The thread on motorway lane discipline brought to mind a phenomenon that I experience on the rare occasions that I venture on the network.
I am invariably in my motorhome which is based on a 2.5TD, so easily capable of the legal limit, however as I am usually on holiday and rarely in a hurry I am quite content to sit in the inside lane rather than mix it in the overtaking lanes.
Naturally and inevitably I will come up behind a convoy of lorries and am quite happy to stay behind this for the above reasons, and in the interests of safety and the absence of stress I allow a safety zone of one and a half to two lorry lengths gap. Equally inevitably the occasional slowing of the preceding convoy means that I will be caught up by a following lorry which then attempts to overtake me and eventually pulls into my safety zone. My slight speed reduction to restoring this zone encourages the next lorry to overtake me and so on, ad infinitum. I have no hang-ups about being overtaken but it is disconcerting to constantly have a juggernaut alongside with a speed differential of only one or two miles an hour, also there is the consequent road block in lane 2.
The puzzlement is that the overtaking lorry is then following the lorry that I was following at the same speed that I was travelling at so I fail to see the gain. I could of course prevent these manoeuvres by reducing my safety zone to less than a lorry length or travelling in lane 2 but am naturally reluctant to take either of these steps.
This isn't meant to be a trucker bashing thread, and if I am annoying anyone I would like to know, but it just seems that the truckers resent me travelling in 'their' inside lane.
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One mans junk is another mans treasure
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Could it be that by - very sensibly - hanging back, you are preventing them from adopting their normal close formation with the lorry in front, thus stopping the slipstream effect and increasing their fuel consumption?
The supposed slipstream effect is the only explanation I can think of to account for the often suicidally short distance one observes between lorries.
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I sympathise.
I'm a caravanner and would be content to cruise at 56 but for constantly being pushed back down the queue by truckers doing 56.1 mph and then pulling into my safe gap, reducing my real speed to 50. So in practice I spend most of my time in lane 2 doing 60 (as I'm not allowed to go any faster, even though I can) which means that cars queue up in lane 3 at 70.
The phenomenom you've experienced is why truckers tailgate each other. If they leave a safe gap, some other trucker will overtake at 0.1 mph differential moving each trucker one place down the queue.
Did the highway authorities not consider the effect of introducing speed limiters and arbitary speed limits for different classes of vehicle?
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It begs the question, if you don't want to travel at motorway speeds then why clog up the motorway?
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Doug,
Was your rhetorical question directed at me or all the other users of the inside lane? As I indicated I can and do keep up with the traffic flow, my query was as to why I am constantly leapfrogged due to leaving an adaquate safety gap.
In answer to the question, to avoid unfamilar town centres
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One mans junk is another mans treasure
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Try driving the truck, the exact same thing happens - you have 2 choices, either sit at 50mph and get overtaken at a reasonable pace or sit at 60 and overtake the trucks. Sitting at the same speed as the trucks just means you get drawn into the never ending cycle that speed limiters have introduced.
And yes it/you are annoying, but no more so then it is when catching up another truck at 0.001mph. ;o)
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but it is disconcerting to constantly have a juggernaut alongside with a speed differential of only one or two miles an hour,
Truck drivers are earning their wages and are probably working to a schedule. One or two mph on a long haul could make a big difference to them.
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L\'escargot.
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These 'inexplicable' behaviours will occur all the time. Remember that, overall, drivers on British roads are pretty much of average intelligence. Chances are, half of them are below average intelligence. Add to that the effects of personality traits and disordered mood, either long-term or short-term, too. Also forgotten basic driving principles and ignorance of the (latest) Highway Code. No doubt Broomers can identify other causes...
Many of the effects of below-average driving standards are compunded by roads having seriosly insufficient capacity. Few of the problems under discussion on the various threads happen between 8.00 pm and 5.00 am.
And talking of lane discipline, do you folk think that the more lanes there are, the more daft it is to expect 'overtake only on the right'? On, say, the five-lane stretches of the M25, is it realistic to expect lane 1 to be the slowest and lane 5 to be the fastest, with a progressive graduation in between? It's calling for some pretty serious self-organisation amongst a disparate bunch of people with no way of communicating between themselves!
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One or two mph on a long haul could make a big difference to them.
I'm probably being thick, but I don't understand this. As far as I can make out, by EU law, truckers shouldn't be averaging more than about 9 hours driving a day. 1mph difference means 9 miles difference at the end of the day, which at 56mph is less than 10 minutes difference. Meanwhile, they're holding up traffic by nearer 20mph, which potentially makes quite a lot of difference to those drivers, or am I missing something?
Toby
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Ho ho - spot on!
It's the same logic that excuses White Van Man breaking every rule in the book because Mr Smith is waiting for his Ocado delivery, or Bob Jones wants a new memory stick for his computer - national emergency innit?
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I used to hate the way truck drivers drove, until I drove a 7.5T (which is hardly the same scale but gives you a lot of insight into what they go through) You have to plan your lane changs minutes rather then seconds ahead, you have to indicate for about 30 seconds and then check, then check then check again that some idiot has not just pulled in from the outside lane into the middle lane along side you even though he has seen you indicating for what is nearly 60 seconds now, and when you have the opourtunity to overtake, even if only at 1mph more, then you have to go for it, otherwise you find yourself stuck later on down the road when the truck infront of you catches up with an oil taker doing 40-50mph uphill and now you dont have the time to plan your overtaking manouver.
I don't think there is a solution unfortunatly to the original posters thread, either drive closer to the truck in front with less safety or you will have to put up with the leapfrogging. Speed limiters are a stupid idea in my opinion, truck drivers should be able to regulate their own speed, yes it does mean that you will get the odd truck driving at 90mph in the outside lane, but then the police would need to be tough on that. At least the truck driver would have the option of speeding up to 65mph or whatever he feels necessaary in order to overtake the vehicle in front quickly rather then passing at 0.1mph
Sitting in the middle lane is not the answer, if you think it is then I will hunt you down :)
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I agree, driving a 7.5t vehicle (whether a brand new hire vehicle running empty or a 30 year old Mercedes horse lorry (running on what looked like red diesel...)) gives one an insight into driving a truck.
And the insight I learned was that if you're in the inside lane in a long queue of trucks, you shouldn't waste the effort of trying to overtake the trucks that are doing 0.1mph more than you. It's common sense, isn't it.
This is particularly true on two lane dual carriageways. Particularly uphill.
You really don't gain anything, at all.
Oh that the ban on overtaking by vehicles over 7.5t that is on the A42 between the M42 and the M1 can be extended nationwide, 24/7.
over 7.5t vehicles should be restricted to the inside lane; save for when overtaking vehicles travelling at under 45mph. And no vehicle incapable of 56mph should be allowed on the motorway.
That would make a great difference to traffic flow.
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