50mph on motorway due to road works

[simon]

Hello,

Just wondering if anyone can point me in right direction for the following dilemma

Motorway near me has a small stretch of 50mph due to road works..

So I drive at the 50mph as required on the outside lane.

However on more than one occasion I get a HGV tailgating, then they decide to go in to the next lane. Making very little progress by the time the HGV front end is almost at the side of my car the speed limit changes back to national 70mph again..

So i have two options

1, Foot down and do the new speed of 70mph and leave the HGV behind, usually this makes HGV driver annoyed and tooting horn

2, keep doing 50mph or slower, holding the traffic behind me and eventually the HGV will overtake me fully and move in my lane so then I can move over to overtake him.

Or other...

What to do ??

agrinnall

I'd do 1 unless the lorry was very close to completing the overtake. The driver has nothing to be annoyed about so if he wants to toot his horn that's up to him.

Strider590

50mph on your speedometer is not 50mph, probably closer to 45mph.
Truck drivers very often go by GPS speed, which is much more accurate.

Speeding prosecutions would not start until 56mph GPS, so no risk to truck drivers as their trucks are limited to 56 GPS anyway.

Cars travelling slower than truck is incredibly dangerous and truck drivers hate it, because a car sitting in their blind spot can easily end up getting T boned and pushed 1/2 a mile down the motorway when they move back over to lane 1.

Car_54

Strider590 wrote: »

Cars travelling slower than truck is incredibly dangerous and truck drivers hate it, because a car sitting in their blind spot can easily end up getting T boned and pushed 1/2 a mile down the motorway when they move back over to lane 1.

Indeed. If you're doing x mph and the truck is overtaking at x plus 1, then the safest thing to do is reduce speed to let him complete his overtake quickly and minimise the time you spend alongside him.

Shaka_Zulu

[simon] wrote: »

So I drive at the 50mph as required on the outside lane.

Why are you in the outside lane? If the truck is on your tail it would suggest the inside lane is free.

The rule keep left unless overtaking should be adhered to.

You aren't attempting to be a speed limit vigilante are you?

stator

Option 1 of course.

RichardD1970

Shaka_Zulu wrote: »

Why are you in the outside lane? If the truck is on your tail it would suggest the inside lane is free.

The rule keep left unless overtaking should be adhered to.

You aren't attempting to be a speed limit vigilante are you?

I expect he means lane one, just a confusion of terminology.

caprikid1

"50mph on your speedometer is not 50mph, probably closer to 45mph."


Really ? maybe on a morris minor but most car Speedo's are very accurate up to 80 at least.


There are lots of "You are doing" "30 / 40 / 50" signs "happy", "sad face" by me and even my old cars are accurate enough that I would never play the dangerous 10% game. What if they are reading 10% under ???

Geoff1963

I think the OP is referring to the end of the roadworks, where the OP is doing 50mph, and the lorry is overtaking at 51mph.

The answer may be to plan for the end of the roadworks, slowing to 45 mph so the lorry can pass before the roadworks end ; and doing so then, means going only 5 ( rather than 25 ) mph below the limit.
Think of it this way ; allowing the lorry to go at the optimum speed, means less pollution and faster delivery of what you buy in the shops.

mvteng

Option 3 - Move out of the outside lane, & let anyone who wants to overtake you do so

DoaM

caprikid1 wrote: »

Really ? maybe on a morris minor but most car Speedo's are very accurate up to 80 at least.

Really? I guess it depends on whether you believe the accuracy of GPS reading versus speedo reading. On my car ...

Speedo GPS
32     30
43     40
53     50
64     60
75     70