Not sure if this is sadly an increasing trend but…
One of the things that irritates me whatever I am driving is the ‘inverse lane discipline’ concept a growing trend with car/van drivers. Usually occurring at peak times, the effect is to see the most vehicles in the third lane, slightly fewer in the middle lane and oceans of room in the nearside lane.
In Scotland we don’t have much 3 lane motorway so the traffic is largely in the outside lane of a dual two motorway at times like this. That’s a real bugger when you are catching something up driving your car because the *rsehole wont move over. Causes everyone to bunch up and invites undertaking (often by vans).
I now come to the truck dimension. So you are plodding along in the nearside lane and you are catching up we’ll say a crane. You are weighing up the speed of approach to the crane versus a suitable gap. One appears, you indicate and go for it only to find the car behind in the outer lane is clearly driven by some moron who is thinking **** you lorry driver and accelerate like made to prevent you moving out.
I would be interested in the views of others how they deal with it.
Of course you have two options, slam on the anchors down to 25mph or continue pulling out.
I re-iterate. There is a clear safe gap, but this idiot is determined you are not going to take it.
I have had two incidents like this over two years and clearly the car driver was on a death wish. Not sure if ‘not accelerating’ was in their repertoire but sadly we don’t have rear facing side dash cam (though the new Actros’ come close I suppose).
We know trucks can kill people, but equally why the hell should we be prevented from doing our job. Ironically it is almost tantamount to bullying us off the road! I don’t drive to threaten other motorists but stupid driving kind of heats the pee particularly when it is blatantly dangerous.
in my area [Suffolk/Essex] the trend is to indicate and immediately pull out to overtake,leaving no chance for that car cruising behind in the outside lane to speed up into the gap .
corij:
in my area [Suffolk/Essex] the trend is to indicate and immediately pull out to overtake,leaving no chance for that car cruising behind in the outside lane to speed up into the gap .
that is my pet hate i always give at least four flashes before pullimg out.
The things that bug me.
It’s drivers who are in lane 2 /3 they approach smart motorway signs saying congestion use hard shoulder and you always get idiots pulling in there asap undertaking everyone. Because most drivers won’t use it even though signs tell you to
Drempels:
Depends on the situation for me. Speed, speed differential, light, weather, visibility, etc etc etc.
I don’t have a standard approach to unique situations.
^^^^^ sums it pretty much up. I DO NOT pull out if I consider that it’ll be dangerous to an approaching road user. Having said that, if I need to be out and I’ve judged the distance to the approaching vehicle to be adequate and then he/she accelerates then my opinion is that when they hit my underrun it’s going to hurt them a little bit more.
jakethesnake:
Might be a bit of retaliation, oh but wait none of you ever get cut up or held up by a truck when driving your car.
How strange.
Jake, but surely that’s the difference.
In 1979 when I did my class 1 training, what I really learned about driving my car was improved longer distance thinking. Almost if you like your brain is constantly calculating and evaluating and re-evaluating, distances, timings - a bit like a non-collision radar! Now we have to do this in a truck because of the sheer geometry of the thing and the time it takes to accelerate, decelerate, manoever and the like. So when motorway driving in a car I am always looking to see if the wagons are catching up a vehicle in front so one can anticipate.
The only time you might get caught out and it applies both ways, when you are the car driver and when you are the truck driver is if the car has gone past the trailer bumper or is ■■■■ near on it. Now one can always make errors when trucking and yes it can be a bit subjective of when you’ve just got enough gap and err no mate that’s a bit tight, but generally I find truck drivers (when car driving) pretty good in that respect and it is a rarity to get caught out like that. But there again as a truckie - I know I should be anticipating it might happen!
Adopt the approach that worked in any big city in heavy congestion -if you use indicators the car drivers know where your going or want to go , a shake of the trailer was usually enough for them to hesitate for you to complete said manoeuvre before they realised what was happening.lol
jakethesnake:
Might be a bit of retaliation, oh but wait none of you ever get cut up or held up by a truck when driving your car.
How strange.
Jake, but surely that’s the difference.
In 1979 when I did my class 1 training, what I really learned about driving my car was improved longer distance thinking. Almost if you like your brain is constantly calculating and evaluating and re-evaluating, distances, timings - a bit like a non-collision radar! Now we have to do this in a truck because of the sheer geometry of the thing and the time it takes to accelerate, decelerate, manoever and the like. So when motorway driving in a car I am always looking to see if the wagons are catching up a vehicle in front so one can anticipate.
The only time you might get caught out and it applies both ways, when you are the car driver and when you are the truck driver is if the car has gone past the trailer bumper or is ■■■■ near on it. Now one can always make errors when trucking and yes it can be a bit subjective of when you’ve just got enough gap and err no mate that’s a bit tight, but generally I find truck drivers (when car driving) pretty good in that respect and it is a rarity to get caught out like that. But there again as a truckie - I know I should be anticipating it might happen!
Totally agree with you but now a days the average driver whether car truck or bus seem to have very little understanding of anticipation or anything else for that matter.
Foot to the floor and who cares about anything or anyone else!
edd1974:
The things that bug me.
It’s drivers who are in lane 2 /3 they approach smart motorway signs saying congestion use hard shoulder and you always get idiots pulling in there asap undertaking everyone. Because most drivers won’t use it even though signs tell you to
So what are you supposed to do exactly?
Sit hogging lane 2 behind them in a long procession, thus turning the 4 lane m.way back into a 3, or sit in lane 1 just behind them while they continue to hog lane 2?.
Ok, it maybe aint ethical or even technically correct undertaking those clowns who refuse to use the adapted lane 1, but at least it maintains traffic flow if you do.
You’ve got to look into cause and effect to understand this ever increasing phenomenon.
Effect: Car drivers see a lorry indicating to move out into their lane and accelerate to make sure the truck can’t pull out and be in front of them.
Cause: said car driver has probably on occasions been stuck for 20 miles behind 2 trucks elephant racing at 0.00001 mph speed difference, neither prepared to be a human being and let the other go.
The crane analogy as said in the op is obviously an exception to that, but the average bod in a car isn’t looking around and won’t be aware of the massive speed differential between the crane and truck wanting to overtake, they will only be concerned that they see a lorry wanting to get out and that the last time a lorry got out in front of them it was there for the next x number of miles!
Cars stopping us pulling out never used to happen 30 years ago, so do you blame speed limiters or the actions of bloody inconsiderate truck drivers who seem to be on the increase ■■
Well said. Sticking your indicator doesnt give you thr right to move lanes. Pulling out and causing another vehicle to slow down is driving without due care and attention. Most of you dinosaurs wouldnt pass your test nowadays.
i always give at least four flashes before pullimg out.
