I recall the days when professional drivers extended certain courtesies to each another.
However, along with most other things, there has been a general decline in standards, notable since the creation of the DSA (now part of DVSA).
Firstly, it is the larger vehicles where I think there are issues. At motorway services, there are areas marked for coaches. But it is quite rare to find these areas free of lorries. I always thought the idea was that coach passengers should safely visit the facilities without having to run the gauntlet.
A lot of these lorries come from abroad, so maybe they cannot read English. Equally there are English drivers who are too lazy to walk any distance to their meal. Since the services operators dispensed with supervisors, it is generally a free for all, with no sign of enforcement.
Secondly, travelling down the motorways, at the maximum speed of 100kph, there are times when I have thought I had taken my foot off the throttle. I was not gaining on the lorry ahead… or at least by only a foot every mile.
This was a phenomenon with a lorry which clearly was not averse to flouting the law. It seems that more and more lorries are exceeding the 90kph limit. Many of these are private owner vehicles evidently paid for by the load, and do not see a problem with 40 tons hurtling along the carriageway at dangerous speeds.
Finally, as a professional driver, one tries to remain cool, calm and collected – but I fail to understand how, when you are driving a vehicle limited to 90kph, a driver can expect to pass another vehicle which is similarly limited. You may have guessed it is a tad annoying to find a dual carriageway effectively blocked.
At least the A14 has an outside lane ban (not that all cargo jockeys are restricted by that), but now we have moved into the SMART motorway era, we now find smarter lorries… driving three abreast.
Is it time to allow coaches use of the outside lane again?
Chris Brown
Longmynd Travel
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
