Nice HGV driver - doesn't see car.

[Rhythm Thief]

On a slight tangent when pulling onto a motorway between vehicles which are fairly close what would lorry drivers prefer:

1. A car in front of them at a higher speed & pulling away from your lorry as the car joins the carriage way
2. A car in front of you holding the same speed as your lorry
3. A car pulling in tight behind the vehicle in front but being caught by your lorry

Of those three options, I prefer the first. (I presume you're talking about my lorry being on the carriageway and a car joining the motorway near it.) I actually don't mind whether a car goes in front of or behind my lorry in this situation, as I always leave plenty of space for them; what I don't like is when the car driver sits next to my cab at 55mph, waiting for me to move over. When I join a motorway, I'm looking for a safe gap from the moment I can see the carriageway, and I adjust my speed accordingly. What a lot of people seem to do these days is hammer down the sliproad regardless of what's in the inside lane, relying on other drivers accommodating them.

 

[dondare]

Google "Fatal Accident on M25".
9 out of 10 involve at least one lorry.

Without apportioning blame to the drivers, there does seem to be a problem with lorries.

 

[4F]

Google "Fatal accident in London" and you get the opposite. What point are you trying to make ?

 

[dondare]

That there seems to be a problem with lorries on the M25. It's not the number of accidents overall, it's the proportion of them which involve lorries.

 

[dondare]

Google "Fatal accident in London" and you get the opposite. What point are you trying to make ?

Seems to give an odd set of results altogether:
http://www.419baiter.com/_scam_emails/08-07b/scam-email-32908.html

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Surely you'd need to know the cause of the incidents before attaching any significance to the fact that they involve lorries? I noticed that nine out of ten of them involved cars, for instance. And two out of ten mentioned that the lorry driver had been arrested following the incident. Or, to put it another way, eight out of ten did not.

 

[GrasB]

Of those three options, I prefer the first. (I presume you're talking about my lorry being on the carriageway and a car joining the motorway near it.) I actually don't mind whether a car goes in front of or behind my lorry in this situation, as I always leave plenty of space for them

I perfer to be pulling away from the vehicle behind my self, especially with lorries from my POV it gives the least reason for the driver to take any action due to me pulling onto the DC. With that said it's not always doable to be pulling away. I with the last option I was more thinking about the driver behind rather than the driver in front as at the end of the day it's my responsibility to keep an appropriate gap to the vehicle in front.

what I don't like is when the car driver sits next to my cab at 55mph, waiting for me to move over. When I join a motorway, I'm looking for a safe gap from the moment I can see the carriageway, and I adjust my speed accordingly. What a lot of people seem to do these days is hammer down the sliproad regardless of what's in the inside lane, relying on other drivers accommodating them.

This irritates me too, even in a car. You find a space & judge your arrival so that you don't require anyone to move.

 

[dondare]

Surely you'd need to know the cause of the incidents before attaching any significance to the fact that they involve lorries? I noticed that nine out of ten of them involved cars, for instance. And two out of ten mentioned that the lorry driver had been arrested following the incident. Or, to put it another way, eight out of ten did not.

The problem could stem from the fact that car drivers do not know how to behave around lorries and anecdotal evidence supports this. As I pointed out earlier, learner drivers do not get taught motorway driving. I would suspect that HGV drivers do.
I think that some real research needs to be done here.

 

[GrasB]

Surely you'd need to know the cause of the incidents before attaching any significance to the fact that they involve lorries? I noticed that nine out of ten of them involved cars, for instance. And two out of ten mentioned that the lorry driver had been arrested following the incident. Or, to put it another way, eight out of ten did not.

I wonder how much of it is because it's harder for lorries to get out of the way when someone does something stupid. They're not like my cars where you can just scrub off 5mph or quickly nip into that small gap or just take off like a scolded cat if need be.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I wonder how much of it is because it's harder for lorries to get out of the way when someone does something stupid. They're not like my cars where you can just scrub off 5mph or quickly nip into that small gap or just take off like a scolded cat if need be.

Exactly. Make any sudden violent manoevres to avoid the idiot who's just nipped into your braking distance into a line of slowing traffic 50 yards before his junction and you're liable to find your trailer overtaking you merrily taking out cars as it goes. Hang onto your steering wheel and brake as hard as you safely can and you might go into the back of the bloke. Both are incidents involving lorries, neither can really be said to be the fault of the truck driver or evidence that trucks are dangerous. Idiots on teh road are dangerous, and that's about all there is to it.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

The problem could stem from the fact that car drivers do not know how to behave around lorries and anecdotal evidence supports this. As I pointed out earlier, learner drivers do not get taught motorway driving. I would suspect that HGV drivers do.
I think that some real research needs to be done here.

This is a very good point. It's legal for learner HGV drivers to use motorways since they already hold a full (car) licence. Come to that, it's legal for learner car drivers to use motorways if they hold a full motorcycle licence. But I can't understand why motorway driving isn't a compulsory part of any driving test.

 

[dondare]

Exactly. Make any sudden violent manoevres to avoid the idiot who's just nipped into your braking distance into a line of slowing traffic 50 yards before his junction and you're liable to find your trailer overtaking you merrily taking out cars as it goes. Hang onto your steering wheel and brake as hard as you safely can and you might go into the back of the bloke. Both are incidents involving lorries, neither can really be said to be the fault of the truck driver or evidence that trucks are dangerous. Idiots on teh road are dangerous, and that's about all there is to it.

Statistically, over 50% of the population is subnormal.

O.K. that's a soundbite, but it goes towards explaining why there are so many idiots on the road. You might say that idiots are part of the road environment, and that all aspects of road design, vehicle design, driver training and legislation should take this into account.
Ideally, the roads should be places that even idiots can use to get home safely, not where they are culled.

 

[GrasB]

You can't legislate RTCs out of existence if people act like idiots. At some point people have to take responsibility for their actions & if they endanger them selves & other people by habitually acting like idiots they should be removed from the roads.

 

[dondare]

You can't legislate RTCs out of existence if people act like idiots. At some point people have to take responsibility for their actions & if they endanger them selves & other people by habitually acting like idiots they should be removed from the roads.

That's the legislation bit. Make the driving test more rigorous and enforce the laws more rigorously.
But the roads should never be considered as part of the process of Natural Selection, and even idiots need to be able to get around somehow. If dangers can be identified then they should be removed.
Apart from anything else it is probably small comfort to a lorry driver who has just turned a car into a tin of corned beef that it was the other fellows fault.

 

[Riding in Circles]

Statistically, over 50% of the population is subnormal.

Is that a comment about women?