They are the blood cells that transport this countries nutrients along its motorway veins. Lorries and articulated machinery are very important when it comes to supplying our supermarkets with food or delivering just about anything that is too big to fit through your letter box. For that we thank you lorry drivers, you are irreplaceable. However, I seem to find myself getting more and more frustrated with the behaviour of many lorry drivers on the roads. Now before I get a load of hate mail, like I did from some rather militant cyclists regarding another article I wrote in the same tone, I do not refer to all lorry drivers, just the many that I seem to come across.
Dear lorry drivers… Please indicate for a reasonable period of time before completing your lane change. You do not get bonus points for leaving your indication to the very last moment as you make a manoeuvre. You are driving the motoring equivalent of Fort Knox and I’ll be honest, I’d rather not go home resembling a pancake.
Dear lorry drivers… I adore your patriotism, but remember the M3 is not the latest stage for the Olympic Games. I have witnessed UK lorry drivers sighting a Latvian rival, slipstreaming with astonishing efficiency and going for the overtake. As the lorries draw level their eyes lock and the battle to find the optimum gear for the next hill begins. Meanwhile this rolling roadblock has caused a horrific amount of congestion, why? Because despite both lorries having the same limited top speed each driver is adamant that theirs is faster and thus more deserving of 1st place. Being honest, it is entertaining for the first few minutes, but then I decide that I would rather get on with my life than watch the latest international battle of the juggernauts.
Dear lorry drivers… When genuinely overtaking a slower vehicle please don’t do it at the foot of a hill! The speed that the traffic grinds down to is intolerable as your cumbersome machine lugs itself uphill. Many people stuck in this traffic have contemplated getting out and walking as this would be faster than being sentenced to 10MPH and the and the relentlessness of the ageing process. Just the other week I saw a lorry try to overtake in the middle lane going up a blatantly steep incline, but worse there was another lorry in the outside lane trying to overtake him! Where is the logic in that? This third driver will have witnessed his colleges struggle and then decided that at the peril of everyone stuck behind his already slowing machine, he was the Mark Webber of the lorry fraternity and would overtake on the M27’s equivalent of Eau Rouge.
Is it just me? Am I a magnet for questionable driving manors? Am I just too grumpy? Maybe…
