sane-scotty:
I was on the A16 last week, just come from Spalding towards Boston, 4pm and very busy and I was doing the 40mph limit, yes theres a big trail of cars etc… behind me but what am I supposed to do? Ive only been a LGV driver for 4 months so I try to obey the law…then a GARN Transport truck plants his truck in the middle of the SC and motors past me doing 50mph easily, forcing me and an oncoming GIST truck to swerve to the kerbs and narrowly we avoided a 3 truck pile up. Worse still, the GARN driver gives me the [zb] sign as he thunders down the centre line of the A16 before slamming his brakes on very hard for the roundabout at the spirit of endeavour pub.
If I would have been travelling at 45-50 then maybe he wouldnt have done that and the potential of a 3 truck smash up would have been avoided, but I increasingly get the feeling, as the miles clock up under my truckers belt that there really isnt much profession being shown by so called professional drivers, no wonder rates of pay are low, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys is dead right!
If you were travelling at 45-50mph, then he’d probably still have done it, but just took longer to pass and been even more of a danger.
You are not the problem here, the speed limit is not the problem, the muppet driver in the other truck is the problem.
Profession is just what you do to earn your crust, ie an amateur footballer will have a full time job (most likely), but a professional footballer has football as his full time job. So a professional driver is just someone who’s full time job is driving. No better or worse than anyone else on the road.
Snudger:
Difficult one scotty, for those of us who try to obey the law. If you went up to an indicated 45MPH then IMO you would be very unlucky to be done for speeding but the slight increase in speed would probably be enough to discourage such reckless impatience and would therefore in theory be safer (all dependent on appropriate conditions). Of course you weren’t to know he was going to try this but I am always bearing in mind the impatient driver that might be behind me and am prepared to and will slow down almost to encourage overtaking - not by an HGV though.
2 things though, why speed? just because you won’t get a ticket for it, doesn’t make it right??
Second, this guy sounds like 1 of those morons we’ve all seen who will pass you on a solid white line approaching the crest of a hill because he’s just too damned impatient to stay behind. Doesn’t matter who he kills in the process.
I can’t say I agree with the 40mph limit, same as I don’t agree with most 30mph limits (A lot are in places it’s safer to go quicker - been in more dangerous 40 zones - take Mottram Moor from Woodhead to the M67 as an example), any 20mph limits (when they need to be in effect, you’d be lucky to reach 20mph anyway) and motorway limits (70mph?? Really??)
At 40mph, most cars can pass you quite easily when safe, at 50mph some cars would struggle but would still want to pass you and might endanger themselves or others trying. I got passed off a 3 wheel Reliant Robin the other day going up a 2 lane stretch of road, it had 3 people in it, boy did it struggle to get past in the 2 mile stretch.
) I can’t see the point in risking my licence, especially for a tight arsed co like I drive for, and I get paid by the hour anyway, if a queue starts to build up I pull in and let them pass. One reason that the limit will not be raised is that as far as the government, or the public are concerned there is no need, because you get a combination of HGV drivers from the law abiding 40mph men, to the flat out 56+ knobheads, and those in between,… so in theory a steady flow, but if there was a concious concentrated campaign among us to all stick to 40mph, it would be shown up to be what it is… ie out of date, and a big problem because of the chaos caused, just imagine a 40mph convoy on the A75 single sections for example every day for a few weeks, I know it will never happen, but it is like a few more crap aspects of this job, that is… 
the remedy is in our hands if we could stick together.