Heavy Goods Vehicles

What’s the big deal?

Some people have huge problems with heavy goods vehicles, or their drivers, or both.

It is difficult to argue that they are unnecessary, since any given economy relies on the transportation of products from one point to another, be it raw materials to factories, processed food to supermarkets, fuel for filling stations or heating oil. The railway network doesn’t go to supermarkets.

The argument is that they clutter up the road network, get in their way, and slow down their journeys. Thing is, almost all HGV journeys will be associated with business purposes. These goods cannot be realistically carried any other way. Can the same be said for car journeys? How often do several people from the one area travel to the same workplace, in their own cars? There might be reasons, but the principal one is that people are selfish and lazy with their private cars. Heh, I know I can be.

As for getting in peoples’ way and slowing progress, if a HGV is driving at their speed limit on single carriageway roads, that is 40 mph, they’re reasonably easy to overtake, even in a Cinquecento 900. If they’re travelling at 55 to 60 mph, I would argue that there is little point in overtaking - you’d need to break the speed limit to do so. On the dual carriageway, one HGV overtaking another can cause problems, but this is only an issue when the road is busy. Oddly enough, when it is quiet and you’re driving at 70, this really isn’t that much of a problem since you have lots of time to decelerate, if required. When it’s busy, you can make good progress by cruising at the same speed as a HGV, rather than constantly accelerating and decelerating between 60 and 70 (or quicker). You can read about this here.

Almost all HGV drivers are courteous to other road users, plan well ahead and are highly skilled. Because their vehicles lack the performance of cars, they must use a different technique: it’s all about conversation of energy. I’ve never driven a HGV (but I would like to, so I’m open to offers) but I would imagine that having to change gear seven times between rest and 45 mph would become rather tiresome. And HGVs’ have inferior braking performance too (one of the reasons for their lower speed limits). Occasionally, you’ll encounter a bad HGV driver (an example is here). But these are the exception to the rule - it’s light goods vehicles, the smaller trucks, that cause the most problems. These drivers tend to be on tighter schedules.