Quote:
Originally Posted by Angua
Which if they have to do this too often could take them over their time limit for driving. Let alone being stuck behind a slower moving vehicle will also delay them.
Easier and cheaper for the car driver to make time up later, than for the lorry driver to lose momentum and be stuck behind a slower moving vehicle for miles.
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Are you serious?
How is an occasional lift off the accelerator pedal is going to affect an HGV driver's hours to any great extent? Evening having to go at 55 mph as against 56 mph for the full 9 hours available to an HGV driver means 9 less miles travelled at most or alternatively just under 10 minutes longer to attain the same distance travelled by the faster moving vehicle.
Now let's consider how many vehicles that have been delayed by one HGV trying pass another HGV at the same 1 mph speed difference. It will take approximately 5 minutes for the faster vehicle to travel the length of the slower HGV so lets say another 5 minutes to pull out and pull back in, 10 minutes in total. In that 10 minute period when the faster traffic are required to slow down two things happen.
There is a tailback which in itself is nothing other than a minor annoyance as you say, however the biggest impact is an increase in fuel consumption resulting from when the slower moving HGV returns to the nearside lane and all the vehicles following are "released". Should they then all accelerate back to even just 70 mph, the cumulative additional increase in fuel consumption must be greater than what would have used had the HGV not pulled out to perform the overtake.
Your assertion that it's
Easier and cheaper for the car driver to make time up later is only partly correct. It is certainly is easier but not cheaper when you take a wider view.