The thing is although we may have belted around at 65-70 in the past, the traffic was nowhere near as bad so even with inferior brakes we were probably safer than we are today.
To answer the original question, they won’t get away with it if VOSA get hold of the tacho or digi-card, the TA has the authority to suspend your HGV & will do it for speeding. I know a couple of drivers that have been done, one was for letting it run going downhill, he did a Purfleet to Magor every night & got up to 70 going down from jct18 on the M4 most nights, the ■■■■■■ from VOSA took a very dim view & parked him up for a fortnight, ouch
Mike-C:
Who do you reckon your target audience is here Keith ?
Thats the longest and most convoluted way of saying if we go faster we’d be asked to do more, and it still doesn’t answer his question
So I tried and failed…although I flippin’ felt better afterwards, ok!
Kenny1975:
‘…People managed fine years ago without speed limiters, so whys its suddenly so dangerous to do 70mph in the middle of the night…’
Please consider my previous ‘…blah, blah, blah, etc…’ to now read ‘because it bl**dy is’, which I trust is acceptibly air-headed.
As I humbly beg everyone’s pudding (especially the lone voice of ‘Mr Target-audience’) I am shuffling shame-faced aside to leave the floor vacant for his response to:
‘…People managed fine years ago without speed limiters, so whys its suddenly so dangerous to do 70mph in the middle of the night…?’
Out of sheer curiosity, after I’d been told which fuse to pull, I tried it and just loved cruising at 60. I do a 6 hour trunk each way (double manned obviously) so the extra 5 mph would make a difference. However, after 2 junctions I began thinking that having a blank digi tacho display and milometer not moving, this probably wasn’t the best move I’d made so I pulled in and replaced the fuse. Obviously the total mileage at the end of the shift was 20 odd kms down on normal but then that got me thinking that wouldn’t the boss be interested that I’m keeping the mileage down on his motor?
Anyway, I panicked the rest of the night so I don’t think I’ll be trying that again but if you’re not stopped and your boss turns a blind eye is it an effective way of finishing your shift half an hour early?
I dont agree with the traffic argument, the roads were rammed in the 1980’s and the early 1990’s ok not as rammed just now but you aint serious gonna tell me the roads were quiet back then.
Heavy traffic is self regulating in terms of speed, going down routes like the M6 south of Thelwall during the day in a car capable of 140mph you are still going to be lucky to get anywhere near the 70mph speed limit a lot of the time.
I dont disagree with speed limiters, i just think they were set to low 65mph would have been more sensible.
I just don’t believe all the danger hype, just like i don’t believe cameras cut crashes, or reducing speed limits everywhere makes things safer.
ah the good old days when they were set at 60 and all you had to do to knock it off was slam your foot down on the throttle!!
i have no choice but to sit in the 1st lane doing 53 all day never having to bother to pull out and overtake!!
you get good uns and bad uns, its the luck of the draw!!
Im quite impressed with speed limiters and more so especially the big companies who force their will on the rest of us, who hasn’t been sat behind a Morrisons, Tesco or Asda artic carrying bananas on a just in time scenario? They are limited to 50 or 52 mph and do a calming job of creating a rolling road block.
However the bods at the top cannot be the ones inflicting this limit on the drivers. It can only be the drivers themselves or the depot managers.
So what is the difference between the Asda, Tesco and Morrison truck carrying bananas and the tossers who drive the supermarket liveried fuel tankers at 70mph plus with a 44 tonne bomb. If I was trying to reach the populace with snappy eco friendly catch phrases like “We dont have a plan B” “Green and very clean” and “Asda Price” I would look at the trucks that were advertising our stores.
A 40 tonne truck with past sell its by date tampax and bread may fill a few column inches in the soaraway sun. A wrecked flaming Tesco or Asda 44 tonner with petrol spilling out may make the front page.
Secretelephant:
I dread to think how much extra fuel he’d be using in an artic at 70+mph
Could well be the difference of make a profit or loss on a job.
Must admit I never really understood why the limit is 56mph, when the legal mway limit is 60mph.
Because we bowed down to the EU. European speed limits are 90kph for trucks so we had to do what they were doing. Why couldn’t they match our speed limit instead?
Secretelephant:
‘…I never really understood why the limit is 56mph, when the legal mway limit is 60mph…’
I’m grateful for the leeway to avoid us hanging on the retarder at what would effectively be every downhill bit o’ motorway…and for that same leeway to provide a bit of oomph for getting up the other (sub 40mph) side…
mr bluecity:
He went past u knocking on 70mph, yeah so wots your point, are we going to post the name of companies everytime one of them overtakes us on the motorway now? Who gives a rats ■■■
Yeah, there was the foreign chap from meisterkampfe the other day in tesco’s ipswich, his girlfriend had such a ■■■■ bum i thought there should be a law against that, but didn’t post it on here
NightOwl:
Out of sheer curiosity, after I’d been told which fuse to pull, I tried it and just loved cruising at 60. I do a 6 hour trunk each way (double manned obviously) so the extra 5 mph would make a difference.
my MAN does ##mph on a private road sir ,it has no limiter but i like to stick at 60 whats the point in pi###ng people off and standing out like sore fringer to plod and ministry of funny walks
so I don’t think I’ll be trying that again but if you’re not stopped and your boss turns a blind eye is it an effective way of finishing your shift half an hour early?
