Safe Speed Forums

I spent the last week mentally noting what types of vehicle I've overtaken in my artic at 56 mph. You might find the results surprising.

I've been overtaken by as many HGVs as I've overtaken.
I've overtaken 3 times as many cars than HGVs.The cars are in the majority wavering between 52 and 58mph (approx) and I spent around 3 times as long in lane 2 during these manoevres for the overtake.
About 1/3 of cars travelling at this speed slowed to allow me to pass quicker. This created a 'mexican wave' effect with the following HGV's overtaking them.

FAR more sudden braking etc was caused by these slow-moving cars.

Maybe it's time we had a mandatory 60mph limit on motorways for category B vehicles-obvious common sense exceptions apply such as signed limits, obstructions etc...

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Maybe it's time we got rid of the HGV speed limiters which cause more problems than they fix.

The running costs would be too high. An artic does approx 9mpg@56mph. At 60 it's a lot higher, etc etc...

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Smokebelching,CO2 making,child murdering planet raping,granny mugging,politically incorrect globally warming (or is it climate changing now it's getting colder?)thug.
That's what the government want you to believe of me. If they get back in I'm emigrating.

Now if , just if, the costs of a drivers wages as opposed to fuel costs and the cost of congestion were brought into the equation - but of course there's no political will. Tony buys a new suite, measured to ensure Chirac 's hand can fit in the rear of the jacket.
The German Chancellor shouts "that's the way to do it" as Chirac hits tony over the head with the EEC budget

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Not completely correct.
Most trucks if geared correctly, would be quite happy at 60mph, and more fuel economic.
One thing that screws the motorways up is the supermarket trolleys bimbling along at 50 mph, thereby forcing trucks at 56mph to overtake them, thereby causing congestion for cars that want to overtake them.

Most trucks nowadays are geared to run at 56mph, it wouldn't take much to regear them to run at 60mph.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I though we lived in a free market economy? If a vehicle operator wished to restrict his vehicles to 56mph or 54mph he should be allowed to do so. If, on the other hand, he didn't then that also should be allowed. Unless of course there was an overriding national interest - which there isn't.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

How do you explain this then?
In Australia, before they were restricted in yet another knee-jerk safety drive, they had a legal limit of 70mph and would normally drive around 80mph where possible?

When i 1st started driving trucks 32tons, 220bhp, 60mph, 7mpg, 12 speed gearbox,driving for more hours than we do now.
The job was hard but we got to our delivery point ok.
Now i have 44tons, 420bhp,53mph, 8-9mpg,16 speed gearbox,driving less hours but have POA's to make the day or night longer but still have to get to the delivery points on time.
How? you push all the time dont have time to back off.

Speaking as a car driver I think the problem lies with the car driver. We all know large lorries are restricted to 56mph, we all know what happens to a heavily laden lorry on a hill, we all know how long it can take one to overtake the other etc, etc.

So car drivers where possible should get out of their way. I wouldn't like to force a car driver to drive faster than they are happy with but if they are not happy driving faster than 60mph on a motorway then they shouldn't be there until they are.

I dread to think how much energythere is in a fully laden lorry at 56mph but as far as I am concerned he can have all the road he wants I am not going to argue or get in his way.

A lorry driver is working, the road is his work place I wouldn't like anybody to interfere with my work or slow me down or get in the way etc.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Actually I would suggest that the majority of car drivers DON'T know that LGVs are limited and that's where the problem starts.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

You are probably right. It needs to be more widely advertised and then car drivers might be a bit more tolerant.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Actually, my attitide is more along the lines of 'LGVs carry goods. How do you think your supermarket gets the goods it sells? If you don't like seeing lorries on the road, TOUGH'

But you're right Brookwood - educating people to the needs and limitations on LGVs would help. There seem to be far too many out there who think that an LGV can be menueovred as easily as a car.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I think you might be fighting a losing batttle there when kids don't even know milk comes from cows.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

Good point...

I must admit I was rather impressed with Gorden Ramsey's F word at the weekend. He's been looking after some Turkeys all year and he slaughtered and plucket them live on air. Gruesome or not, at least it shows people where the food comes from...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I didn't see that but if it was before the watershed I bet there are loads of complaints.

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

There were loads of warnings in the ad breaks about it, but yeah, I bet it got loads of complaints too, which is really sad IMO.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

It's about time people woke up to the real world, it's called the "food chain" and it's what we do to survive.

I wonder how many of the (hypocritical) people who complained will be sitting there on Xmas day tucking in to something that was quite happily wandering around a farm a week or two before.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Would suggest a lot of the problems HGV( or indeed anything a bit longer than a car) face need to be advertised .

TRY highway code rule 196(http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/20.htm#196)


How often do you see cars holding back to let a HGV pull out wide - or a bus or realising that a Sprinter/longwheelbase transit need a bit more room.

Since driving a works transit -- about 19 ft long ( a mini by HGV standards) i've come to see what these blokes have to put up with, and the abuse when (in car or van) i get simply by holding back to give these blokes a bit of room ,is unreal.
Same with a bus on roads with a "mini" island - he needs room to swing - but how many drivers think of it ??

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

[off topic]

Said on Ceefax that the F Word is being investigated after some complaints about the turkey slaughtering bit. I think it was only about 8 complaints though. Didn't see the warnings at the start of the program, but before the break it was crystal clear what was coming up next so Mrs Gatsobait left the room for a few minutes until they'd finished that bit.

I'd argue that it was educational. I think Gixxer is right that people who want to eat meat (like me) ought to understand what's going on in the process before we can honestly decide if we're okay with it. Some people will probably go veggie as a result of watching it, so veggies ought not to complain that it was shown on TV. IMO it wasn't pleasant but it could have been a hell of a lot worse, and the turkeys had had it pretty nice up till that point. That's more than can be said for many food birds, so I'm not chucking my Xmas dinner in the bin.

You have to wonder if the complaints came from people who are only upset because they had previously been in blissful ignorance and would have preferred to carry on not knowing. If so it's head in the sand stuff really.
[/off topic]

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Botach - I agree with you 100%. I've been beeped at, sworn at, you name it when hanging back to leave room for a large vehicle (and that includes large vans ). I've been out with Nos4r2 a couple of times in his trucks and the things I've seen begger belief.

Gatsobait. Well said mate. I remember hearing a tale once from a bloke who ran a restaurant in the Yorkshire Dales (right next to a sheep farm). The dish of the day was lamb and some snotty towny woman refused to eat it after watching 'those little cute lambs running about in the field'. She was horrified when she realised where the meat came from. Excuse me for a moment, I'm quietly smouldering to myself at the thought....

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.