Ban Elephant Racing

[revvingit]

Why is elephant racing not illegal?

It basically deliberately causing a hold-up on a motorway for absolutely no good reason, It should be 6 points and a 350 pound fine to the driver for any lorry that doesn't use lane 1

[Japveesix]

They are sentient animals that naturally would be ranging across thousands of acres of savannah and I find it genuinely disgusting that in this day and age we still force them to race for our entertainment.

Support the ban #banthenellyraces

[markymarkthree]

Do they make them jump fences or is it just on the flat ?

[Mandat]

revvingit said:

Why is elephant racing not illegal?

It basically deliberately causing a hold-up on a motorway for absolutely no good reason, It should be 6 points and a 350 pound fine to the driver for any lorry that doesn't use lane 1

The same should apply to all MLM's. Keep left unless overtaking.

[Black_S3]

Try joining something like the Reigate m25 junction heading towards Heathrow if everything big had to stay in L1.

[mygoldfishbowl]

markymarkthree said:

Do they make them jump fences or is it just on the flat ?

Depends on the season.

[pip t]

Yes, it's incredibly irritating when it happens.

However.

Not all trucks are equal. Under your suggestion that trucks should only be allowed in lane 1, what happens when your average wagon trundling along at 56mph comes up behind one of those mobile cranes that can only do 40? Are you suggesting they should all have to sit at 40 behind it?

They could I guess, but that would eventually create one almighty queue of trucks in lane 1. What happens at slip roads where you want to join the motorway. None of those trucks can move to lane 2 to create a gap for you to merge, under your rules they're not allowed to. Equally when you want to get into lane 1 to take an exit slip....gonna be one hell of a fight to get into that queue of nose to tail HGVs in lane 1.

I agree elephant racing is monumentally frustrating, but in general travelling at 56mph for a few miles won't add much time to your journey.

And just for clarity, no, I don't drive an HGV.

[Camelot1971]

I was in a 4 lane section of the M25 this afternoon and there were HGV's alongside each other in lanes 1, 2 and 3! All doing about 0.005mph differential.

s.

[Black_S3]

pip t said:

Yes, it's incredibly irritating when it happens.

However.

Not all trucks are equal. Under your suggestion that trucks should only be allowed in lane 1, what happens when your average wagon trundling along at 56mph comes up behind one of those mobile cranes that can only do 40? Are you suggesting they should all have to sit at 40 behind it?

They could I guess, but that would eventually create one almighty queue of trucks in lane 1. What happens at slip roads where you want to join the motorway. None of those trucks can move to lane 2 to create a gap for you to merge, under your rules they're not allowed to. Equally when you want to get into lane 1 to take an exit slip....gonna be one hell of a fight to get into that queue of nose to tail HGVs in lane 1.

I agree elephant racing is monumentally frustrating, but in general travelling at 56mph for a few miles won't add much time to your journey.

And just for clarity, no, I don't drive an HGV.

spot on, also IMO it's not actually the trucks that cause the problem... 99% of the time it's the 60mph car in L3 refusing to up their speed & complete the overtake that causes the queue.

Camelot1971 said:

I was in a 4 lane section of the M25 this afternoon and there were HGV's alongside each other in lanes 1, 2 and 3! All doing about 0.005mph differential.

s.

Probably keeping up with the flow of traffic tho, whenever I'm unfortunate enough to have to touch the M25 I'm happy if it flows at 50....

[ApOrbital]

Did someone on here years ago ask if he could import elephants to the uk?

[R0G]

revvingit said:

Why is elephant racing not illegal?

It basically deliberately causing a hold-up on a motorway for absolutely no good reason, It should be 6 points and a 350 pound fine to the driver for any lorry that doesn't use lane 1

You seem to put the onus on the overtaking driver but the HC is clear - the driver being overtaken should ease off so perhaps the law should target the driver being overtaken

[pip t]

Mercky said:

I can tell you don't drive an HGV, nor apparently have you witnessed a truck doing 56MPH overtaking one doing 55.7 MPH which is what the OP is talking about.

Indeed. But the solution the OP suggest was banning trucks from anything other than lane 1. Which would mean that when they came up behind anything significantly slower there would be a problem. And actually, it wouldn't even need to be significantly slower, even a truck doing say, 54 would eventually become a rolling road block to any trucks behind it. Not to mention an unladen truck behind a heavily laden one on an uphill stretch.

I've witnessed it, and been held up by it innumerable times. It's particularly frustrating on a DC when there's no possibility at all of overtaking. The fact remains though, solving it by restricting trucks to lane 1 isn't a workable solution.

[Allanv]

Every so often we have this debate, yet you forget until 1999 the trucks we not so limited. All my trucks until 1997 did 90mph fully loaded @ 38T but I packed in driving around 1999 due to (political changes to rules and impending elephant racing) or limiters and auto boxes caused by scare tactics for ice age / global warming / alien invasion / polar bears in Bristol.

I am not saying it was right but we had no limiters so could and did anything up to what we felt safe with 38T up our arse.
Elephant racing didn't happen due to the above and having gears to play with.

Over safety of an industry caused it, and if you think it is fun try driving @ 56 for 4.5 hours it will peel your eyelids with boredom so glad I got out.

Edited by Allanv on Monday 5th February 21:28

[Tango13]

ApOrbital said:

Did someone on here years ago ask if he could import elephants to the uk?

The OP wanted a domesticated elephant, not just some wild, fresh off the plains elephant

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=44...

[Black_S3]

R0G said:

You seem to put the onus on the overtaking driver but the HC is clear - the driver being overtaken should ease off so perhaps the law should target the driver being overtaken

I'd have thought it was fairly obvious a truck struggling to do 50mph up a hill cannot ease off.

[Willy Nilly]

Allanv said:

Every so often we have this debate, yet you forget until 1999 the trucks we not so limited. All my trucks until 1997 did 90mph fully loaded @ 38T but I packed in driving around 1999 due to (political changes to rules and impending elephant racing) or limiters and auto boxes caused by scare tactics for ice age / global warming / alien invasion / polar bears in Bristol.

I am not saying it was right but we had no limiters so could and did anything up to what we felt safe with 38T up our arse.
Elephant racing didn't happen due to the above and having gears to play with.

Over safety of an industry caused it, and if you think it is fun try driving @ 56 for 4.5 hours it will peel your eyelids with boredom so glad I got out.

Edited by Allanv on Monday 5th February 21:28

I drove Pete' 377's with 60 Series Detroits @430hp in the USA that were limited to 70 and would pretty much
slam into the limiter loaded. we did touch 90mph pulling oversized loads in Montana down a steep hill. 20 odd years on, I wonder how fast the modern trucks would go if they were unshackled.

The issue in the UK and Europe is the speed limiters. However as we know, speed kills, which is why there have been no recorded accidents involving speed limited trucks since they introduced.

[anonymous-user]

i had one, 6 fking miles, trucks are auto now so a quick slow down to allow the overtaking truck, to overtake, is not fking hard, but lorry drivers can be pig headed dunderheads, I honestly think they get pleasure the ramifications.

[Black_S3]

Willy Nilly said:

The issue in the UK and Europe is the speed limiters. However as we know, speed kills, which is why there have been no recorded accidents involving speed limited trucks since they introduced.

One of the few sensible traffic laws we have is HGVs 58 while cars can do 70 imo.

[anonymous-user]

Black_S3 said:

One of the few sensible traffic laws we have is HGVs 58 while cars can do 70 imo.

it's 60mph

[mybrainhurts]

ApOrbital said:

Did someone on here years ago ask if he could import elephants to the uk?

Yes. He imported three.

One rogered him with its trunk.

One trampled him to death.

One crapped on his corpse.

On the bright side, he didn't need a grave.