Interesting perspective from artic lorry driving

[thirdcrank]

And the damage done to the infrastructure by the weight of one 40 tonne truck is well-nigh imperceptible.

[awavey]

* Never, ever pass on the inside of a lorry on a turn. The rear end will cut the corner, each and every time. You will get wiped out.

as a cyclist more than aware of my mortality, I never ever would, HGVs scare me, so explain to me why do lorry drivers always overtake me in this situation and therefore put me in that exact position ? I cant vanish or teleport out the way, so what can I do ?

[Mike Sales]

Its impossible to accommodate these huge vehicles on most of our roads, its ludicrous to try, and its ludicrous to blame the driver (or the cyclist) when the system fails

It clearly isn't impossible, it's already being done, but it comes with the disadvantages listed here, and also advantages like economy of scale. Four 10 ton trucks instead of one 40 ton immediately quadruples the cost of driver's labour, significantly increases the fuel cost, and adds the cost of extra distribution depots to transfer the loads.

This is a classic example of the economists' concept of "externals".
Some of the costs of road haulage are not paid by the hauliers, but by the public at large. There isw no incentive to reduce the unpleasant social effects of our present way of doing things.
That some of these costs, for example, pollution, are difficult to quantify does not mean they do not exist. Far from it.

[Cugel]

Its impossible to accommodate these huge vehicles on most of our roads, its ludicrous to try, and its ludicrous to blame the driver (or the cyclist) when the system fails

It clearly isn't impossible, it's already being done, but it comes with the disadvantages listed here, and also advantages like economy of scale. Four 10 ton trucks instead of one 40 ton immediately quadruples the cost of driver's labour, significantly increases the fuel cost, and adds the cost of extra distribution depots to transfer the loads.

"Economy of scale". Ah yes, but which particular economy does this reference? Only that of the peck sniffing accountant trying to maximise the profit of a single business and its owner(s).

There are other economic models which incorporate (literally) the interests of many other people. What, for instance, is wrong with an economy that employs more people and thus distributes the wealth of goods and services, via wages and their spending, more evenly and widely?

We should be careful in accepting the excuses of businesses for doing so many of the damaging things they do. The excuse often boils down to that mentioned above: I want to lay-off the wider costs of my business on the unsuspecting public so that I can increase my profits by not paying those wider costs out my business turnover.

Imagine if goods were delivered the final mile or three by an army of electric cargo bikes. Vast savings from the reduction in the costs of all sorts of harms, from pollution to the NHS having to mend lorry-squashed folk to distribution of wealth via wages instead of by a torturous welfare system that achieves the opposite of welfare for all it touches and costs billions in bureaucratic efforts and/or profits to predatory and incompetent (except at milking profits) outsourced "suppliers".

Cugel

[pwa]

If you don't want artics on the road you should stop buying from outlets that rely on them. Tesco and the like. As long as you give your custom to businesses relying on artics, you are part of the reason the artics are there.

[Mike Sales]

If you don't want artics on the road you should stop buying from outlets that rely on them. Tesco and the like. As long as you give your custom to businesses relying on artics, you are part of the reason the artics are there.

If hauliers were charged the full costs of their business choices, that is including externals, then the price we pay would reflect this, and give a competitive advantage to those transport modes which need less public expenditure to repair the damage and disamenity.
Then customers would not need to research the way the business operated.
This is the thinking behind sugar taxes.

[pwa]

If you don't want artics on the road you should stop buying from outlets that rely on them. Tesco and the like. As long as you give your custom to businesses relying on artics, you are part of the reason the artics are there.

If hauliers were charged the full costs of their business choices, that is including externals, then the price we pay would reflect this, and give a competitive advantage to those transport modes which need less public expenditure to repair the damage and disamenity.
Then customers would not need to research the way the business operated.
This is the thinking behind sugar taxes.

The assumption (if that is the right word) is that HGVs are in themselves part of the infrastructure of modern life, so we all pay the cost of keeping them doing their job. I have worked in businesses that have had deliveries from HGVs and I imagine our costs getting the goods by a larger number of smaller vehicles would have been significantly higher. If we take Tesco (who I have never worked for) as an example we are all familiar with, would you welcome a rise in prices to pay for a logistics change that did away with artics? The whole model of operation of the supermarkets relies on artics.

[PH]

We should be careful in accepting the excuses of businesses for doing so many of the damaging things they do.
Cugel

We should also be careful of the opposite, that is blame a business for catering to the consumers desire.
Within this forum you can read review after review praising as service the ability deliver the goods the next day, regardless of when they might have actually been needed. Think of the savings that could be made if a company despatched weekly, it isn't the accountants who would object to that.

[Mike Sales]

The assumption (if that is the right word) is that HGVs are in themselves part of the infrastructure of modern life, so we all pay the cost of keeping them doing their job. I have worked in businesses that have had deliveries from HGVs and I imagine our costs getting the goods by a larger number of smaller vehicles would have been significantly higher. If we take Tesco (who I have never worked for) as an example we are all familiar with, would you welcome a rise in prices to pay for a logistics change that did away with artics? The whole model of operation of the supermarkets relies on artics.

The point is that we all pay the costs of artics etc. in more dangerous, more polluted, noisier roads. These are real costs, and it is always cheaper and better to prevent damage than to pay to put it right afterwards. Some of the damage cannot be put right but is in the form of shortened lives.
Attributing these costs correctly gives a better result.
The market is distorted when the costs are not alloted to those who benefit.
I expect you can think of evils which were once part of modern life, but which we managed to stop, and would not think of reintroducing.
Smog and the visibly filthy air from open coal fires in the last century is an example. Our air is almost invisibly filthy with the products of other fossil fuel burning. This has very real costs in health. Stopping it might be a little dearer.
Nobody would want to go back to the stinking smogs of the past, though I expect there were those arguing against the clean air acts on the basis that they would put up prices.

[pwa]

The assumption (if that is the right word) is that HGVs are in themselves part of the infrastructure of modern life, so we all pay the cost of keeping them doing their job. I have worked in businesses that have had deliveries from HGVs and I imagine our costs getting the goods by a larger number of smaller vehicles would have been significantly higher. If we take Tesco (who I have never worked for) as an example we are all familiar with, would you welcome a rise in prices to pay for a logistics change that did away with artics? The whole model of operation of the supermarkets relies on artics.

The point is that we all pay the costs of artics etc. in more dangerous, more polluted, noisier roads. These are real costs, and it is always cheaper and better to prevent damage than to pay to put it right afterwards. Some of the damage cannot be put right but is in the form of shortened lives.
Attributing these costs correctly gives a better result.
The market is distorted when the costs are not alloted to those who benefit.
I expect you can think of evils which were once part of modern life, but which we managed to stop, and would not think of reintroducing.
Smog and the visibly filthy air from open coal fires in the last century is an example. Our air is almost invisibly filthy with the products of other fossil fuel burning. This has very real costs in health. Stopping it might be a little dearer.
Nobody would want to go back to the stinking smogs of the past, though I expect there were those arguing against the clean air acts on the basis that they would put up prices.

So what do you do about Tesco, Lidl and the rest? You charge a levy on their artics so the prices on the shelves go up. And that pays for road repairs so we lower the taxes that otherwise paid for them? And the same for the twenty tonnes of stone chippings delivered to a building site, and so on. Higher prices to the consumer but lower taxes. I can see the purity of that but it does sound like more paperwork, collecting a levy on each shipment.

[Mike Sales]

So what do you do about Tesco, Lidl and the rest? You charge a levy on their artics so the prices on the shelves go up. And that pays for road repairs so we lower the taxes that otherwise paid for them? And the same for the twenty tonnes of stone chippings delivered to a building site, and so on. Higher prices to the consumer but lower taxes. I can see the purity of that but it does sound like more paperwork, collecting a levy on each shipment.

Once the principle is accepted we can work out the details of implementation.
We do not have to do it with an individual tax and paperwork on every load, do we?
Since the VED on lorries at present does not begin to cover the road damage they do that does not apply, but it would be a good idea if it did.
Lower taxes is not what I was suggesting directly, but, amongst the other costs lowered, would be less strain on the NHS for treating the maimed and repiratory victims. Not to mention the saved costs in human suffering from the reduction in these effects of HGVs.
It also occurs to me that, as suggested above, streets with smaller carrying vehicles doing the distribution would not be so unpleasant to walk and cycle. I think all here would see that as a worthwhile gain. Imagine cleaner and safer streets with more bikes.
This thread, after all, began with discussing the difficulties of bikes and HGVs sharing limited space.
Are bikes or heavy lorries better encouraged in our streets?

[freeflow]

For those who think its a sin to split a 40 ton lorry into 4 10 ton lorries I might point out that this has already been done, but into much smaller lorries, so that supermarkets can deliver to homes. I think what we need is larger lorries (e.g. lorries with trailers), that are restricted to motorways and major A roads, which deliver to regional distribution centers and then much smaller vehicles to manage distribution to local stores. You could even run the current supermarket delivery vans from the distribution centers if you wished.

Its also not beyond the wit of man for the loads in the much bigger lorries to be comprised of smaller container so that its just a case of moving one container to another smaller lorry rather than unpacking an artic and repacking.

[pwa]

So what do you do about Tesco, Lidl and the rest? You charge a levy on their artics so the prices on the shelves go up. And that pays for road repairs so we lower the taxes that otherwise paid for them? And the same for the twenty tonnes of stone chippings delivered to a building site, and so on. Higher prices to the consumer but lower taxes. I can see the purity of that but it does sound like more paperwork, collecting a levy on each shipment.

Once the principle is accepted we can work out the details of implementation.
We do not have to do it with an individual tax and paperwork on every load, do we?
Since the VED on lorries at present does not begin to cover the road damage they do that does not apply, but it would be a good idea if it did.
Lower taxes is not what I was suggesting directly, but, amongst the other costs lowered, would be less strain on the NHS for treating the maimed and repiratory victims. Not to mention the saved costs in human suffering from the reduction in these effects of HGVs.
It also occurs to me that, as suggested above, streets with smaller carrying vehicles doing the distribution would not be so unpleasant to walk and cycle. I think all here would see that as a worthwhile gain. Imagine cleaner and safer streets with more bikes.
This thread, after all, began with discussing the difficulties of bikes and HGVs sharing limited space.
Are bikes or heavy lorries better encouraged in our streets?

If you push big deliveries outside towns you push the big retailers out too. I suppose that has happened already though. Maybe big retail and town centres no longer mix well.

[Jon in Sweden]

For reference (regarding pollution):

An artic takes up twice the road space of a 7.5t lorry, uses twice as much fuel, but carries 7 times as much weight.

It is 3.5 times more fuel and space efficient to use artics.

Most of the fuel cost is overcoming air resistance. Frontal area of an artic isn't massively bigger than a 7.5t lorry.

[Barrowman]

I am sure I have a recollection of a driving course for something that started with the participants on bikes some years ago . Busses perhaps?

Certainly seems the instructor in this case might need his cycling perspective re setting like that.

Those pictures of cycle lanes alongside other traffic stopping in same place needs addressing. Any Cycle Lane worth it's salt has advanced give way areas ahead (and indeed in front sometimes) of the other traffic when it halts. Is there some recent standard on these? The graphics absolutely demonstrate the issue (s) . Well done to the poster of those.