It seems that if they have their foot on the floor and they are closing on a vehicle they (probably a selfish minority) *have* to overtake, even if it is going to take 5 miles.
But once again, because of what I believe is a selfish minority, we / they all get hit by the same ban.
However, I can also appreciate (mainly as a cyclist / motorcyclist) that there can be occasions when you feel you are making good speed on someone, go to overtake then find the headwind suddenly takes away any hope you had and you lose maybe half of the advantage. I'm not sure how much impact headwind has on a lorry but knowing they are worse aerodynamically than cyclists or even motorcycles then it could be 'quite a lot'.
The other things is I wonder how much of this isn't helped by the lorry being overtaken speeding up (because it happens they can because of a gradient change or shift in wind direction) and then leaving the overtaking vehicle stranded? If so I thought that was against the rules / highway code (even if only by 5mph)?
Presumably it's far easier to plant your boot on the accelerator and let the speed limiter kick-in, than to manually match your speed/distance to the truck in front.
What if there was a fine-grained tuning knob on the speed limiter, so they could trim it *down* by a fraction of a mph and keep up with the vehicle in front without the bother of having to do it manually, or a radar based distance-keeper like some cars have?
I guess, especially if the difference in speeds is marginal.
Either might work (and the latter probably work better) and is in fact what I though those who were envisioning what our roads would be like in the future predicted? That is, 'trains' of vehicles all going along together automatically?
There is nothing more frustrating that allowing a big truck out (often more like back off to stop it hitting you as they swerve out at the last moment) and then having (along with 40 other cars and faster vehicles) then sit behind it and what it is overtaking for the next 5 miles.
Maybe being a 'Knight of the road' goes out of the window when you are on a deadline?
I often tow (behind the car, motorbike and cycle) and am very aware that I, often because of the law rather than any physical / speed limitations of my vehicles, are forced to go slower that the road would typically allow. So, I am very conscious of what is behind me and will very often (as soon as the circumstances allow or make it so asap if not) either pull over / slow on an obvious / clear overtaking spot (indicating left as I do so) or pull into a lay by or petrol station just long enough to let anyone past.
I have observed some slow farm vehicles doing the same and many more that do not.
The problem with a "train" of lorries all going along at exactly the same speed is that they may follow at a barely-safe distance from each other - certainly too small a distance for a car to nip between them. So when you come to one of these "trains" you know that you have to find an opportunity to overtake *all* of them in one go, because you won't be able to get past them individually, in stages.
On a motorway or dual carriageway, that's fine: the only traffic you need to worry about is what is coming up behind you. But "trains" wouldn't be workable on a single-lane road because you'd never find a time when you could get past a "train" of maybe 10 lorries without a car coming in the opposite direction while you were on the wrong side of the road.
On a single-carriageway road, good lorry drivers (and there *are* some!) keep a sensible gap from another lorry to give cars that want to go faster than them the opportunity to leapfrog past lorries one by one.
OK. 1) we are talking about 'automated' speed / distance control her so the gaps would be minimal and 2) we are only talking of motorways and the like.
See above. ;-)
Quite, so never considered in that scenario.
I witnessed some very good lorry driving a while back and rang the 'How is my driving' number on the back. The woman at the other end couldn't seem to process the idea that someone would do so to say something nice / good. ;-(
The max road speed of my tractor fleet:-) is 18mph. Modern stuff does
40k.
Advice to tractor drivers has always been to pull over considerately.
I had a nervous moment recently. 50mph speed limit North of Luton for the new M1 junction roadworks. There is variable hard shoulder use to limit congestion. Wanting to turn off at junction 11 from lane 1, I indicated and upset a lorry driver who had unknown to me moved on to the hard shoulder and started to *undertake*. He liked it even less when I gained a bit of space and cut across his bows!
There's another problem: the car drivers who slow down to overtake lorries :-) Imagine the scene: loads of cars doing around 70 mph (some a bit slower, some a bit faster). The lead car comes to a long train of maybe 10 lorries. And he slows down to 56.1 mph, crawls past all 10 lorries (which would take as long as a lorry doing it) and then speeds up to 70 afterwards.
It's incredible how often I see people doing this on a motorway (goodness knows why) - I'm not just imagining it.
Another implication: there would need to be better signposting of junctions so you know to get into Lane 1 behind the train in plenty of time to leave. And joining traffic may need to be traffic-light controlled to save it accelerating down a slip road just as a train approaches from under the bridge (where it is hidden from the view of the slip road traffic) and finding that the train has got there first: there will need to be longer slip roads to allow for braking to a halt and then accelerating from rest after the train has passed. Or else the software will need to separate the train into individual lorries, with space in between for joining traffic to join before moving out into Lane 2, and then the train can be reformed afterwards.
How do automated trains of lorries cope with an accident? Suppose two cars collide just ahead of a lorry or a car pulls in very close ahead of a lorry, maybe because he's about to miss his exit. The first lorry slams on his brakes. Will the train software be able to brake all the other lorries quickly enough? I imagine its reaction time will be faster than a human's, so maybe they can tolerate much closer distances than in the Highway Code.
But what about a dead stop? Suppose the lead lorry experiences a catastrophic failure or hits something, causing it to stop far more suddenly than normal emergency braking. All the other lorries will pile into the back (*), leading to horrendous problems - not only for the drivers but also because of shed loads. I wouldn't want to be stuck behind that lot for the hours and hours it takes for them to reopen the road.
(*) Because the inter-lorry distance will be predicated on lorries stopping at normal rate. I doubt whether it will be sufficient for one lorry to stop if the one stops "instantaneously".
I have seen some of your tractor fleet and would love to see them on parade. ;-)
Yeah, I've seen them bundling along sometimes just hoping they *are* actually in control!
Open to interpretation I guess.
That can be a difficult one, depending on how soon you take to the off slip etc. Some seem to wait till the last second and approach it from L3!. ;-(
I think we generally have the advantage of speed and manoeuvrability but I try to give them a reasonable wide berth (especially any with 'continental' plates). ;-)
Aren't most 'overtakes' supposed to be done cleanly and efficiently?
"move quickly past the vehicle you are overtaking, once you have started to overtake."
Quite ... or tries to pin you against the Armco.
Not sure how many roundabouts there are on the main part of motorways and 'obviously' this system was only suggested (and is being trialed) for straight sections of multi laned road.
Exactly! With the cruise control on the car I find myself doing the same thing if I'm not careful. I have it set to (say) 70mph and find I'm doing about 1mph faster than the car in front - result, I do a lorry style slow motion overtake! In practice I look in the mirror and if I'm not holding anyone up then I just do the slow overtake, if there's someone there then I just go a little faster to complete the overtake in a reasonable time (which the lorry with a speed limiter can't do of course).
As a matter of interest, does a lorry speed limiter (*) simply control engine power (like a car's speed limiter) or does it also control braking to prevent a lorry going over the limit on a downhill?
Lorries overtaking and taking forever to do it cause unnecessary delays.
Tougher rules for lorries are long over due- minimum spacing, overtaking, allowing vehicles to pass, limit days they can use roads, .... Before people scream they aren't practical, they work in other countries.
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