MR VAIN:
Splittin hairs! Coach driver then.
Nope, Im a bus driver, only coach Ive driven is the one I passed my test on… 
Anyway, buses are allowed on the motorway - yesterday about 08:30 on the M3 you would have seen 5 of us in convoy…
Smee:
I am very surprised that professional drivers are having this conversation.
Please tell me when in your training you were told to flash your lights to let overtaking vehicles know they are clear. The flashing of headlights on a road means I am here you may not be already aware…
.where does it tell you in training where to stop for a wee■■?.whats with the “training”,i do not get it,it should be common sense i would have thought.
buck73:
Smee:
I am very surprised that professional drivers are having this conversation.
Please tell me when in your training you were told to flash your lights to let overtaking vehicles know they are clear. The flashing of headlights on a road means I am here you may not be already aware….where does it tell you in training where to stop for a wee■■?.whats with the “training”,i do not get it,it should be common sense i would have thought.
I agree with you. Its dead easy to tell when you’ve cleared a lorry you’ve just overtaken. Flashing in, pah !!! Who needs it. I usually only flash 7.5 tonners in then they feel like they are in the big truckers gang and then spend the next two miles flashing their indicators left and right !!! God bless 'em 
Mike-C:
buck73:
Smee:
I am very surprised that professional drivers are having this conversation.
Please tell me when in your training you were told to flash your lights to let overtaking vehicles know they are clear. The flashing of headlights on a road means I am here you may not be already aware….where does it tell you in training where to stop for a wee■■?.whats with the “training”,i do not get it,it should be common sense i would have thought.
I agree with you. Its dead easy to tell when you’ve cleared a lorry you’ve just overtaken. Flashing in, pah !!! Who needs it. I usually only flash 7.5 tonners in then they feel like they are in the big truckers gang and then spend the next two miles flashing their indicators left and right !!! God bless 'em
Yeah it does seem to excite them, bless them indeed.
Mike-C:
[
I agree with you. Its dead easy to tell when you’ve cleared a lorry you’ve just overtaken. Flashing in, pah !!! Who needs it. I usually only flash 7.5 tonners in then they feel like they are in the big truckers gang and then spend the next two miles flashing their indicators left and right !!! God bless 'em
There is a few 7.5 tonners like me who have got our heavy goods but choose to drive 7.5 tonners.
btw when i am loaded i am longer than some artics.
we are only doing a job like every one else.
Mike-C:
buck73:
Smee:
I am very surprised that professional drivers are having this conversation.
Please tell me when in your training you were told to flash your lights to let overtaking vehicles know they are clear. The flashing of headlights on a road means I am here you may not be already aware….where does it tell you in training where to stop for a wee■■?.whats with the “training”,i do not get it,it should be common sense i would have thought.
I agree with you. Its dead easy to tell when you’ve cleared a lorry you’ve just overtaken. Flashing in, pah !!! Who needs it. I usually only flash 7.5 tonners in then they feel like they are in the big truckers gang and then spend the next two miles flashing their indicators left and right !!! God bless 'em
lol.you are very right.
Really strange how so many of you, from this fine industry, are getting at each others throats all the time on this website. I always thought that HGV drivers, myself being one, considered themselves to be professionals and because of this, would complement each-other on the way they worked, but I must be wrong 
This is very sad, as it seems that the camaderie (spelling) between drivers has gone 
Why are you all going down the road of " Stupid driver if you don’t know the length of the truck you shouldn’t have one" It’s always been part of the lorry drivers code of the road, politeness, friendliness, being helpful. (flashing in or out being part of it)
I’ve been on a M/way indicating right to move out to overtake, the truck driver in lane 2, who had plenty of time and space to let me out, just kept going.
A lot of the old school will remember that if you saw a “FELLOW” trucker (sorry but I must say that again) “FELLOW” trucker in difficulty, other drivers would stop
But the way some of you post comments here, I don’t think you would help even if it was another driver from the same stable 
pierrot 14:
This is very sad, as it seems that the camaderie (spelling) between drivers has goneWhy are you all going down the road of " Stupid driver if you don’t know the length of the truck you shouldn’t have one" It’s always been part of the lorry drivers code of the road, politeness, friendliness, being helpful. (flashing in or out being part of it)
Sadly my friend those days are gone now
Now so many lorry drivers equate themselves to professionals but behave like mindless morons 
This whole flashing in business started back in the old days when mirrors were very small & not convex, the flash was made by a spotlight & it lit up the nearside bank adjacent to the driver of the passing lorry when he was a safe distance past the slower lorry, we don’t need it nowadays but it’s probably the one remaining bit of cameraderie that we have these days.
It is used over in the USA as well but here the mirrors are crap, flat glass & too close to the cab to see along the sides of the trailer in most cases, as the roads are not so busy the flash doesn’t come until you’re at least a lorry length past the slower lorry so even then it’s just a cameraderie thing.
Keep it up I say, whether it’s needed or not, it’s just another driver saying hello
Stanley Mitchell:
“the vehicle in view is closer than it actually appears” or something like this.
Meatloaf sang a song based on that. Or words to that effect. 
Regardless of the Highway Code, the IAM ‘book’ contains a reference to the effect that lorry drivers have their own system of signalling using headlamps and, which, a significant proportion of other motorists understand and utilise, amongst which are camper vans and those towing trailers.
As already mentioned, it is a ‘British’ thing. Which also counters the recent proposals for compulsory daytime running headlamp use. Non-UK, headlamp flashes intimate, “I’m coming through.” Here, normally, it infers the opposite.
The number of times that I have been ‘flashed’ by a car when waiting to turn in an urban environment, only to then realise that the car was a Volvo that had hit a pothole.
Getting back to the subject. Traffic flow permitting, then I like my 2 second gap in the dry (and 4 in the wet). If the road follows a right hand curve then I might be willing to sacrifice some of that. But not always.
I do it out of curtesy, it was something that was instilled into me by my father (Scrumpy - a new member to the forum,) mind you I have also noticed a lack of it now and not only when on motorways. Some of the drivers on the A43 just seem to plainly ignore the fact that you want to move in, especially those drivers of “bloody” 56mph restricted puddle jumpers.
Whats also with this thing with drivers not even backing off when a truck that is slightly faster wants to get past■■? It seems to take an age to get past them now, its as if some have got the mentallity of “up yours jack I’m not conceeding to you.” The worrying thing is it’s not only the young generation of drivers doing it, I managed to finally get past a driver that must’ve been in his 60’s driving a globey the other day on the M40, the fact that I had been trying for the past 10 miles to get past him didnt seem to register on the guys face.
I keep reading about backing off to let people past, hello, isn’t it up to the overtaking vehicle to have the speed to complete the overtake without impeding the progress of the other vehicle? Making or expecting the other vehicle slow down is bullying & unprofessional, if you can’t get round in a safe manner then tuck in behind & maintain a safe distance, why do you have to be in front of everybody else on the road?
FFS everyone’s got a limiter & is doing more or less the same speed so you only gain 100ft, not really worth sitting side by side for 20mins to get 100ft further up the road is it? This also leads to the overtaker being frustrated at being held out for so long that they wipe the flies off your screen when they pull in, to me that is bad driving.
Different if you move over to let someone join the road, then the overtaker should not be held out, but the joining vehicle should let them pass & then get up to speed.
Glad I don’t have to put up with that anymore, it was one of the worst things about driving in the UK
in these days of tinted windows its hard to see the overtaker
looking in his mirror
so people are flashing and not getting a response
partly due to when they flash its for a nano second
and not a reasonable full on 3/4 seconds
If there are any wanabee European truckers out there, then the ones who find it difficult to drive without a helpful flash, will soon come unstuck in the Fatherland as they indicate to overtake.
The car that is now buried under your trailer didn’t flash you out. 
Normally preceded by a lot of black smoke as they try to brake from 150 mph to zero
I reckon flashing lamps should be kept for those little shops in Belgium and Luxembourg
I don’t particularly care if someone doesn’t flash me in, I’m big enough and ugly enough to know the length of my vehicle.
I do however think it’s a courtesy thing, like waving thanks to someone who’s let you out of a junction, or maybe the HGV driver who’s pulled out of a busy roundabout and goes around again to give you a chance to get out too.
The one that irks me though is when folk don’t aknowledge you flashing them in (I love it when I pass them on the next hill and ignore their flash too).
Personally I don’t now flash any Nat Express coach, any truck with Scottish/Irish plates, anyone at all on the M180, or any of Bertschi’s fleet.
Queer bugger aint I?
the maoster:
Personally I don’t now flash any Nat Express coach, any truck with Scottish/Irish plates, anyone at all on the M180, or any of Bertschi’s fleet.Queer bugger aint I?
Is that just an anti Swiss thing?
Yup, Never forgiven the shifty gits for Toblerone and other crimes against chocolate!
Smee:
I am very surprised that professional drivers are having this conversation.
Please tell me when in your training you were told to flash your lights to let overtaking vehicles know they are clear. The flashing of headlights on a road means I am here you may not be already aware…
your in the wrong job mate!!
the maoster:
Yup, Never forgiven the shifty gits for Toblerone and other crimes against chocolate!
Ayup,I like Toblerone mmmmm lecker.
dieseldog6:
Smee:
I am very surprised that professional drivers are having this conversation.
Please tell me when in your training you were told to flash your lights to let overtaking vehicles know they are clear. The flashing of headlights on a road means I am here you may not be already aware…your in the wrong job mate!!
What do you mean… 
