[robby12345uk]

Driving down the M6 in pouring rain yesterday I had the following experiences:-

1) Witnessing one lorry taking 12 minutes to overtake another one causing a huge tailback in the process.

2) Having one lorry pull out right in front of me as I was about to overtake without signalling, I pulled into outside lane and passed, my wife looked across to driver who was on his mobile and paying no attention to road.

3) Another lorry pulled out right in front as about to pass, just as that happened another lorry came up behind virtually touching my towbar, this all happening at 60 mph in sodden conditions.

I am sure lorry drivers will claim car drivers are the ones at fault somehow, i would ask them to explain the above actions please and before they say it is a minority, by my experiences it is NOT!

[smudger]

Were those truck drivers UK ones, or some of the many European drivers we get driving on out motorways these days?

[Snowball]

I think this is a little emotive; like the title of the topic.

There are liberal numbers of poor drivers covering about every catagory of vehicle you wish to name. Lorries will stand out above the rest, simply because of their size. The main problem is, when they do get involved in a collision, their size and weight usually results in extremely serious injuries and damage.

Singling out one category for the hot seat is not representative of the problems that need to be resolved in order to make our roads safer.
Co-operation, not confrontation, is the key to the way forward.

Regards, Snowball.

[tommytwotanks]

do you think then that we (the british) should ban any non-british driver from our roads if convicted of any serious motoring offence for a minimum of 1 year

tommy :D

[Snowball]

Originally Posted by tommytwotanks

do you think then that we (the british) should ban any non-british driver from our roads if convicted of any serious motoring offence for a minimum of 1 year

tommy :D

Most certainly; and longer where the seriousness of the offence warranted it. And not confined to non-British.
By "not confrontation", I was not inferring that this should mean leniency in respect of driving offences. I was thinking more on the lines of avoiding setting out to castigate a particular category of driver/vehicle on the perception that this category is the root cause of problems on the roads.

For co-operation, I was thinking of the government and road safety organisations getting together to identify and resolve the conflict on our roads between different clases of driver/vehicles.
It may be a tough call, but conditions on our roads are never going to get easier and it's better than doing nothing.

[wagolynn]

Originally Posted by robby12345uk

Driving down the M6 in pouring rain yesterday I had the following experiences:-

1) Witnessing one lorry taking 12 minutes to overtake another one causing a huge tailback in the process.

2) Having one lorry pull out right in front of me as I was about to overtake without signalling, I pulled into outside lane and passed, my wife looked across to driver who was on his mobile and paying no attention to road.

3) Another lorry pulled out right in front as about to pass, just as that happened another lorry came up behind virtually touching my towbar, this all happening at 60 mph in sodden conditions.

I am sure lorry drivers will claim car drivers are the ones at fault somehow, i would ask them to explain the above actions please and before they say it is a minority, by my experiences it is NOT!

I am not a lorry driver. In the past, pre 40 footers, I learned from comparable situations you describe that if I could not see clearly the lorries mirrors then the lorry could not see me.
My normal practice is, if I am not sure the driver knows I am there, to overtake with a lane clearance. Should this not be possible then I just wait until either criteria is satisfied.
Lorries overtaking, my tactic here is to sit back and think of the fuel I am saving. Then being in a small vehicle I just make up the lost time if I need to, expending more fuel than I saved.

If you consider the miles covered by commercial vehicles per accident, I think you will find it is many orders lower than the same figure for private vehicles.

[tommytwotanks]

i think with the roads as they are, I'm surprised that anyone wants to drive for a living, let alone the cost of fuel going up on a weekly basis, how the self employed trucker copes i dont know
now it looks like we are going to have another fuel shortage, meaning a price rise, and what a surprise that is :D

[wagolynn]

Originally Posted by tommytwotanks

i think with the roads as they are, I'm surprised that anyone wants to drive for a living, let alone the cost of fuel going up on a weekly basis, how the self employed trucker copes i dont know
now it looks like we are going to have another fuel shortage, meaning a price rise, and what a surprise that is :D

It does seem inevitable tommytwotanks. I wonder why governments don’t buy oil that would put the dampers on speculators. Just had a flash of inspiration, ask the city bankers, traders and speculators after all they are the supermen who run the world, look how well they did!.....For themselves

[tommytwotanks]

oh gawd, dont ask the goverment to do that, they would buy at the top of the market, then sell in a falling market :D

[wagolynn]

Originally Posted by tommytwotanks

oh gawd, dont ask the goverment to do that, they would buy at the top of the market, then sell in a falling market :D

Well yes, china did just that in the last speculative bout

[Lew1275]

I saw on the back of a tipper yesterday a graphic which said 'Without trucks you get NOTHING"

I appreciate truckers do a very important job and trying to keep to schedules must be very difficult. I can imagine at times on long stretches of m-way it must be very dull, boring and tiring. I'll always give plenty of space for trucks and if overtaking a foreign truck, pass him as quickly as possible (There was a demo on 5th Gear about side-swiping eeek! :eek:)

I'll never try to hold one up. If they have to slow down thats a considerable amount of momentum and energy lost and more hassle for the driver to get back up to speed again.

[tommytwotanks]

i always try to do my bit by letting trucks pull out off or into difficult junctions, they just need 6 or 7 junctions a day where they waste 5 minutes each time trying to pull out, the junction that im talking about near me, is about 1 mile from the m5 it's the main route for traffic to and from the motorway, it's about time they built a roundabout or something at this junction, but it's been like it for years,

tommy :D

[MrDanno]

The problem is these days we have eastern Europeans driving British registered lorries and many of them have never taken a real LGV driving test(or even sat in a truck). Until our government makes rules to stop this from happening it will continue and sadly so will deaths caused by these drivers.

I blame the UK based firms who employ these eastern Europeans simply because they are cheap. Vosa has been having talks with one of the big supermarket chains as to why their lorries are involved in many more accidents in recent years.

[tommytwotanks]

one way around this would for insurance companies to remove cover from trucks that dont have a uk resident with a uk driving licence

tommy :D

[MrDanno]

Originally Posted by tommytwotanks

one way around this would for insurance companies to remove cover from trucks that dont have a uk resident with a uk driving licence

tommy :D

Big companies don't insure their vehicles ;)

[Rolebama]

MrDanno, I am not sure how long it will be before that is changed. I noticed on my last Policy that I am now insured for £20million. Assumingly, the £2million that companies had to lodge will go up to match that amount, and I don't think many shareholders will happily sit on that money doing nothing.

[Snowball]

Originally Posted by MrDanno

Big companies don't insure their vehicles ;)

If true, I don't like the sound of this.
What happens if third parties are hit by such a truck, with serious damage to persons and property, but that day the company just happened to go into administration?

[MrDanno]

Originally Posted by Snowball

If true, I don't like the sound of this.
What happens if third parties are hit by such a truck, with serious damage to persons and property, but that day the company just happened to go into administration?

I worked for one of the largest companies and they were 'self insured', I'm not 100% sure of the details now but, they had to set aside a large sum of money to cover everything in the event of an accident.

[Rolebama]

They have to 'lodge' £2million at the Bank, and get a Certificate to that effect. All claims against them are treated in the same way as any insurance claim. If they lose the claim, payment is usually made from Company profits, as the £2million has to remain intact.

[Rolebama]

Further to the above, if you and a group of friends are affluent enough, you can form a Co-operative and insure yourselves in the same way.

[smudger]

Even 2 million is not that much really for the big companies to put up, as in today's suing culture where some one can get £50.000 for someone saying they have a big bum:rolleyes:

[wagolynn]

Originally Posted by smudger879n

Even 2 million is not that much really for the big companies to put up, as in today's suing culture where some one can get £50.000 for someone saying they have a big bum:rolleyes:

Oh, smudger I didn’t think you had noticed... ;)

[tommytwotanks]

yeah but, its hard to miss :D

tommy :D