Simple question

[bergclimber34]

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

[gazza285]

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.

[tumble dryer]

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.

[Smint]

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 fk , 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.

[bergclimber34]

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?

[gazza285]

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.

[Smint]

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?

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.

[nismo48]

Smint said:

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 fk , 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.

Great post

[Smint]

nismo48 said:

Great post

Cheers, but i think it fell on stony ground.

[tumble dryer]

Smint said:

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 fk , 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.

Thanks for the reply.

As I said, it's good to hear the 'other' side.

Stay safe, and a Merry Christmas to you.

[Smint]

tumble dryer said:

Thanks for the reply.

As I said, it's good to hear the 'other' side.

Stay safe, and a Merry Christmas to you.

You're welcome and a Happy Christmas yourself and kin.

[Ankh87]

Smint said:

Lots of stuff.....

I agree with you on this. What I hate though is the sheer amount of left hand drives on the road. Especially on the dual-carriageways. To me it seems a bit iffy when they overtake and it's more guess work due to blind spots. Also these drivers seem to have less road sense.

I also agree with the population, I remember when I were a boy, that on a night you'd rarely see cars/lorries etc on the motorways or A1. Now though even at midnight and early hours there's loads.

Hats off to all you drivers. Can you go on strike and block the roads until the Government drops the prices of fuel.

[Smint]

Ankh87 said:

I agree with you on this. What I hate though is the sheer amount of left hand drives on the road. Especially on the dual-carriageways. To me it seems a bit iffy when they overtake and it's more guess work due to blind spots. Also these drivers seem to have less road sense.

I also agree with the population, I remember when I were a boy, that on a night you'd rarely see cars/lorries etc on the motorways or A1. Now though even at midnight and early hours there's loads.

Hats off to all you drivers. Can you go on strike and block the roads until the Government drops the prices of fuel.

Back in the 70s there was a lorry driver's strike, personally i didn't go on strike because we would have been striking for less money than we were on at the time.

LHD trucks are a problem, not quite so bad now that Fresnel lenses are more popular and to be fair truck mirrors have improved over the years, plus blind spot warning lights in the mirrors are becoming a thing...assuming the driver has the nous to set them correctly, and its shocking how many in both LH and RH trucks haven't a clue about that.
Cameras instead if mirrors arn't there yet.
The problem still is that people in cars don't look at the vehicles they are running alongside, if you're running along beside the offside of a LHD truck cab you really should try to be there for as little time as possible, yes its the truck drivers responsibility to know who's where and drive accordingly, but in the real world if you get into a fight with a heavy truck there's only one winnner.

Blind spots don't really exist any more on modern trucks thanks to the 6 mirrors typically fitted, but those mirrors have to be set correctly and kept clean as well as the windows, i could prove to you that you could not approach my vehicle from any angle other than from behind without me seeing you, and this should apply to all trucks but in the cut and thrust of modern constantly changing traffic by the time you've swept your eyes over the 6 mirrors and the ns blind spot camera as well as out the windows its all too easy for someone to drift into vision and the driver misses it.

Also people have to keep in mind that foreign driver attitudes to roundabouts can be completely different, ie very often turning right they'll approach in the left lane and stay in that lane all the way round, not necessarily indicating.
Again technically they're wrong but once again you arn't going to win against those 3 trailer axles so best assume the worst case not be in the crush zone.

Thankfully most of us manage to rub along together.

Edited by Smint on Tuesday 23 December 16:46

[Wacky Racer]

I was on top of a double decker bus a few years back on the M65 motorway going to Colne from Burnley, the bus driver attempted to overtake a large truck doing about 60mph, and we were going side by side for about three miles, until the bus managed to complete the overtake a few hundred yards from the end of the motorway.

Crazy.

a) The lorry driver should have just let him pass,

b) My bus driver should have just been happy to stay behind the lorry in the first place.

Both were being stubborn.