Simple question
Discussion
Was driving on the A14 recently from close to Felixstowe, a very big truck route.
I have never driven a truck.
I noticed a few things. The sheer number of times 5 or 6 would convoy.
Very often one would pull out to pass, drop back again.
And everyone's favourite, pull out and take about a mile to overtake
My question is, for the latter, why doesn't the driver being overtaken just lift for a brief moment, surely it benefits everyone, being side by side is more dangerous, frustrating for those behind andyou are both in the air not towing? I realise overtaje4 can't do more due to limiters and restrictions, but at times you would have 20 cars sitting there while this went on
We all share the road yes and I know car drivers can get very selfish, but this overtaking thing is a little odd and surely easily renedied? Or am I wrong
I have never driven a truck.
I noticed a few things. The sheer number of times 5 or 6 would convoy.
Very often one would pull out to pass, drop back again.
And everyone's favourite, pull out and take about a mile to overtake
My question is, for the latter, why doesn't the driver being overtaken just lift for a brief moment, surely it benefits everyone, being side by side is more dangerous, frustrating for those behind andyou are both in the air not towing? I realise overtaje4 can't do more due to limiters and restrictions, but at times you would have 20 cars sitting there while this went on
We all share the road yes and I know car drivers can get very selfish, but this overtaking thing is a little odd and surely easily renedied? Or am I wrong
gazza285 said:
Why not learn to accept that sometimes wagons overtake other wagons, and it may take some time. No point getting frustrated by it, the wagon driver doesn t care, and there s not a thing you can do about it.
I think he was asking for an understanding of the overtakee versus the overtaken.I'd like to hear the 'other' side.
Just like car drivers you've got a whole range of competence attitude and levels of stress, or not, behind the wheel, not making excuses for the silliness of some of the examples of elephant racing seen some of which embarrass those of us who probably foolishly these days, because nobody else gives a f
k , still take a pride in our work.
I was doing the job long before speed limiters came in, you didn't see the convoys (unable to spread out to any great degree now) because the performance of the various trucks varied so much, we predicted exactly what would happen when limiters came in and it has.
If you're doing a genuine 55/56 as many trucks run at these days and come up behind a truck doing .5 mph less unless the road is clear the driver is likely to run at a suitable distance behind the slower truck so as not to cause hold ups for everyone, inevitably other trucks join the 2 vehicle convoy and inevitably someone will make the decision to pass the now 7 or 8 vehicles stuck together through no fault of their own,hence the 5 minute pass.
Would it have been better for each truck to pass one at a time causing multiple waves behind or for what?, you tell me, whatever we do sadly as truck drivers we're wrong.
How things have changed from the lockdown farce when people stood on motorway bridges waving to those of us still carrying the goods.
I don't think you realise just how awful speed limiters are and how much they changed my industry for the worse, sooner or later fixed electronic limiters will be fitted to new cars and will either be dependent on the road limit in question or set to a max, now we all know some of these will, like trucks, have slight variations in the actual speed available and speedometer overread, then understandably frustrated car drivers will be able to experience the joys of this for themselves, hopefully offer some tuition for us apparently thick as two planks lorry drivers on how to drive.
The real reason for the massive number of trucks on our roads is that the (deliberately by all govts of the last 30 years) hugely increased population has to be serviced and trucks are the only viable method of servicing everyone in this country, unfortunately no one thought to plan the road network capable of handling the servicing of these numbers.
The current population is said to be around 66 million, we all know thats bks, its probably somewhere around the 80 million mark, when it reaches the 120 million or more planned for us you can imagine the congestion that will result because just how many trucks will be required to service a population that increases by around 1 million a year.
According to figures the population in 1978 was around 56 million, in 2025 officially around 68 million, look at the number of trucks and the state of the roads and tell me you believe those figures.
I used to drive nights back in the 70's, from Northants to Leeds and back, the M1 was almost empty, you could drive for 5 minutes or more without seeing a single vehicle, now try the same road overnight and ask yourself what the difference is, according to official figures
Before the M25 was built all commercial traffic had to negotiate through London and the surrounding towns when venturing south east, could you imagine if the M25 was now closed and everyone passed through the London boroughs.
There's no going back from this the population will continue to rise exponentially because its planned and to be frank people continue to vote for the same thing while expecting a different result.
I'm not making poltical points necessarily just pointing out that we now live in a ridiculously overpopulated island, where food production in particular has to be transported into urban areas (we don't make anything else now hence almost all trucks on the road are either food carriers, trucks associated with warehouse/house building, containers or car transporters), food imports come in mainly via the south eastern routes with the usual Chinese tat we can't live without via containers which means routes to/from those areas are always hellish and going to get worse.
You can't really blame the truck drivers for trying to do their jobs in inceasingly stressful circumstances.
As an aside, all those trucks you see delivering food to those huge supermarket RDC, when they get there they'll be treated with complete indifference and disrespect sometimes bordering on hostility by people behind a small hatchway one presents their paperwork through, when they put the truck on the bay the driver will have to hand his keys in a like a child and in many cases have to sit in a stinking overcrowded sometimes filthy waiting room on hard plastic chairs, might be a vending machine and dodgy toilet if they're lucky, sometimes for hours on end.
You think a bunch of truck drivers working sometimes 60/70 hours a week and treated like a sworn enemy feel that enthused about how their driving might be perceived when all they want is to go home?
No i don't work in RDC world but have done the odd stint between proper jobs, rather stick pins in my eyes, the drivers that do that work regularly deserve a hell of a lot better pay and respect than they generally receive, we'd all be hungry without them.
Could have gone on for hours, sorry for boring the pants off everyone, hopefully some food for thought there.
k , still take a pride in our work.I was doing the job long before speed limiters came in, you didn't see the convoys (unable to spread out to any great degree now) because the performance of the various trucks varied so much, we predicted exactly what would happen when limiters came in and it has.
If you're doing a genuine 55/56 as many trucks run at these days and come up behind a truck doing .5 mph less unless the road is clear the driver is likely to run at a suitable distance behind the slower truck so as not to cause hold ups for everyone, inevitably other trucks join the 2 vehicle convoy and inevitably someone will make the decision to pass the now 7 or 8 vehicles stuck together through no fault of their own,hence the 5 minute pass.
Would it have been better for each truck to pass one at a time causing multiple waves behind or for what?, you tell me, whatever we do sadly as truck drivers we're wrong.
How things have changed from the lockdown farce when people stood on motorway bridges waving to those of us still carrying the goods.
I don't think you realise just how awful speed limiters are and how much they changed my industry for the worse, sooner or later fixed electronic limiters will be fitted to new cars and will either be dependent on the road limit in question or set to a max, now we all know some of these will, like trucks, have slight variations in the actual speed available and speedometer overread, then understandably frustrated car drivers will be able to experience the joys of this for themselves, hopefully offer some tuition for us apparently thick as two planks lorry drivers on how to drive.
The real reason for the massive number of trucks on our roads is that the (deliberately by all govts of the last 30 years) hugely increased population has to be serviced and trucks are the only viable method of servicing everyone in this country, unfortunately no one thought to plan the road network capable of handling the servicing of these numbers.
The current population is said to be around 66 million, we all know thats b
ks, its probably somewhere around the 80 million mark, when it reaches the 120 million or more planned for us you can imagine the congestion that will result because just how many trucks will be required to service a population that increases by around 1 million a year.According to figures the population in 1978 was around 56 million, in 2025 officially around 68 million, look at the number of trucks and the state of the roads and tell me you believe those figures.
I used to drive nights back in the 70's, from Northants to Leeds and back, the M1 was almost empty, you could drive for 5 minutes or more without seeing a single vehicle, now try the same road overnight and ask yourself what the difference is, according to official figures
Before the M25 was built all commercial traffic had to negotiate through London and the surrounding towns when venturing south east, could you imagine if the M25 was now closed and everyone passed through the London boroughs.
There's no going back from this the population will continue to rise exponentially because its planned and to be frank people continue to vote for the same thing while expecting a different result.
I'm not making poltical points necessarily just pointing out that we now live in a ridiculously overpopulated island, where food production in particular has to be transported into urban areas (we don't make anything else now hence almost all trucks on the road are either food carriers, trucks associated with warehouse/house building, containers or car transporters), food imports come in mainly via the south eastern routes with the usual Chinese tat we can't live without via containers which means routes to/from those areas are always hellish and going to get worse.
You can't really blame the truck drivers for trying to do their jobs in inceasingly stressful circumstances.
As an aside, all those trucks you see delivering food to those huge supermarket RDC, when they get there they'll be treated with complete indifference and disrespect sometimes bordering on hostility by people behind a small hatchway one presents their paperwork through, when they put the truck on the bay the driver will have to hand his keys in a like a child and in many cases have to sit in a stinking overcrowded sometimes filthy waiting room on hard plastic chairs, might be a vending machine and dodgy toilet if they're lucky, sometimes for hours on end.
You think a bunch of truck drivers working sometimes 60/70 hours a week and treated like a sworn enemy feel that enthused about how their driving might be perceived when all they want is to go home?
No i don't work in RDC world but have done the odd stint between proper jobs, rather stick pins in my eyes, the drivers that do that work regularly deserve a hell of a lot better pay and respect than they generally receive, we'd all be hungry without them.
Could have gone on for hours, sorry for boring the pants off everyone, hopefully some food for thought there.
The point I was trying to make was simple.
I know why there are so many trucks, that is not what I was asking.
It was merely that on a dual carriageway, is it really worth it to overtake a string of trucks that might take 2 miles when if you got to the end of the road, 50 miles later, you might be half a mile further up it!! Then have to wait 2 hours to be tipped? I guess that is pot luck.
Also why does the guy being overtaken not just roll off the gas for half a second to ease the overtake, what is he gaining or losing sitting there flat out while another trucks creeps by at .2 mph faster? Is there really any true point of that?
I know why there are so many trucks, that is not what I was asking.
It was merely that on a dual carriageway, is it really worth it to overtake a string of trucks that might take 2 miles when if you got to the end of the road, 50 miles later, you might be half a mile further up it!! Then have to wait 2 hours to be tipped? I guess that is pot luck.
Also why does the guy being overtaken not just roll off the gas for half a second to ease the overtake, what is he gaining or losing sitting there flat out while another trucks creeps by at .2 mph faster? Is there really any true point of that?
bergclimber34 said:
The point I was trying to make was simple.
I know why there are so many trucks, that is not what I was asking.
It was merely that on a dual carriageway, is it really worth it to overtake a string of trucks that might take 2 miles when if you got to the end of the road, 50 miles later, you might be half a mile further up it!! Then have to wait 2 hours to be tipped? I guess that is pot luck.
Also why does the guy being overtaken not just roll off the gas for half a second to ease the overtake, what is he gaining or losing sitting there flat out while another trucks creeps by at .2 mph faster? Is there really any true point of that?
Momentum.I know why there are so many trucks, that is not what I was asking.
It was merely that on a dual carriageway, is it really worth it to overtake a string of trucks that might take 2 miles when if you got to the end of the road, 50 miles later, you might be half a mile further up it!! Then have to wait 2 hours to be tipped? I guess that is pot luck.
Also why does the guy being overtaken not just roll off the gas for half a second to ease the overtake, what is he gaining or losing sitting there flat out while another trucks creeps by at .2 mph faster? Is there really any true point of that?
bergclimber34 said:
The point I was trying to make was simple.
I know why there are so many trucks, that is not what I was asking.
It was merely that on a dual carriageway, is it really worth it to overtake a string of trucks that might take 2 miles when if you got to the end of the road, 50 miles later, you might be half a mile further up it!! Then have to wait 2 hours to be tipped? I guess that is pot luck.
Also why does the guy being overtaken not just roll off the gas for half a second to ease the overtake, what is he gaining or losing sitting there flat out while another trucks creeps by at .2 mph faster? Is there really any true point of that?
OK so you're doing 54 mph and the driver that wants to come by has 54.5 mph on tap, so you slow down a tad and let him by, next thing another truck behind you that was limited to 54.02mph decides you've slowed down and will pass, now you're down to 52 mph and Maritimes who are limited to around 53 start to pass you, then the Tesco who might be limted to 50 mph starts to pass, just how much do you slow down and when do you get back to your 54.5 mpg cruise, when JCB fastracks start coming by?I know why there are so many trucks, that is not what I was asking.
It was merely that on a dual carriageway, is it really worth it to overtake a string of trucks that might take 2 miles when if you got to the end of the road, 50 miles later, you might be half a mile further up it!! Then have to wait 2 hours to be tipped? I guess that is pot luck.
Also why does the guy being overtaken not just roll off the gas for half a second to ease the overtake, what is he gaining or losing sitting there flat out while another trucks creeps by at .2 mph faster? Is there really any true point of that?
The sheer number of trucks is a major part of the answer.
Try setting your car cruise to a certain speed and not allowing yourself to go above that speed no matter what, you've got a 13 14 or 15 hour day ahead of you, anything from 400 to 700 kms to cover with timed deliveries, no matter what you must not exceed that speed, you come up on yet another car thats mincing long in the middle lane at 50, soon as he sees you coming up along side he matches your speed, now tell me what your answer is.
You go to overtake the same mincer on a 2 ways road who immedietely increases speed, remember you can't go over the set speed which he's now doing.
Oh and put a block under the throttle pedal restricting your available power to around 12 bhp per ton loaded.
As i said, before much longer you'll have speed limiters enforced in your cars and can show the rest of us how it should be done, maybe have a day out with a friendly truck driver sometime and see for yourself what its like.
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