Driving Economically - 56mph Myth??

iltisman

I have just finished from a job that was a 282 round trip and over 6years I perfected economical driving, freewheel when possible, anticipate so no breaking is required, let speed bleed off up hill, gain speed on non freewheelable descents,use gps to display arrival time and slow to achieve on time arrival and finally dont be intimidated into burning more fuel by non frugal drivers. Oh I forgot over inflate tyres by 10%.

achtunglady

jdm01 wrote:

This figure has stuck in my head and I always feel myself trying to get close to the 56mph on motorways (albeit in a 3L diesel engine & I still believe it is a false figure).

Why are you not driving at the speed limit on the motorway, its 70mph in all lanes except for lorries, which cannot use the outside lane. One thing that peeves my other half off is an idiot going at 50 mph in the middle lane, sitting in the blind spot of his lorry, when he's trying to get somewhere to take a break which he has to do by law. The police or traffic commisioner will not take the excuse of "i was stuck in traffic" or "i couldnt overtake because some idiot was lane hogging in the middle lane" and are very heavy when it comes down to dishing out fines and revoking licenses. Your car can do 70 so do it!! If you dont want to do 70 then stick to the A roads

wdyw

achtunglady wrote:

One thing that peeves my other half off is an idiot going at 50 mph in the middle lane, sitting in the blind spot of his lorry, when he's trying to get somewhere to take a break which he has to do by law.

If the car doing 50mph is in your fellas blind spot then surely he is behind his lorry and hence not impeding him?? - unless you mean he is in the blind spot just in front of your fellas lorry and in the next lane across, and of course its a blind spot as your fellas lorry is a foot behind the lorry in front trying to save a penny of fuel.

Ban all HGV's between 7am - 7pm on motorways. That's the first thing I would do if I had my way.

tomstickland

gps to display arrival time and slow to achieve on time arrival and finally dont be intimidated into burning more fuel by non frugal drivers

A fascinating insight into a reason why some people choose to drive down straight A roads at 40mph?

martindow

Definitely not advisable but presumably driving close to the back of a lorry would remove a lot of wind resistance and aid economy. I know that some cycling speed records were made using a wooden track laid between railway lines and the cyclist following a train. The last carriage was fitted with a sort of cowl that enclosed the cyclist.

achtunglady

wdyw wrote:

If the car doing 50mph is in your fellas blind spot then surely he is behind his lorry and hence not impeding him?? - unless you mean he is in the blind spot just in front of your fellas lorry and in the next lane across, and of course its a blind spot as your fellas lorry is a foot behind the lorry in front trying to save a penny of fuel.

Ban all HGV's between 7am - 7pm on motorways. That's the first thing I would do if I had my way.

Yes I do mean the blind spot in the middle lane, and if hgvs were banned on motorways during the days, how do you think any goods will be transported?
There would be no tankers/food deliveries/mail on the roads. Not all premises are open 24 hours a day to accept deliveries at night, so shops will have to pay out more for staff to work during the night, thus putting the cost up for the consumer.

And this great debacle about foreign lorries side swiping cars as they overtake, cars have an extra lane to drive in, lorries can only use the middle and inside lane, so really theres no excuse for this happening, only happens if you hog the middle lane and are not aware of the traffic around you and are not anticipating other road users maneouvres and by not going at the speed limit.

tomstickland

Lorries on motorways are not a big problem IMO. People complain about them as a distraction from their own ineptitude.

Regarding being sideswiped, whenever you overtake something you should be looking to see if it might have cause to pull out and look in the mirror to see what's coming up in the outside lane. It's called anticipation.

Talking of which....one day I was accelerating down a slip road onto the motorway. There was a lorry in the LH lane and a car behind me in the middle lane. Outside lane was empty. I pulled out round the lorry into the middle lane. Car had plenty of time and space to sort things out. What did they do? Yes, flash me.

tomstickland

You should anticipate anything that could reasonably happen. In congested traffic, with three lanes moving at a similar speed then there's not much you can do and you'd hope that a lorry would take its time pulling out, but with when the road is moving at higher speed then you should anticipate a lorry pulling out so you can act swiftly if it does.

From my observations, lorries are not a problem.

tomstickland

I shouldn't have to check that a pedestrian isn't going to walk out into the road, but I do. Your adding something to cover for the possibility of someone else making a mistake.

tomstickland

Well, I don't like being level with a lorry for a long period of time. I tend to hang back and then speed up past them to reduce the amount of time in the danger zone.