Driving without due care and attention HGV

mikey72

mbs1 wrote: »

Maybe you need to speed up then, Lorries do 56mph if your doing 55mph it would take ages to overtake you so therefore he sits behind waiting for you to pull off at a junction ( not that sort of pulling off) or decide to put your right foot down a bit as the car can do 70 on a m/way....

Back to the OP, id say take the course, maybe the car was in the blindspot, but if it cam to where the lanes go from 2 to 1 and the car was still there what would the lorry driver do, stop in the fast lane?

At least you've had the guts to admit you tailgate, and try to push traffic out of the way, and are you saying you would hit the car rather than stop, if you had seen it? How about slowing down and pulling in behind it.

jfinnie

Quinny & Connor; obviously this is going massively off-topic, and I don't have any interest in hijacking this thread (I imagine the HGV vs car drivers argument is as productive as the cyclist vs drivers one)... All I can say is I'm glad you can make such sweeping evaluation of my driving skills and then rant-on about a whole load of unrelated issues - somehow implying I'm exactly the kind of person to commit those sorts of things. I was specifically objecting to situations very similar to the OP's situation where it seems SOME trucks pull out with little care / awareness of what is already there. The case I mentioned was a large luton-style DHL truck, but I have had very similar near-death experiences with both foreign and British HGVs. The A14 is particularly bad for this - with 35% of accidents on the A14 involving HGV - but they are only 8% of the traffic.

I'm actually very courteous to trucks & buses on the road, often holding back even though travelling faster to let them overtake the truck in front at 2 or 3 miles an hour faster... which is why I am particularly insensed when the same level of courtesy isn't extended to me as a much more vulnerable vehicle on the road. In fairness to the HGV's I probably come across more idiot car drivers on the road in a day (don't get me started on what brands of cars they are usually in!) than HGV's in a week - but it doesn't half stick in your mind when 10 or 40 tonnes of metal is coming into your lane and you're trying to work out if you prefer the taste of metal railing or rubber tyres!

Everyone appreciates driving an HGV is difficult - I certainly would not want to or choose to do it - but there are clearly people who are doing it who shouldn't be - perhaps they are the ones I have come across. I wasn't trying to say that anyone posting here falls into that category.

Quinny_2

Glad we've cleared that one up then!!!!

Conor_3

mikey72 wrote: »

I just go off the fact you drive 3 inches from my bumper on the motorway, so I hope you can stop as fast as me.:rotfl:

We're only 3" off your rear end because when you dive onto the motorway, you seem to think that you're entitled to a stopping distance but we're not. It's funny how you never dive onto the motorway 3" from the vehicle in front...

Conor_3

jfinnie wrote: »

The A14 is particularly bad for this - with 35% of accidents on the A14 involving HGV - but they are only 8% of the traffic.

Most of them being foreign....

mikey72

Conor wrote: »

We're only 3" off your rear end because when you dive onto the motorway, you seem to think that you're entitled to a stopping distance but we're not. It's funny how you never dive onto the motorway 3" from the vehicle in front...

"yes officer, I ran into him because he pulled on to the motorway 3" in front of me and I couldn't work out how to make the gap bigger, I was there for miles and nothing came to me":rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Pssst

Driving down the motorway tonight reminded me of a potential killer. The truck with a left hand steering wheel wishing to swap lanes left to right. I observed one in the distance in the left lane. I could just make out the writing on the back. Foreign. I was well behind it in the middle lane having just overtaken. As i closed on it i determined to move to the right(fast lane!) to overtake it,leaving space in the middle lane. My in built telepathy told me it would move right to the middle lane. Sure enough,as i moved to the fast lane,still well behind him,he signalled and stepped about 2 ft right but paused. Presumably he was well aware of the dangers but wasnt absolutely sure middle lane was clear. I gave a quick flash and continued over to the right though i was still well behind him.

Motorists-be very careful of Euro trucks moving right ! There have been a good many deaths caused already

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-499831/Sideswiping-foreign-lorries-reduced-half-introduction-special-lenses.html

Idiophreak

mbs1 wrote: »

Maybe you need to speed up then, Lorries do 56mph if your doing 55mph it would take ages to overtake you so therefore he sits behind waiting for you to pull off at a junction ( not that sort of pulling off) or decide to put your right foot down a bit as the car can do 70 on a m/way....

Mixed feelings
a) Sometimes you're just in traffic or need to be in that lane - in that case, there's really no excuse for the lorry tailgating, but they still do it...

b) I really think any car driver being overtaken by a lorry on the motorway should have their right to drive removed instantly and permanently. Don't think *anything* winds me up more than a massive tailback of traffic caused by some ***** in the inside lane doing 45mph, forcing a queue of HGVs into the middle lane and all the stupid f-ing 60mph drivers into the fast lane...does my nut.

cyclonebri1

You obviously don't drive the motorways I do then. Anyone who manages to do 60mph has been extremely lucky, stop start is the order of the day in our locality.

Incidentally, talking about get up close and friendly with hgv's, there is at present an 8 mile section of the MI in Notts thats being widened from 3 to 4 lanes. It has been down to a 50mph speed limit, averaging cameras etc, fo over a year and will be for at least another year.
There are 2 x 10ft wide lanes and the outer lane is only 8ft
It is choco with mixed traffic every morning and night and extremely frightening at times. You have the choice of going for the 3rd, narrow lane which excludes hgv's but puts you so close to them that you regularly have to drive on the rumble strip, or you go for one of the inner lanes and become the meat in a tightly packed hgv sandwich. NOT ENJOYABLE. The gap between traffic is non existant at times:eek: :eek: :eek:

ozvaldinho

If a lorry tailgates me at 55 mph in a stream of traffic moving together, I just slow down another couple of mph and move him back to s sensible gap, then re-adjust my speed to what it was before. Most of these jerks get the message after this has happened two or three times.

Any news from the OP yet?