Driving at Speeds

[inder]

I also agree that acceleration is a nice feeling as I had somebody in a mini cooper try it on at the weekend, I promptly told him at the next set of lights not to bring a butter knife to a sword fight then left him in my smoke.

It's alright - the fun of the MINI is driving through the bends - not the straights.

On the subject of lorry drivers and safe distances why is is that lorry drivers/coach drivers etc themselves persist in tailgating people. These are so- called professional drivers who must be fully aware of the carnage that could be caused by this.

I will also bet a penny to a pound that the majority of drivers who cruise at comfortable 3 figure speeeds wouldn't have a hope in hell of maintaining control if an emergency arose at that speed.

 

[Benzowner]

PJH, Rules 144 & 145 are quite correct, however, I have not seen any lorries trying to overtake on many A roads, I, perhaps wrongly, thought we were refering to motorway driving. After all, on an A road, the lorries and cars with trailers are restricted to 50mph, and that is why, in most cases, lorries and particularly caravaners are given bad press over the speed at which they are driving.

 

[219]

I , too , have taken it that we are talking about motorways and dual carriageways .

It may be fine for you folks down south with your third lane available ( which HGV's and vehicles towing trailers are not allowed to use ) but here in Scotland where our motorways have only two lanes it IS a big problem if two slow moving lorries decide to set up a rolling roadblock for several minutes while one tries to overtake the other . Even after the overtake has been completed , the tailback can take a while to clear .

On the subject of slow(er) moving vehicles causing an obstruction , what causes me annoyance is the driver of a tractor or similar slow moving vehicle who seems unaware of the requirement to pull over once you have a queue of six vehicles behind. I live in the countryside and often see the result of this sort of inconsiderate driver causing a queue literally miles long (seen when travelling in the opposite direction) . People get frustrated and end up taking chances to get past - accidents are inevitable .

Re the signs on the A9 , Highland constabulary are known to often pull caravanners over who seem unaware of the queue behind them . Although I used to caravan myself , I have noticed that nowadays a lot of them do not bother with proper towing mirrors , perhaps this is one reason why ?

It is not only high speed that can cause problems on the road , sometimes slow speed (relative to the majority of other traffic) can be too .

 

[scotth_uk]

It's alright - the fun of the MINI is driving through the bends - not the straights.

Here stands a man who speaks the truth.

 

[W210 Fan]

It's alright - the fun of the MINI is driving through the bends - not the straights.

That is true, maybe what upset more was my big old mans Merc getting away from him round the bends too............

 

[jimti]

Perhaps there is a lorry driver who can clarify but I sympathise with them as they have their speed restricted but this causes slight differentials but some as low as 56 mph. It must be frustrating if you can keep up a steady 68mph to be stuck behind someone at 66. The logical conclusion is that they all end up at the speed of the slowest. When they go to overtake, they must time the manoeuvre precisely but unlike is car drivers they cannot accelerate up to an overtaking speed.

All trucks over 7.5 tonnes are (mechanically) restricted to 80 kph, but with a tolerance that allows up to 90 kph (56 mph), some trucks do seem to have more tolerance than others, the reason they tend to make overtaking manoeuvres on hills is due to the difference in power to weight ratio's of each truck. I will always slow down if another truck is trying to pass me on a flat road, (I like as much space around me as possible) but would not usually slow down when going up hill as it could be very hard to regain lost speed.
Most truck drivers drive at the speed set by their limiter, when they get close to a slower truck it gets very frustrating to have to keep adjusting speed, so they will often make slow overtaking manoeuvres, all of us would like to go faster when overtaking. The national speed limit for trucks on UK motorways is 60 mph, but we are restricted to 50 to 56 mph by EC regulations.

 

[jimti]

A question on lorry speed limiters, how are these set/calibrated, I've been overtaken by lorries doing more than the signs displayed on the back, do different lorries have different speeds set for different countries? I often see them with two or three different speed signs on the back.

the speeds you see on the back of trucks are in KPH, normally 60 (a road) 80 (duel carriageway) and 90 (motorway) All trucks in the EC are restricted to 80 KPH (read 90 kph) but speed limits are different in nearly every country in Europe for trucks

Also, when driving in Europe (France I think), there are specific overtaking lanes for lorries (up hill), maybe we should introduce them here.

In France they sometimes have an extra nearside lane for slow vehicles, but also often ban these vehicles from the offside lane. this lane is normally instead of the hard shoulder