Motorway Observations

[Duck n Dive]

Yesterday I travelled from leafy Cheshire to suburban Bracknell to visit elderly parents, cut their overgrown lawn, do some stuff for them and have a good chinwag.

Took the decision to use the car - Swedish barge!!

During the journey there and back using M6/toll motorway/M42/M40 etc I was able to make a few observations and occasionally experience the onset of a few DK honorary yorkshireman rants.


First observation.

My perception was there is a massive reduction in HGV traffic.
Not just a few less, humongous numbers less.
Travelled down from 07:00 and returned late.

M6 in particular seemed to have hardly any from what I'm used to seeing on this journey.

I'd have thought HGV traffic was a pretty good indicator of industrial activity.

If so from yesterday's HGV activity we're on the floor!!

 

[derek kelly]

Yesterday I travelled from leafy Cheshire to suburban Bracknell to visit elderly parents, cut their overgrown lawn, do some stuff for them and have a good chinwag.

Took the decision to use the car - Swedish barge!!

During the journey there and back using M6/toll motorway/M42/M40 etc I was able to make a few observations and occasionally experience the onset of a few DK honorary yorkshireman rants.


First observation.

My perception was there is a massive reduction in HGV traffic.
Not just a few less, humongous numbers less.
Travelled down from 07:00 and returned late.

M6 in particular seemed to have hardly any from what I'm used to seeing on this journey.

I'd have thought HGV traffic was a pretty good indicator of industrial activity.

If so from yesterday's HGV activity we're on the floor!!

Because they are all using the M1 & M62

 

[jerryt]

Yesterday I travelled from leafy Cheshire to suburban Bracknell to visit elderly parents, cut their overgrown lawn, do some stuff for them and have a good chinwag.

Took the decision to use the car - Swedish barge!!

During the journey there and back using M6/toll motorway/M42/M40 etc I was able to make a few observations and occasionally experience the onset of a few DK honorary yorkshireman rants.


First observation.

My perception was there is a massive reduction in HGV traffic.
Not just a few less, humongous numbers less.
Travelled down from 07:00 and returned late.

M6 in particular seemed to have hardly any from what I'm used to seeing on this journey.

I'd have thought HGV traffic was a pretty good indicator of industrial activity.

If so from yesterday's HGV activity we're on the floor!!

Being a HGV driver in the food industry( I carry milk 28500kgs of it to dairies) and my work has never stopped! It fact it has got busier!

 

[andyBeaker]

Yesterday I travelled from leafy Cheshire to suburban Bracknell to visit elderly parents, cut their overgrown lawn, do some stuff for them and have a good chinwag.

Took the decision to use the car - Swedish barge!!

During the journey there and back using M6/toll motorway/M42/M40 etc I was able to make a few observations and occasionally experience the onset of a few DK honorary yorkshireman rants.


First observation.

My perception was there is a massive reduction in HGV traffic.
Not just a few less, humongous numbers less.
Travelled down from 07:00 and returned late.

M6 in particular seemed to have hardly any from what I'm used to seeing on this journey.

I'd have thought HGV traffic was a pretty good indicator of industrial activity.

If so from yesterday's HGV activity we're on the floor!!

An additional observation from me after M23/M25 last week - a lot of HGVs seem to go extremely fast these days, many way above the 56mph limit.

Still like pulling out to overtake at the bottom of the longest uphill section they can find though

 

[jerryt]

An additional observation from me after M23/M25 last week - a lot of HGVs seem to go extremely fast these days, many way above the 56mph limit.

Still like pulling out to overtake at the bottom of the longest uphill section they can find though

Got me stumped as well! They can only be running illegally! If I over speed for any reason I lose money from my wages as our trucks are fitted with telemetry systems! This also includes heavy braking, access engine revs, time spent on tick-over etc;

 

[Bluelagoona]

Being an HGV driver who travels the highways and byways at night as do a lot of HGV's I can say I have noticed a dramatic drop in heavy goods traffic recently.
Overnight trunking has dropped a lot between depots. This maybe to a chronic shortage of drivers, or a drop is business in general, both are true for my depot.
My particular sector seem happy to pay £350 a time for other depots to collect their goods, but unwilling to raise the wages enough to attract new drivers.

 

[jerryt]

Being an HGV driver who travels the highways and byways at night as do a lot of HGV's I can say I have noticed a dramatic drop in heavy goods traffic recently.
Overnight trunking has dropped a lot between depots. This maybe to a chronic shortage of drivers, or a drop is business in general, both are true for my depot.
My particular sector seem happy to pay £350 a time for other depots to collect their goods, but unwilling to raise the wages enough to attract new drivers.

Well said! The firm I worked for took on agency drivers to cover the shortage and then paid them twice as much as us! They then asked us to help these drivers if they needed help with the tankers! You can guess my reaction!!!

 

[andyBeaker]

Got me stumped as well! They can only be running illegally! If I over speed for any reason I lose money from my wages as our trucks are fitted with telemetry systems! This also includes heavy braking, access engine revs, time spent on tick-over etc;

Does the 56mph thing apply to lorries from overseas? Are limiters fitted?

 

[jerryt]

Does the 56mph thing apply to lorries from overseas? Are limiters fitted?

Any truck from the EU

 

[Bluelagoona]

An additional observation from me after M23/M25 last week - a lot of HGVs seem to go extremely fast these days, many way above the 56mph limit.

Still like pulling out to overtake at the bottom of the longest uphill section they can find though

just a couple of points that may explain your observations Andy,
1. HGV's have much more accurate speedo's than cars , so accurate the data from the tachograph is used in legal prosecutions. The tachographs are calibrated every 2 years. that said, many HGV's use their weight downhill to pass others and exceed the limiter.
2. Overtaking uphill is sometimes the only way an unloaded vehicle can pass a loaded one, as on the flat they may well both be maxed out at 56 MPH, and only uphill will the loaded one fall back.
3, The speed limit for HGV's on motorways is 60 MPH

 

[derek kelly]

A friend of mine has been a heavy goods driver for over thirty years, the company he worked for for over twenty of those years told him they were reducing his hours & wage, he quit & signed with an agency, the pay from the agency looked average but manageable, he had been with the agency for three weeks without any work so he asked what was going on, he was told that companies were requesting the same drivers, what was actually happening was that once they had used agency drivers they were contacting them direct & bypassing the agency, as most of these drivers were Eastern European they were glad of this.

 

[Minkey]

I usually drive up to see my brother on a Saturday as the traffic is usually lighter especially with regard to HGVS, however when I went to see my brother two weeks ago traffic was very heavy and there was a lot of HGVS

 

[andyBeaker]

just a couple of points that may explain your observations Andy,
1. HGV's have much more accurate speedo's than cars , so accurate the data from the tachograph is used in legal prosecutions. The tachographs are calibrated every 2 years. that said, many HGV's use their weight downhill to pass others and exceed the limiter.
2. Overtaking uphill is sometimes the only way an unloaded vehicle can pass a loaded one, as on the flat they may well both be maxed out at 56 MPH, and only uphill will the loaded one fall back.
3, The speed limit for HGV's on motorways is 60 MPH

I always enjoyed being stuck behind a 56mph v 55.5mph lorry shootout out on the uphill stretches of the M11 where it is two lanes.

Another thing I noticed was on the M23 north of Gatwick where the seemingly never ending roadworks have finally ended and there is now a fantastic four lane carriageway - hardly anyone used lane 1. Quite happy to sit in any other lane but not lane 1. I reckon I could have set the cruise control on 70 and gone from one end to the other needing to change into lane 2 (without using indicators before derek says it) to overtake no more than half a dozen times.

 

[Bluelagoona]

some companies will allow direct billing for drivers others not Derek tell your mate to change agencies, most are desperate for experienced drivers and will pay a premium for english speakers.

 

[jerryt]

I always enjoyed being stuck behind a 56mph v 55.5mph lorry shootout out on the uphill stretches of the M11 where it is two lanes.

Another thing I noticed was on the M23 north of Gatwick where the seemingly never ending roadworks have finally ended and there is now a fantastic four lane carriageway - hardly anyone used lane 1. Quite happy to sit in any other lane but not lane 1. I reckon I could have set the cruise control on 70 and gone from one end to the other needing to change into lane 2 (without using indicators before derek says it) to overtake no more than half a dozen times.

This is the reason I hate the name 'Smart' motorway! It's the numbskull drivers that need to be 'Smart' not the bloody Tarmac!

 

[Bluelagoona]

if my memory serves me there is a 7.5 ton weight limit on some uphill sections of the M11 . it does have a time limit I believe 06.00 to 22.00. but don't quote me on that time.

 

[Bluelagoona]

there is nothing smart about smart motorways... we are the only country in the world who thought that getting rid of the hard shoulder is a good idea.
That is why car drivers hog lane 2 and 3 because they are afraid to get stuck behind a broken down vehicle.
I use the m1 , m25 , m6 a lot and I pass in lane 1 loads of cars sitting in lane 2 for mile after mile. they seem happy to tailgate the car in front at 50mph when lane 1 is clear and empty.

 

[Bluelagoona]

Getting back to speeding HGV'S Andy, there are some owner drivers or companies that want speed over anything else.
Fitting a well worn set of rear tyres at tacho calibration time and then putting a new set on will gain you 2MPH over the calibrated 56 MPH.
Fitting an illegal defeat device on the gearbox will get you unlimited speed... but stiff penalties if caught with it.

 

[Duck n Dive]

Next observation.....

Roadworks grrrrrrrr

Last night on the return trip roadworks started just before the M40 exit for M42 North which I was taking.

There were various roadworks in different sections of M42 and then M6.

All on sections with overhead gantry signs.

Problem was the overhead signs were inconsistent.

Start of works says 40 mph then it goes to 50 then back to 40. Many of the gantry signs in between were blank.
My belief is that once a limit is displayed that is effective until changed or the national limit sign is displayed.
Not according to the traffic all around me which most speeded upon reaching a blank sign and didn't seem to be triggering cameras.

In some cases after many miles of no signs lit and no works/Cones everyone speeded up after Annother five miles or so of blank gantries finally reaching one that displays national limit.

With so many blank signs joining traffic did not appear aware of the limits.

I'm guessing that many are assuming the cameras are not active on the blank signs but that's flipping dangerous.

 

[Duck n Dive]

Observation on road surface.

I noticed that in many places the surface in Lane one was brilliant and very quiet.

Why should only HGV drivers get the benefit