Or HGV drivers could respect speed limits, drive smoothly and not tailgate car drivers intimidatingly, especially in average speed camera roadworks? Thereby saving fuel by cruising at a constant speed and not burning fuel unnecessarily to keep falling back and bursting forward right up to the vehicle in front. Like the pleb behind me this morning in heavy traffic, who was tailgating me VERY closely, and then when I moved to the outside lane, kept passing alongside me and then sliding back, despite a) me driving at a constant speed appropriate to the traffic conditions, and b) there being another HGV in front of him, so there was no opportunity to overtake anyway!
I really do not get the tailgating thing really, or the elephant racing on hills either.
Example....
I do not drive fast these days, a) because my boy racer (And the cars that went with it! V12 Jags, Rover vitesse, etc) are long gone.
(I do still have a little E36 1.9 Coupe which can be quite brisk if I want her to be. But even as the 1.9, the traction control still cuts in if I am over enthusiastic. The 2.8/M class versions must have been brutal!
).
and b) Because I am more vans and land cruisers these days so though they can go faster, 50-60 is as fast as is comfortable.
My Motorway/DC strategy is to pick what I think is a lightly loaded lorry in L1 (IE one that is unlikely to slow much on hills) and hold station about 100 yards behind it (Or around 3 seconds gap) using it as a pacemaker.
So what happens.
I end up with some jerk in a truck 6ft off my back bumper. (With L2 empty)! What exactly does he want me to do?
Speed up a bit so that I catch up with the lorry in front and then resume my previous speed?
If he hasn't sufficient reserve to pass me, he wont have sufficient to pass the truck I am using as pacemaker! So what is the point?
And as for the elephant racing. I remember driving down the A303(? I think it was the 303) a couple of years ago on the hilly DC section.
It is like Dual!
We have Mr Light and Mr Heavy.
On the downhill bits Mr Heavy has the edge so he pulls out to inch past Mr Light (Holding everybody else up in the process). On the uphill bits Mr Light has the advantage so he pulls out to inch past Mr heavy (Holding everybody else up in the process)
"N" switchbacks later Mr Light and Mr heavy are still next to one another. If Mr Light had just stayed behind Mr Heavy they would both be in exactly the same position but without holding up everybody else in the process! (Mr Light might well have used slightly less fuel too)
But none of this detracts from the fact that really, Cycling is not emissions free. The presence of cyclists on the highway, particularly on busy SC roads, will in many cases increase the emissions of other vehicles beyond what they would have been had the cyclists not been present. The effect is much smaller with cars than with HFGV's of course. But there are many more cars than HGV's and lots of little bits will add up.
I would expect that on a busy (Say rush hour) single carriageway road (IE one where most drivers will be unable to time a cruising pass to match a clear opposite carriageway) Any cyclist will probably be generating more, possibly even considerably more, emissions than they would have done driving a car.
