HGVs
| Driver type: | Males, Lumberjacks, French women |
| Mentality: | Axe-wielder |
| Speed: | 55.99mph |
| Vehicle: | 18-wheeler |
| I-spy guide: | Easy to spot - they're the chaps in the lorries |
"breaker breaker, snowman signing off, ten four rubber duck, over and out"
There's a pecking order on the roads and HGVs are very near the top. The majority can often be observed dominating and bullying other cars on the motorway. It's not surprising you want to move out of the way of a 40 tonne machine driven by what seems like an axe-wielding maniac.
The 56mph monotony can only be relieved by pulling out into other vehicles. It's an unwritten theory that the size of lorry driver manhood is inversely proportional to the indicator-to-manoeuvre time gap. 6 inches is equal to a 2 second indicator-to-manoeuvre time. Bonus girth can be obtained by an abnormally enraged response from the victim.
As of January 1994 most UK HGVs are limited to 56mph. What a stupid idea this was. Now we suffer with an average lorry-lorry overtaking time of approximately 45 minutes. What's the point of having 3 lanes, when 2 lanes are being taken up by 56mph snowmen and rubber ducks? All 3 lanes of car traffic then has to squeeze past in one lane, whilst bob the hairy-arsed lorry driver crawls past another equally hairy peer in a bid to arrive at his (or her) destination less than 60 seconds¹ earlier.
The lorry drivers don't care. Why should they? They didn't introduce the stupid limiter. It's not really their fault. I bet 95% of the UK population would welcome the removal of these limiters, allowing HGVs to become evenly spread over the motorways rather than bunched up in lane hogging groups.
One word of advice though - why not ban HGVs from the middle and outer lane in busy periods? It works in Chermany².
¹ A 200 mile journey at 56mph compared to 55.75mph has a 58 second difference
² Germany
