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A shot in the foot
Page 9
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LGV driver L Radley explains why a truck overtaking ban on the Al4 might benefit LGV drivers more than frustrated commuters.
Until a couple of years ago I had the dubious pleasure of running up the Al4 almost every day, in a usually unsuccessful attempt tr deliver on time after loading at Felixstowe. Finding myself betweE Huntingdon and Cambridge at 9.30am last week confirmed my suspicions that nothing has changed. The road was built as a freight route, so much of the traffic is trucks. But the vast majority( minor stations on the rail line that follows the same basic route have been dosed, forcing more commuters onto this stretch of road.
Its no great shock that these commuters are now complaining about the very vehicles whose road they have invaded. Because, naturally, it's our fault that they now have to get up half an hour earlier to crawl to work. Apparently the main problem is lorries overtaking, and the solution is a ban on the stretch in Northamptonshire. If this is a success it will undoubtedly be replicated elsewhere. How this brainwave was arrived at wher is virtually impossible to get above 45mph in either lane during thE peak periods I have no idea.
Most of us end up in the outer lane because we've moved over to let a lemming in a rep-mobile join the road, only to get stuck when that same lemming finds he has nowhere to go.
If you confine all the wagons to the outer lane it will make no difference to our speed; it will simply make the slow section stretch for the same distance again to either side. Since we'll have nowhere to move to in order to let the commuters in, and there's nothing like an aggrieved truck driver for rigidly sticking to the rule: we'll all be pottering along in a line. None of the cars will be able to get on or off unless they start at either end of the A14. It'll be chaos Or will it? The problem is caused by locals flooding the roar every two miles. Confine the trucks to one lane and they won't be able to do that so they'll have to find another way to work, leaving the Al4 free for freight and longer-distance traffic as originally intended. Congestion solved, job done. At the risk of alienating all of my fellow drivers, I say bring it on.