate yet again,as I have made my point perfectly clear in the past.
But one thing I will add,that I also added on here a few days ago,and that is if anyone wants to witness at first hand what the average day is like in the life of an HGV driver,then feel free to spend a day with me,which may consist of a 15 hour shift,and be prepared to start at anytime after 12 midnight,and live near Wakefield.
Ken.
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I would agree with most of what you say and that, generally, LGV drivers are responsible and sound drivers.
However, I must say that some of the near misses I've faced on motorways (and in some cases ordinary roads) and had to take evasive steps have involved LGV drivers...:-)
They are few and far between, but the sheer size of such vehicles means that any collision could well prove serious.
The main complaint is that of an LGV driver deciding to pull out into your motorway lane whilst you are just starting to overtake or are actuallyl alongside and with no escape route on the outside lane because of traffic volumes; Cheshire police once estimated that collisions of this type occur at least once a week on average on their patch of the M6.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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LGV drivers can be as bad as the rest so get over it. >>
Get over what Peter? You are the one who started the whole silly thing regarding LGV drivers being bad news with your fatuous comments over a trivial incident that we see every single day of the week and quite rightly ignore. The difference is, this time you were involved directly.
Me thinks it is you who has an issue to get over.
Me, I can take the balanced approach as I can and do see it from both sides. Yes there are good and bad on both sides but when I see threads calling for people to be dismissed from their employment by a one sided argument and then further threads calling for all manner of stupid things then I am passing comment.
Nothing more nothing less.
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Are LGV and HGV normally regarded as synonymous? I would have thought the first referred to white vans and such, the second to monstrous 18-wheelers.
If there is a difference, then I have to say that the standard of driving in big trucks is generally better than that in white vans, and that this is just as well.
However I have no complaints about most drivers in either category.
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In reply to DaveE (16:29 post)
Oh so the whole silly thing is my fault? Well obviously I am so very wrong Mr E, maybe in future I should just put up with being tailgated by a 38 tonne artic whose driver wishes to speed through roadworks and doesn't like the fact that he is being held up by other traffic, so shows his disgust by giving other drivers abuse.
The fact that you 'quite rightly ignore' such incidents tells me exactly what kind of driver you must be.
You've set out your stall, and if that really is your opinion then you're welcome to it.
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LGV drivers get a sometimes unjustified bad press, usually because when it goes wrong with a lorry involved it goes badly wrong.
Whats rarely seen is the number of incidents caused by us trying to avoid the actions of a thoughtless car driver.
If you witness or are victim of an incident where you feel the lorry driver is in the wrong, by all means raise your grievance with their employer, but please don't tar us all with the same brush.
Regarding the mounting of kerbs and pavements, this is sometimes unavoidable due to the lay out of road junctions and the amount of space a lorry needs to make a turn, and sometimes something we're forced to do due to carelessly parked cars.
"Bullying" may just be a lorry driver trying to get enouh room to carry out a manovre, not just barging about for amusement. Try sitting back and leaving us some room and life gets easier for everyone.
HGV = Heavy Goods Vehicle, LGV= Large Goods Vehicle. The latter is what Europe likes to call us.
PeterPerfect, you seem to have a distinct problem with lorries and their drivers. What do you suggest to try and improve matters? What changes could be made to make life on the road better for us all?
Personally I'd like to see more effort made to educate car drivers and stop them sitting in blind spots or trying to drive round me like I'm some kind of mobile chicane. A great many incidents occur because someone is driving like they haven't a minute to live, and its amazing how much more progress you can make with a bit les haste and a bit more thought.
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So they are both the same.
Had my life (or anyway my car) saved once on the A34 by the quick thinking and correct response of an artic driver, so they would have to be pretty awful to get into my bad books.
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This is getting unnecessarily controversial.
I have been driving longer than most, and in general I find drivers of large commercials have been good enough for a bad one to come as a slight surprise, and vice versa with small ones. I do not think, on reflection, too many will disagree.
I would make one suggestion; while we car drivers can get up to speed very easily it is not so for the heavies, and we should try not to cause them to have to lift off if we can help it.
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Like a lot of things make everyone ride a motrbike for 12 months, soon teach you about blind-spos, stopping distances, road surface adhesion, hazard perception and diesel fumes (!joke),
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Like a lot of things make everyone ride a motrbike for 12 months
I am glad someone else has mentioned Bikes, at the moment there is a tv ad campaign about looking out for bikes when turning out of a junction. How many ad's have there been about not coming up the inside of an Artic at a left hand junction, or coming up the outside of one at a roundabout? Now I suppose this is beacuse that whilst accidents involvong trucks normally do alot more damage they do not have the same death rate as bikes. On some trucks you will see stickers warning against coming up the inside and warning about them making wide left turns etc, but how many people actually take any notice?
Now the majority of people who post on here have an interest in driving, as such we are probably far more aware of our surroundings then the average motorist, but when you look at mr average he does do some remarkably stupid things - I have witnessed many whilst sat in the cab of the truck, in the car and on a bike, I dont tar all car drivers with the same brush, but I have reported on here some of the more idiotic things I have seen, and if they had had "Hows my driving" stickers then I would have reported them, unfortuntaly there are very few ways of reporting bad driving by cars, apart from the Police, who, quite frankly are not at all bothered - with a truck it is normally easier, and I fully advocate reporting bad driving if you see it, But I think we need to seperate out bad driving from just a loss of concertration - tailgating someone flashing lights is bad driving, bouncing a kerb is normally either lack of concerntration or something has happened that the truck driver has had to respond to but may well have happened out of the site of the car driver behind the truck, who is now about to dial the number of the transport manager to report just how bad the driving of their employees is!!!!
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When it comes to driving, the trouble with LGV drivers is they think they are clever, where as us car drivers, we know we are.
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Just afew points
most lgv drivers are car drivers too so see both viewpoints?
If every car driver had to learn to drive in a van (escort sized) they would begin to appreciate the lack of vision vans have; let alone lgv's! It amazed me when i 1st sat in 1 to realise howe little I could actually see. And people complain about blind spots in cars and how they have to lean to see etc!
I wouldnt want to drive 1 all day long; way too many inconsiderate and bad drivers about, many of whom automatically think its the big lorries fault. it sometime is btw; i think all lgv drivers know they are not infalliable; but by driving more miles than most they see more events too.
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Yes Yorkiebar, I borrowed a Transit Connect to do a "job" When it came to moving off (from where I had parked on DYLs by the way !) I realized how hard it was to move off safely without the benefit of over the shoulder visibility. Nice van though, drove perfectly, just like a Focus inside.
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I would make one suggestion; while we car drivers can get up to speed very easily it is not so for the heavies, and we should try not to cause them to have to lift off if we can help it.
I made this point in a previous trucker thread. Car drivers who have never driven low-powered, high-geared two-cyliner French 1950s econocars or other devices that take ages to reach a modest cruise when baulked just don't identify with truckers. Those who have, do. Quite right Tomo.
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I have been driving longer than most, and in general I find drivers of large commercials have been good enough for a bad one to come as a slight surprise, and vice versa with small ones. I do not think, on reflection, too many will disagree.
I agree. I drive about 20k miles per year, a lot less than many drivers, but more than many others; and I drive on motorways twice a day on weekdays. Cars outnumber HGV's on the roads but in my experience badly driven cars vastly, disproportionately, outnumber badly driven HGV's. I am not pro or anti HGV; actually it would suit me if there were less of them on the roads (which is not going to happen) especially with the advent of speed limiters. But I appreciate that they have got a job to do and bear in mind that they are driving something very big and heavy with limited visibility. When I think off the top of my head, of instances I see of inept, ignorant, inconsiderate driving, its usually car drivers doing it.
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