The Driver's Site for the East Midlands

Welcome to Drivers' Union East Midlands.
Our Mission: Better road safety at lower cost. No unnecessary delay or slowing of road transport. No unnecessary or unjust prosecution of safe drivers.

Motorists & Drivers' Union is at www.driversunion.co


For specific topics click the appropriate label (above).

Search This Blog

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Dual Danger & HGVs

The knotty issue of slow creeping overtakes on dual carriageways is being addressed by this petition.
'Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) are able to use the outside lane of dual carriageways to pass others. They occupy the outside lane for long periods This creates high speed bunching of vehicles. Frequently pulling into another driver's safety gap they cause sudden high speed braking. Returning to the slow lane, another commences the same manoeuvre. The outside lane can often be thus occupied for long distances with HGV drivers not assisting the other as required by the Highway Code. The resulting bunching & tailgating, with safety gaps suddenly taken by HGVs, is highly dangerous and will have been the indirect cause of many high speed accidents even if not officially realised. A dangerous scenario involving many drivers over the course of a day it would be a simple matter to ban HGVs from the outside lane of dual carriageways to preserve life by reducing sudden braking, protecting safety gaps, and considerably reducing high speed bunching.' 

Ok there are faults in it but all proposals start off with faults and it is for parliament to iron those out, add caveats and clauses. Don't forget the programme only allows very few words to construct the petition. What we must not do is to ignore a serious issue over a few words. This petition draws attention to the problem and that is a start. There are already laws to deal with this type of driver under Sec 2 & 3 RTA, however a specific offence need not be so draconian. Either way this has been happening for too long. Without doubt it would've caused or been a factor in many bad accidents but again the Stats 19 form lets road safety down in this. Do add your name to the petition. Sign here

9 comments:

  1. This problem didn't exist before the compulsory fitting of speed limiters to HGVs. That is the root cause of this problem, it prevents a quick burst of speed to overtake quickly.
    Not sure that speed limiters have done anything for safety anyway, so perhaps they should be done away with.
    Or alternativly, put a time limit on the lenth of time an overtaking manoevre can take. That would the lane hoggers too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agree totally Martin but in the meantime people are being killed directly or indirectly. This type of driving without doubt constitutes Sec 2 or 3 RTA and should be dealt with now. At least this petition raises the issue and it must be raised. The Highway Code already says overtakes should be done quickly. This is not so difficult to judge with either on board police CCTV or gantry mounted surveillance. But it's good to debate the matter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How could a lorry safely overtake a slow moving vehicle such as a tractor, moped or cyclist if it was banned from moving out into the second lane?

    If a HGV is going at maximum legal speed then there will be at most a 20mph speed differential between the HGV and any other vehicle obeying the law in the fast lane. 20 mph is a pretty slow closing speed given the long sight lines generally found on DCs

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think I have covered all this in the body of the blog.

    If a cyclist passes you a ten miles an hour, that is very quick so twenty is quite a considerable overtake speed.

    The danger is all the bunching this is causing & worse, when a driver leaves a safety gap, one of these HGVs pulls into it.

    It must be addressed as it is driving without due care. Police could already prosecute it without bringing in a new law as it is easy to see an HGV sitting out in the outside lane imposing his speed on a whole line of drivers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, I can't see where you've addressed it. Would the hgv have to sit in lane 1, behind a slower moving vehicle, or could it use lane 2 to make a safe overtake?

      I agree that careless use of the outside lane by slow vehicles can be a problem, but as you say, it's already illegal. Enforcement of the current laws would seem to sort the problem, rather than bringing in more laws that the police will then chose not to enforce.

      Delete
  5. In my 2nd Para I acknowledge there would be matters for MPs to iron out. So for example there could be an exception for passing slower vehicles say, less than 55 MPH or 50 MPH. After all car drivers have to trail behind HGVs at 40 on Trunk roads where there is no overtaking.

    Yes the problem with using current legistlation is the police don't use it where they should. There should be a lesser specific category. I don't think these drivers should be prosecuted for Careless Driving.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Big old bag of hypocrisy here. Eileen aught to be ashamed of making her husband look like the bigot he is. Drivers moaning about HGVs which are necessary to society because they dont like the way they overtake. Sound familiar to you? Is your wife a fool Keith?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I publish this because it shows that there are no bounds in this hatred campaign & bringing wives & family into a debate is as low as it gets yet hiding behind anonymity.

    I have replied to this. All motors are essential to the community & you will find I do criticise all drivers for something or other that is dangerous inconsiderate conduct. HGV drivers pulling out into someone's safety gap is exactly that as well as selfishly ignoring the long tail backs they are causing. This is what induces the faster drivers to bunch dangerously.

    However the fact remains that cycling is an unnecessary danger in our community & a terrible unnecessary extra liability for UKs drivers. That you can only address that with silly & uncalled for idiocy says more about you and the cycle lobby than it does about me

    ReplyDelete
  8. I agree that hgv's should be restricted in their overtaking behaviour, yes allow overtaking of slow traffic eg. tractors, although, I also feel these forms of transport also shouldn't be on high speed dual carriageways I also think we need more use of the blue and white minimum speed limit signs so that drivers know they have to do a certain speed and not crawl at 30 in a 60 unnecessarily, as far as cyclists are concerned I think they should they should be bound by law to use cycle paths where provided, I also think they should have insurance, and have their bikes tested to meet certain minimum requirements (lights, bells/horns, tyres, etc.)

    ReplyDelete