General Chat

I spent a lot of years driving for a living and, being professional, would always look to keep the traffic flowing if I could. In my experience, you could usually depend on lorry drivers, who were the true professionals, to look after their own and be considerate to others as well.

Doesn't seem to work that way any more.

There is roadwork being carried out on the A27 Chichester (sunniest city in the UK) by-pass with traffic lights which cause a tail-back across one round-about and almost back to another. This roundabout has a road crossing it into town and I would have expected lorries to hold back on the dual carriageway until their exit is clear, it is what I would have done in a van but might pull into the space between the two roads on the roundabout in my car because vehicles could pass front and back of me.

It does not seem to work that way any more. Great long lorriea are nose to tail right across the roundabout with no room for vehicles to pass across them into or out of town so a bit of an inconvenience is a gridlock.

It’s a common occurrence.

One of our nearest towns is close to the Dartford Crossing. There’s a slip road off the anti-clockwise M25 to take you onto local roads & obviously on to the M25 for the Dartford Crossing.
When there are delays in the tunnels, blasted artics come off at the slip road then block the roundabout at the end trying to rejoin. What have they gained? Possibly 500 m & 4 minutes. In the meantime everyone else is stuck in a jam into & out of town, even if they’ve no intention of going to Essex.
There are/were yellow hatch marks, not that they’ve been repainted recently & the police have other things to do than direct traffic :-|

Is it "just" a time issue or bad training do you think Sharron?

Bad manners maybe. I can't imagine the HGV training would not touch on it.

Of course, a lot of the drivers are not British now and they are probably not as addicted to queuing as the British.

Careful the RR finger will strike you're questioning European driving standards :-)

The British are noted for their propensity to queue.

I learned to drive an HGV in Turkey inc artic with trailer. The training was from the US Army.

The mountain roads make Ice Road Truckers look easy (*) given the heavy traffic, lack of signing and so on. First long trip out the assessor said nothing all the way. Feeling proud of myself having arrived only an hour late without incident I had no worries when hauled into the chief's office. I got a tremendous bollicking for NOT following the "rules of the road" which apparently meant that a 50 tonne truck had no need to yield except maybe to another truck and then only at the last moment. Traffic lights and other such nonsense were for the birds. Such attitudes are fairly universal on the other side of the Dover Straits.

Sharron will not be surprised to know that an alarming level of UK fatal accidents involve a foreign HGV driver. At least half of the trucks carry a concealed fire arm esp E Europe..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1180033/Polish-drivers-worst-culprits-road-accidents-caused-foreign-juggernauts-soar.html
{ years following same sad tale}

(*) since then the EU has paid for thousands of miles of better roads. The road manners are no better but the Turkish army is pleased as it makes shifting tanks around much easier. The 24 waits at the border obviate any time saving for truckers.

The A27 is mostly a cart track east of Portsmouth totally unfitted to the traffic using it.

Oh I know

Edit this was in reply to Sharron comment!!

Fancy never having been further east than Pompey!

Having never been trained to drive anything bigger than a family car would I be right in assuming you should obey the rules of the road for the country you're in...so the UK do they follow the "50 tonne truck had no need to yield except maybe to another truck and then only at the last moment. Traffic lights and other such nonsense were for the birds." rule?? and birds really???????

Oh Caroline my HGV PDP &ADR OH has just laughed his head off.

Sharron, probally trampers wanting to get home for a weekend or on urgent buisness taking an expected timed delivery to Asda for the Saturday rush.



;-) :-D.

Today was not the first time I have seen it happen. It just happens that that roundabout and the one where the work is being done are our two main routes into town.

Routes=cart tracks

Is the sunshine stopping them building better roads Sharron??

I have a CPC Freight National but it is so old I don't even know what a PDP or ADR are. As for the HGV lessons. They were so long ago we had to stop to top up the boiler every half mile.

:-D :-D :-D

:-D :-D