There is a wonderful stretch of A34 north of Newbury where there is no over-trucking during rush-hours. Bliss!
Personally I can see no reason for any truck to overtake any other truck; they are all limited to the same speed and end up behind each other at the next set of lights or lower speed limit, but in the mean-time they have taken 4 miles to get past the driver who was making his dinner at the wheel and have a six mile queue of cars behing them.
Brian (who says just wait till it is his turn to be dictator )
Thats because you assume that every truck is limited to the same speed:supermarket trucks tend to set the limiter to 50mph to save fuel,they don't give two hoots about productivity from the truck because they sell cornflakes,transport is just another expense to them.
A haulier who has invested £120k in an artic needs to make money,and as most are paid by the tonne/mile needs to see that truck do the most work in a day as possible.He won't want his motor stuck behind a supermarket trolley for hours on end,it might cost as much as 50 miles or one hours work in a day.
You'd be pissed off too if that vital BMW part you wanted was on that lorry coming from Europe, wasn't on the counter as promised because the driver ran out of hours 50 miles away and "won't get here till tomorrow,Sir"....
Trunk routes were originally designed for freight,no one back then envisaged the growth in personal transport and the subsequent commuter journeys/school runs/pleasure trips that clog up the road network.
Trucks make up a tiny percentage of the vehicles on UK roads:funnily enough the UK is the only country in Europe that has such a vociferous anti-truck attitude and lack of respect for road transport in general.
Truckers in Europe enjoy better facilities,get more respect,and theres a healthy understanding that without road transport,modern life ceases to exist.
A recent Government commissioned a report that concluded if truckies went on strike for two weeks,there would be riots in the streets...they've just started bleating about an imminent driver shortage,(which we've been predicting for years).
Not going to be easy to get new people to drive trucks:since 1997 it's been go to University or you are nobody...