johncarnie wrote:The point about pulling over on hills again is legitimate - I'd rather have the large vehicle in front of me than up my chuff! Unfortunately for the sake of self-preservation we have to cycle defensively!
johncarnie: from a safety point view it is much more important to keep the lorry behind you, protecting you from vehicles not only coming from behind and not seeing you but also overtaking too closely. A large vehicle will also protect your space from oncoming vehicles. If the road in question involved a left hand bend, it would be vital to move out slightly further to prevent the lorry from overtaking and thus protecting you around the bend. Most van and lorry drivers like Spoonful realise this and will be happy to wait behind and see you safely round - a few seconds of their time may mean a lifetime of yours.
Please can you explain your point of view in much more detail - thank you.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
I think that the problem with spoonfull's original post is that, although it talks sense about 'blind spots' etc, it runs the risk of being directed in the wrong direction; to wit, the majority of people on here are already very aware of the perils of riding in a large vehicle's blind spot and so spoonful is rather teaching egg sucking to a group of grannies. Some of these people will have read the advice offered and thought to themselves, "fair enough - he makes a reasonable point", but others will have wondered why he is expending effort on telling us what we already know rather than directing it towards those that would benefit from such education (for instance those cyclists that continue to ignore large vehicles' blind spots and drivers of large vehicles who do not realise the threat that they can pose to cyclists).
The problem with the second reaction is that it is difficult to so difficult to target these specific groups given that the majority are unlikely to subscribe to any single forum, thus posting on what popular forums that can be found would seem the best that spoonful can do to address the problem. And furthermore, being relatively new to this forum, spoonful probably does not realise that the 'blind spot' danger has been identified and well discussed on a number of occasions.
Thus I would not choose to castigate him for offering this advice once again. Indeed, there are newcomers arriving on the forum all of the time, some of whom may not have realised the potential dangers of being in the vicinity of a large vehicle.
As for cyclists holding up trucks...well that is a whole different kettle of fish, laden with value judgements as to what is a reasonable delay and how important one person's journey is compared to another. I would say that every individual situation must be taken on its merits and that safety of all concerned must be paramount; Beyond this there is no one size fits all set of rules that can be suggested and to try to do so would be a thankless task., especially if one is unwilling to see the situation from the other's perspective.
johncarnie wrote:The point about pulling over on hills again is legitimate - I'd rather have the large vehicle in front of me than up my chuff! Unfortunately for the sake of self-preservation we have to cycle defensively!
johncarnie: from a safety point view it is much more important to keep the lorry behind you, protecting you from vehicles not only coming from behind and not seeing you but also overtaking too closely. A large vehicle will also protect your space from oncoming vehicles. If the road in question involved a left hand bend, it would be vital to move out slightly further to prevent the lorry from overtaking and thus protecting you around the bend. Most van and lorry drivers like Spoonful realise this and will be happy to wait behind and see you safely round - a few seconds of their time may mean a lifetime of yours.
Please can you explain your point of view in much more detail - thank you.
Too often heavy vehicles on a hill are right on your rear wheel (I'm not very good on hills!)- if I slipped a gear or hit a pothole, then I would be in trouble. I take your point, but personally I feel happier with the heavy vehicle in front of me!
hexhome wrote: Now that the 40mph speed limit on single carriageways is self policed,
I don't understand this. If you mean that lorries generally observe the 40 mph limit they certainly don't on the roads round here.
Modern trucks self report speeding. Increasingly, they are smart enough to differentiate between different class of roads. Depending on the attitude of the vehicle operator, they may discipline a driver who speeds. Some supermarkets are very strict on this.
It is true however, that on single carriageway trunk roads, most trucks will currently be travelling at 50ish. The new technology will take a little while to filter through.
In your part of the world, there is a lot of chilled traffic which whilst supermarket related, it is not directly controlled by them. Turners are not known for being proactive in this manner!
reohn2 wrote:What does it matter,if I think I'm going to hold up a vehicle for more than a minute and there's somewhere to pull in and allow it to pass that's what I do.It's courtesy.
me too. but i suspect that this chap's getting irrate over less than a minute. even though cyclists hold up motorist's progress for a percent or two of the total delays they experience.
Mike Sales wrote:I suspect that his exaggeration factor is pretty big, but I am ready for him to prove me wrong.
the exact location of the road has been enquired after more than once. i'd be very surpised to see any details now. i also suspect that the 20 mins is more similar to bovine exrement than merely embellishment.
I'm not a professional van driver and I have never driven a 7.5T lorry but I have regularly driven a 17 seat 3.5T Transit Minibus for Cardiff University a fair few times and I would take issue with the fact that they are gutless, even a 100bhp version. Limited to 62mph electronically, they still pull strongly through the gears. Having carried whole sports teams, I am sure that I have been close to the 3.5T overall weight. Certainly when I had an 85bhp/2.8T Transit and took my laden van on to a weighbridge, it weighed almost 3.5T and it still pulled reasonably well then
hexhome wrote: Now that the 40mph speed limit on single carriageways is self policed,
I don't understand this. If you mean that lorries generally observe the 40 mph limit they certainly don't on the roads round here.
Modern trucks self report speeding. Increasingly, they are smart enough to differentiate between different class of roads. Depending on the attitude of the vehicle operator, they may discipline a driver who speeds. Some supermarkets are very strict on this.
It is true however, that on single carriageway trunk roads, most trucks will currently be travelling at 50ish. The new technology will take a little while to filter through.
In your part of the world, there is a lot of chilled traffic which whilst supermarket related, it is not directly controlled by them. Turners are not known for being proactive in this manner!
It certainly has not filtered through. The wagons on the bit of the A17 I use usually do 60 mph steadily. We do have a lot of refrigerated produce lorries, but we do have supermarkets too. I have not yet come across a 40 mph. lorry. I look forward to seeing some. It will slow down all the traffic. At the moment it is only tractors which do less than 60 mph. I have long wondered why tacographs and now GPS are not used to enforce speed limits. I'll be glad when there is a serious effort to do so.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Mike Sales wrote:... I have long wondered why tacographs and now GPS are not used to enforce speed limits. I'll be glad when there is a serious effort to do so.
GPS isn't really good at instantaneous speed measurement. It can track pretty accurately - better than a speedometer if traveling in a reasonably straight line and the data used for mapping is accurate; however on the windy roads of the Welsh hills for example, I can be traveling at or below the speed limit and the GPS will suddenly sound the excessive speed alert - for a moment displaying my speed as 10mph or so above the limit, then returning to my actual speed as the map, the road and it's knowledge of my position coincide again. They're a better measure than average speed over a known distance (which could include diversions) but would take extra analysis to regularly monitor. If such was mandatory (and it would need to be, to make a difference) I imagine that it would unfairly discriminate against smaller transport firms who could not afford the infrastructure to do it.
My GPS has particular problems showing a reasonable speed when I am cycling on tree lined roads. I have intermittent readings of 3 and 4 mph instead of the real 12mph.
What are the problems with tachographs which make them unsuitable? I imagine they already have to conform to regulations which make them suitable as legal evidence. As for extra burden on small companies, don't lorries already have to fit them? I know GPS dongles can be very cheap, so used with a tachograph I imagine they could give evidence of position to be interfaced with speed quite easily. The cost of this sort of device and its extra software spread over the nation's lorry fleet would surely be small. In any case, speeding lorries impose extra costs on society. Accidents, fear, deterring vulnerable road users, more road damage are external costs, not paid by the operators. It is reasonable to impose some extra costs on them in order to reduce the costs to society. Modern electronics surely make solving the problems suggested above possible. The ingenuity applied to designing consumer electronics is astounding, why could it not be applied to making the roads safer? The real problem is political will, which is even more of a problem because cars would also be made to slow down. Once the technology is perfected it could be used on private motor vehicles. Present speed limits are so widely ignored that they are a mockery. The other technology which could be used to make speed limits effective is to link speed governors to radio beacons, perhaps installed in speed limit signs.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Claireysmurf wrote:I'm not a professional van driver and I have never driven a 7.5T lorry but I have regularly driven a 17 seat 3.5T Transit Minibus for Cardiff University a fair few times and I would take issue with the fact that they are gutless, even a 100bhp version. Limited to 62mph electronically, they still pull strongly through the gears. Having carried whole sports teams, I am sure that I have been close to the 3.5T overall weight. Certainly when I had an 85bhp/2.8T Transit and took my laden van on to a weighbridge, it weighed almost 3.5T and it still pulled reasonably well then
I hope you're not doing that on a D1 licence as thats limited to 16 seaters...
I used to drive minibuses for Cardiff Uni as well, and they were generally decent when empty. I did have problems on particularly steep hills when loaded up though.
Mike Sales wrote:What are the problems with tachographs which make them unsuitable? I imagine they already have to conform to regulations which make them suitable as legal evidence. As for extra burden on small companies, don't lorries already have to fit them? I know GPS dongles can be very cheap, so used with a tachograph I imagine they could give evidence of position to be interfaced with speed quite easily. The cost of this sort of device and its extra software spread over the nation's lorry fleet would surely be small. In any case, speeding lorries impose extra costs on society. Accidents, fear, deterring vulnerable road users, more road damage are external costs, not paid by the operators. It is reasonable to impose some extra costs on them in order to reduce the costs to society. Modern electronics surely make solving the problems suggested above possible. The ingenuity applied to designing consumer electronics is astounding, why could it not be applied to making the roads safer? The real problem is political will, which is even more of a problem because cars would also be made to slow down. Once the technology is perfected it could be used on private motor vehicles. Present speed limits are so widely ignored that they are a mockery. The other technology which could be used to make speed limits effective is to link speed governors to radio beacons, perhaps installed in speed limit signs.
Mike I don't see the difference between what you are asking for and what hexhome said is being rolled out - self-policing speedometers (post 465 to which you've replied). Can you clarify what the difference would be? One issue that will always occur is keeping the underlying map data up to date. Around here there are several roads with changed speed limits (mostly down, some up), which haven't yet made it to my (free to update) GPS mapping data.
You had me wondering how you could find the number of a specific post.
However it isnt. The number is the total number of posts that Hexhome has made, when he has posted again you will find that 465 will have moved up. At the moment I write this all of his posts say 465.
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