AIBU to expect lorry drivers to respect speed limits and distance?

Why are you moving over enabling the lorry to undertake you. Stick in your lane and let the lorry driver sort himself out.

Mind, if you're doing 28 in a 30 limit, when the road and conditions are clear, you are driving too slow

I always assume lorries that appear to be speeding in a 50, especially with average speed cameras are actually doing 50, by their tacograph. Whereas my speedo will be showing 50 but I'm actually doing 47 or whatever.

I wouldn't speed up for them, I don't want a ticket, and I certainly wouldn't be moving over to let them undertake!

I do the speedlimit according to my speedo, leave a bigger gap in front and hope no one pulls into it, and try to ignore them tailgating as best I can.

On all occasions I have been driving to the speed limit the same speed as everyone else and have been in the left lane and forced to move over to the overtaking lane

No. This is on you. You can't be forced right. You're in the left lane, stay there.

So OP you're moving out of the left lane (i.e. lane 1) into lane 2 to allow a HGV to undertake you? Yeah I wouldn't be doing that. Unless there are temporary signs forbidding HGV's to use anything other than lane 1 they can overtake me in the regular way. Can't say it's happened to me but if they did tailgate me, my rear-facing dashcam will be recording it and I would be submitting it to Operation Snap. They can and will prosecute if they're driving dangerously. There are only so many times that can do this before they're out of a job on points tot-up. I know in my car that when my speedo says 53, I'm actually doing 50 so I set my cruise control to that.

I'm not hogging the middle lane. I'm overtaking. That's why I called it the overtaking lane. I literally said If the left hand lane is clear of course I drop back into it. I would like to know these motorways that have all these clear lanes btw. All my motorway driving, the lanes are full (M1, M25, M40).

I'm referring to car drivers who stay in the right hand lane the whole journey - of course it will be congested with HGVs.

Of course you are supposed to stay as far left as possible though. Only use the outer lanes when actually overtaking.

I really hope your sarcasm just didn’t come across, otherwise you’re one of the idiots ok the road hogging the third/middle lane when you shouldn’t be.

We don’t have any sort of trailer or caravan but will always flash a lorry in when it’s safe for them to do so too. Although it’s rare a lorry will be going past us. My husband does it when we are behind a lorry and he can see it’s safe for them to pull back across. I personally think that’s really rude, and potentially unsafe. I think it’s for the person in the left lane to signal that they are clear of you.

I'm not giving a proper response to rudeness like that.

And how the fuck does that excuse shit driving?

I remember my husband saying to me years ago (neither of us are lorry drivers) that they do the slow overtake because the distances they are driving, what 1-5mph faster they are doing will have a significant impact on their driving time - and when they’re on a taco (? Not sure what the spelling is) they have to stop driving after a certain length of time. So it’s worth them overtaking even though it takes forever and pisses everyone else off. They usually have governors on so they can’t go any faster just to get past a bit quicker either.

You were probably going slower than 50. If it says 50 then your probably only going 46

It's not droll. If you insist on tootling along at 60mph in the left hand lane of course you are going to get sandwiched between lorries. I just accept that the left hand lanes are for HGVs and try to drive as much as I can at the right speed in the overtaking lanes. If the left hand lane is clear of course I drop back into it.

Very droll.

Sorry to be that poster but there are of course 2 lane roads.

If you're on a motorway you can avoid this lorry behaviour by being in the overtaking lanes all the way.

When caravanning, HGVs were great at flashing to let you now it was safe to pull back in after an overtake. I always used to return the favour.

I love these people who like having a moan about lorry drivers but still expect all their crap to be next day delivered and supermarket shelves full. This is one of the worst countries to be a lorry driver. Crap facilities, barely any toilets, frozen out of services, sleeping in lay bys. Try it yourself and see how much you'll complain in the future.

I remember when HGV drivers used to be the best out there. "Knights of the road" if anyone remembers that. Post Office drivers used to win awards for their exemplary driving. What happened?

Driving behaviour has become the exemplar of the "I can do what I want and sod everybody else" mentality that prevails now.

Agree with the OP.

Just as long as all drivers on the road are being judged the same. For every lorry driver whose conduct on the road is unacceptable there are hundreds of car drivers. I think around 25% of all those with a car licence should not have one, I'd guess for lorry drivers it is probably under 5%.

I guarantee you are one of the ones doing about 35 mph in the 50 zone annoying the crap out of everyone

I do agree it was a pity they stopped sending goods via trains and took to the roads instead though. That's made a huge impact.

The problem is you can't make money out of freight on rail. And the UK railway network is meant to make money. If by some mistake it actually moves people around in a vaguely useful way ... well it's your lucky day.

Even then the only way to make money from the railways is to not pay for the actual track, signalling, trains and stations. Luckily the UK taxpayer was happy to pick up that tab so the "rail" companies could make lots of lovely lolly.

(See also: water, telecomms, energy).

Of course roads are built with taxpayers money too, so we get to subsidise road freight.

I was once in a queue of traffic that ran for 10 miles along the A34 because one lorry had decided to overtake a row of about 4 or 5 HGVs on the left hand lane of a two lane stretch.

Our speedometers in cars are a few mph slower than we are actually travelling, lory drivers usually have their sat navs running which shows a more accurate my mph so they aren't necessarily speeding.

I agree completely. I don't care if they take ages to overtake personally. There's no excuse for dangerous driving though, and driving so close that they'd cause a pile up if the car in front needs to brake suddenly is extremely dangerous

I think we understand that lorry and van drivers are under pressure to make deadlines, but not, surely, at the expense of frightening other road users, driving inconsiderately at best and dangerously at worst. They know that the size and weight of their vehicle means that a car driver is always going to come off worse in an accident, so they take chances.

You just know, on roundabouts where you have the right of way, that the lorry approaching on your left is not going to stop, thus forcing you to brake.

The overtaking oh-so-slowly is definitely another issue
They have speed limiters on the vehicles so they can't do that extra oomph to get past quickly. But they also are only allowed to drive for so long before having a long rest break so being stuck behind another vehicle that's doing a couple of mph less can be the difference between them making a delivery in time (or catching a ferry). They also only have the option of 2 lanes, you have 3 sometimes 4.

I do agree it was a pity they stopped sending goods via trains and took to the roads instead though. That's made a huge impact.