EastAnglianTrucker:
Wow! Loads of irony floating around in this post.
Personally, I can’t see how it will screw anyone up having to sit behind a truck traveling at 52 mph, rather than one traveling at 57 mph… If five mph over a couple of miles is crucial to your journey times, you’ve probably got bigger problems to sort out than a brief no-overtaking stretch on the M11.
As with the same deal in the A14, which is considerably longer, when trucks simply blast past in these sections, it gives not just all truck drivers a bad (or worse) name, but the industry is seen as being operated by cowboys.
If the law says you can’t overtake on a section, despite you thinking, like a lot of laws, it’s a waste of time, why would you do it? My licence is worth more than that thanks.
It must be something about all that freezing cold weather and miles of empty flat landscape that zb’s up all their thinking in those parts. they might as well just put in a 40 mph limit on all dual carriageways and motorways in east anglia as that seems to be how slow they like to do things in that part of the country.It’s more likely that you’ll be held up at that speed by cars driven by the locals on the M11 and A14 than the trucks.
If you drive in Norfolk, dual carriageways are rather scarce. If I am going to London it is 40 miles from our yard to a dual carriageway and almost 70 to a motorway.
No it just seems like you’re 40 miles away from the A14 and 70 from the M11 with the speeds which you all drive at there.
Well Oz trucking is way, way different to over here for a start. Much less traffic and sensible power to weight ratios, mean you generally have the power to keep close to the legal limits, even up hill. And a lot more room.
That said, there’s always times when you’re climbing hills that you’ll meet slower trucks, and even in Oz there are no overtaking sections on the main interstate highways. What usually happens is they tend to build a slow vehicle lane, much like a couple of the ones on the M25,… just with less traffic on them!
But don’t think the Oz police are pussycats. I’ve known them to use light aircraft to catch speeding trucks on the Nullabor Plain!
Cruise Control:
isnt that how VOSA nabbed that wisbech firm because drivers were hitting 50mph when there wasnt a dual carrigway for like 30 miles from base??
There’s loads of dual carriageway withing 30 miles of Wisbech. (Which is in Cambridgeshire if I’m not mistaken.)
There’s a lot of dual carriageway coming down the A11 from Norwich. In fact there’s a dual carriageway ring road around Norwich.
Then there’s dual carriageway along the A47 at Dereham, and more at Swaffham. There’s some dual carriageway coming up the A146 outside Diss…
But generally speaking, it’s sort of incredible how little sensible road building has been done in Norfolk, considering it’s the year 2010, but then discussions about National Transport Strategy, is the subject for another post I guess. Needless to say, in terms of traffic strategy this country is very, very third world. All the money’s gone on quangocrats salaries, and speed cameras.
it may of not been 30 miles, that was just a figure i plucked out of the air, all i heard was that they were reaching 50mph when no were near to base was any type of dual carriageway…could of just been a rumour though
Cruise Control:
it may of not been 30 miles, that was just a figure i plucked out of the air, all i heard was that they were reaching 50mph when no were near to base was any type of dual carriageway…could of just been a rumour though
EastAnglianTrucker:
Well Oz trucking is way, way different to over here for a start. Much less traffic and sensible power to weight ratios, mean you generally have the power to keep close to the legal limits, even up hill. And a lot more room.
That said, there’s always times when you’re climbing hills that you’ll meet slower trucks, and even in Oz there are no overtaking sections on the main interstate highways. What usually happens is they tend to build a slow vehicle lane, much like a couple of the ones on the M25,… just with less traffic on them!
But don’t think the Oz police are pussycats. I’ve known them to use light aircraft to catch speeding trucks on the Nullabor Plain!
But we were running trucks at OZ and American type speeds in the 1970’s and 1980’s with the same or less power than most trucks have now.With those faster speeds traffic has a chance to make some decent seperation distances with bigger speed differentials between them than now so most of what seems like heavier traffic is in fact just bunching caused by trucks all running at the same low speed.There’s plenty of places in the States where they have roads with the same or less lanes than here and very similar traffic levels but the trucks don’t cause any hold ups because they run at much higher speeds and all the evidence seems to point to that being as safe or safer than keeping to the old 55 mph limits there which were mostly ignored anyway.But using planes to catch trucks running at high speeds on the Nullabor seems a bit like those old yank references to the same thing happening when they were running at well over the present limits during the days of the 55 mph limits (beware the bear in the air)
EastAnglianTrucker:
Wow! Loads of irony floating around in this post.
Personally, I can’t see how it will screw anyone up having to sit behind a truck traveling at 52 mph, rather than one traveling at 57 mph… If five mph over a couple of miles is crucial to your journey times, you’ve probably got bigger problems to sort out than a brief no-overtaking stretch on the M11.
As with the same deal in the A14, which is considerably longer, when trucks simply blast past in these sections, it gives not just all truck drivers a bad (or worse) name, but the industry is seen as being operated by cowboys.
If the law says you can’t overtake on a section, despite you thinking, like a lot of laws, it’s a waste of time, why would you do it? My licence is worth more than that thanks.
It must be something about all that freezing cold weather and miles of empty flat landscape that zb’s up all their thinking in those parts. they might as well just put in a 40 mph limit on all dual carriageways and motorways in east anglia as that seems to be how slow they like to do things in that part of the country.It’s more likely that you’ll be held up at that speed by cars driven by the locals on the M11 and A14 than the trucks.
If you drive in Norfolk, dual carriageways are rather scarce. If I am going to London it is 40 miles from our yard to a dual carriageway and almost 70 to a motorway.
No it just seems like you’re 40 miles away from the A14 and 70 from the M11 with the speeds which you all drive at there.
If you drive on the A1065, at 44 tonnes, which is 40 miles it seems like about 70. It generally takes about 75 minutes by the time you’ve negotiated all the bends, the 20mph and 30mph bits, the level crossing. Then there’s the tractors, combines, sugar beet harvesters.
It’s funny how the part these bans in place under the name of “Journey TIme Trial” then when the trial finished on the A14 one all they’d say was that it had decreased journey times.
I did find the figures and they saved on average between 6 and 22 seconds on the Journey.
It’s more a political thing to keep the motorist happy and although we blame limiters etc, the real problem has been those truck drivers who sit side by side for miles because neither would give in whilst a massive queue of traffic builds up behind them.
muckles:
It’s funny how the part these bans in place under the name of “Journey TIme Trial” then when the trial finished on the A14 one all they’d say was that it had decreased journey times.
I did find the figures and they saved on average between 6 and 22 seconds on the Journey.
It’s more a political thing to keep the motorist happy and although we blame limiters etc, the real problem has been those truck drivers who sit side by side for miles because neither would give in whilst a massive queue of traffic builds up behind them.
Yep.
It’s not my fault when I’m overtaking you muckles, you should back off and let me past.
It’s not my fault when you’re overtaking me muckles, you shouldn’t be overtaking if you don’t have the legs to make it in a reasonable time.
