Bloody lorries

[Marshy]

As per a thread in Speeding & Plod, can we please start doing lorry drivers for impeding the traffic flow? It''s quite annoying having to follow two racing lorries most of the way along the A14 from Cambridge to Huntingdon. Clearly neither lorry is winning, why won''t one give up gracefully? Ummm, winning. There''s a word... can we get ''em done for racing on the public road? The circumstances are the same: two drivers extracting the maximum from their vehicles, one trying to out-do the other. Cars? Points/fine/ban/court/arrest/jail. Lorry drivers? Carry right on sir. And while you''re at it, don''t worry about those indicators when you pull out. Just do it when some bloke you''ve been watching for 30 seconds in your mirror is about to pass you on the outside. Maybe give it a flash as you straddle the white line to let him know the maneauvre you''re halfway through. And there''s more. I really don''t buy all that hogwash about lorries needing lots of time to accelerate up to their top speed. I mean, it doesn''t take much time *in anything* to get back to 56 from, like, 52 mph after you''ve waited behind something slower for a reasonable gap to open up. I recently went driving fully loaded lorries of various desriptions around a test track, incluing hills, and they went surprisingly well. There was certainly no need to conserve momentum in the same way that some would have us believe. Sure, these were modern lorries, but so are most of the ones that I see racing up and down the A14. Er. I''ll stop ranting now... boy, do I feel better

[Dave_H]

Chris, You "met" with one of these lorry drivers yesterday didn't you? The rant does give it away.. Edited by Dave_H on Saturday 11th August 09:07

[Marshy]

I drive up and down the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge nearly every day of my life. I live in one of the villages surrounding Cambridge, but socialise in Cambridge itself. I frequently have lunch there, go shopping there, and so on. The A14 is unavoidable in many ways, and so are the little irritations it brings with it. Thank god plans are on the table to improve it.

[jmorgan]

They are the same everywhere. I drive a fair bit for work and see it all the time. The worst part is when caravans get involved (may the great God star wars target them) and they are trying to overtake a lorry. They come out once or twice a year and plague us.

[muley]

Well, I am sick to death of being forced to swerve (or slam my brakes on if there's someone in the outside lane) out of their way as they signal and pull out into the middle lane of a 3 lane stretch of motorway so they can accelerate to a sphincter-tightening 56m.p.h. to pass their Yorkie munching buddy ambling along at 55m.p.h. Knights of the Road? **seholes, I reckon. :mad Rant over.

[tvr_nut]

Part of the trouble is the drive for cheaper everything - this has driven down the pay of HGV drivers, lowered the quality of driving, and resulted in older lorries, which break down on busy junctions with monotonous regularity. At one time, you could rely on truckers to indicate to pass parked vehicles, cyclists etc, leave sensible gaps between for overtakers to pull into etc. Now many of them are as bad as the general public!

[philshort]

And when the second lorry actually manages to pass the first, the decline turns into an incline, and now the lighter lorry is going faster so he pulls out to overtake! Just a word of caution. These guys are doing there best to get from A to B as fast as possible, but have to live with a speed limited rig. I'm not defending downright selfish behaviour, but go down the

quote:"theres no reason why they should be overtaking, they're both restricted to the same speed"

route and who knows where we may ALL end up. Edited by philshort on Monday 13th August 13:31