If you’re on a dual carriageway and a HGV is overtaking you at a marginally faster speed, take a k off the limiter and make everyone’s day a little easier. I always do. There are a lot of drivers out there who just won’t do this.
Granted if there is another behind you and it’s an uphill downhill battle with weight and effieciency then the line get’s blurred a bit. Most of the time it is clear cut though.
This is good practice and keeps the traffic flowing smoother. Let’s be sensible, help each other out and have a little empathy and consideration for the car drivers waiting to get past.
Always wait for the flash mate, always unless they’ve forgot, do a limp wristed one that I haven’t seen, can’t be bothered or are too busy with phone, yorkie or three course luncheon.
The other day I was on the A14, I overtook another lorry quite slowly and got back in. I’d put a little ground between us when I saw an artic joining at the next junction, cars all the way down the offside lane so I eased off a little bit and flashed him in. He got out and I was following behind, as soon as it was clear on the offside lane, the lorry I’d gone past before had pulled out and was trying to get past me. I had to ease off again, cos he didn’t have the legs on me or the artic and let him in between us. Guess what happened next…two minutes later I had to struggle past him again cos I had that little advantage.
I’m a newbie and I dunno if I did much right or wrong there, overwhelmingly it just seemed all a bit daft.
The lorry behind should have stayed behind you as he knew you were faster than him on the flat and he could see you eased off to let the other chap in. Once the offside lane was clear you could have judged if you were going faster than the chap you let in and over taken or stayed put. You did the right thing as far as I can tell. That is exactly the sort of retarded behaviour I am talking about. Should have given him the evil eye when you had to overtake him again.
The other favourite from the impatient fraternity is when you’re pulling away from roundabouts on dual-carriageways with a bit of weight on. They just cannot wait behind you until you’ve got your speed up again - a matter of a few seconds - and have to get past you, even though you’ve got at least a k on them. Crackers.
I’m a fan of leaving “big air”. So I tend to end up going backward down the line! When a truck overtakes, I’ll flash it in. But if it doesn’t pull out a decent gap within a reasonable time, then I ease off a bit (1 or 2 k’s). This usually means the race trucks behind see me as an easy overtake, so the process starts again!
My truck will do 57.5 on the flat, but is lousy up hill.
I know I can’t stop as quickly as the newer trucks. And if the truck in front brakes hard, hits something, or both, I would otherwise wind up dead, taking to the shoulder, or swiping whatever is to the right (self preservation?).
Is the stress and risk in trying to get “there” a few minutes earlier really worth it?
In an ideal world, every driver managing the space around them would reduce the number of accidents. This in turn would reduce the number of hold-ups. The net effect over a year would be more time saved than could be achieved by doing that extra 1 kph. And fewer people would be injured/dead.
I was on the M2 approaching the Jct 3 where the Medway hill starts to drop. I was happily doing just under 100 kph in the coach passing 3 artic tippers in lane 1. I was passing the last one when the descent started. With a light load I achieved no more than 105 kph but the artics wouldn’t let me pull into lane 1 and started undertaking me, gathering speed down the hill. I had to wait till the last one had undertaken me before I could pull safely across into lane 1.
Should I have not overtaken them since I knew they would be faster than me going downhill?
daveb0789:
I was on the M2 approaching the Jct 3 where the Medway hill starts to drop. I was happily doing just under 100 kph in the coach passing 3 artic tippers in lane 1. I was passing the last one when the descent started. With a light load I achieved no more than 105 kph but the artics wouldn’t let me pull into lane 1 and started undertaking me, gathering speed down the hill. I had to wait till the last one had undertaken me before I could pull safely across into lane 1.
Should I have not overtaken them since I knew they would be faster than me going downhill?
This was unprofessional of the tipper drivers. As there are 4 lanes on that stretch the two behind you should have overtaken you, allowing you to return to the nearside lane in my opinion. However, life’s full of nice and not so nice surprises.
Before someone else says it, what do you expect from tipper drivers anyway .
Silver_Surfer:
If you’re on a dual carriageway and a HGV is overtaking you at a marginally faster speed, take a k off the limiter and make everyone’s day a little easier. I always do. There are a lot of drivers out there who just won’t do this.
Granted if there is another behind you and it’s an uphill downhill battle with weight and effieciency then the line get’s blurred a bit. Most of the time it is clear cut though.
This is good practice and keeps the traffic flowing smoother. Let’s be sensible, help each other out and have a little empathy and consideration for the car drivers waiting to get past.
Like yourself I tend to ease off for the sake of a few k but can then find the whole pack struggling to overtake. I also find it a bit of a pain running on the limiter, prefer to find “the grove”, where my size 10 sits happily on the throttle and the engine purrs, particularly on long motorway hauls this suits me. Unfortunately running like this I feel I’m getting in the way and it doesn’t take long before I’m back in the rat pack, standing on the throttle…
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