Having just driven from Florida to Delaware I saw a few back ups on I-95. On several occasions I saw two truckers blocking both lanes of traffic and creeping along at around 5 mph. In front of them was open highway. Up a ways was a botleneck (merging lanes due to construction) but they were holding uo traffic from even getting there. Anyone else seen this? Anyone know the theory behind this tactic? Has anyone seen the end result of this? Does it work?
I’ve never seen it, but it sounds like a good idea (for the truckers). Probably considered illegal, since the leftmost truck isn’t passing the other.
If they were in one lane, regular cars would no doubt pass them and fill both lanes, then bottleneck at the lane closure. Then they would have to come to a complete stop, which I understand is quite a pain for them.
The trucks probably pass and get in the same lane at the last minute before there’s time for any cars to pass them. And with no bottlenecked traffic ahead of them, they have to slow down very little if at all.
Everybody got to elevate from the norm - Rush
Or they wound down their windows to talk to each other?
Running side-by-side when two lanes merge into one is more or less necessary for most trucks.
The problem isn’t coming to a stop in the congested traffic, as much as it’s reaching the bottleneck at all.
A truck that has had to stop before the bottleneck will start way slower than the cars around it. This of course means that there’s a free stretch of road in front of it for some seconds - immediately cars from the left lane zoom in and the truck goes nowhere. But if another truck is there to prevent it, both trucks can move with traffic.
After the bottleneck is reached, the problem disappears, of course.
But as to why they were creeping along - your guess is as good as mine.
It’s a bad idea to charge blocked traffic in a big truck. If it doesn’t clear up, they will drive over the top of those cars.
They have just picked a gear and are staying with it rather than doing a lot of shifting, or stopping and going. They prefer to run steady.
Having been stuck behind this occurance several times when I lived in Ohio, I can understand the viewpoint of the truckers. However, I’ve seen them start this little moving baracade of thier’s 5 miles before the merge…I thought that this was just a bit much. there was more traffic backed up behind these two truckers than there was at the actual merge. Like many things, it’s a good idea that sometimes gets taken too far.
Good for the truckers (well, not the ones wh started 5 miles ahead). I’d like to see cars do this too.
Actually, since I moved back to Michigan from California, it hasn’t been a problem. People get in the one backed up lane, rather than passing and cutting in.
It is too clear, and so it is hard to see.
I’ll back Atrael on this. Usually, it is done appropriately and I have no problem with it. (I’ve even been known to wander a ways onto the shoulder to keep idiots from passing all of us just to cut out the trucks), but when they start this back before the backup even begins, I’d just as soon find an Abrams and see what they’re really made of.
Actually, having a brother for a trucker, I can shed some light here.
Done properly, the trucks running the ‘blockade’ will keep in touch with trucks going through the bottle-neck by radio to determine how much back-up there is at the bottl-neck. They moderate their pace to allow the traffic ahead of them to merge and enter the reduced lane(s) by the time they themselves arrive and start a merge. The hope, of course, is that traffic behind them will merge while moving, preventing a total jam.
Does it work? Well… maybe.
Also a problem with this is that it you’re not familiar with the road, sometimes you can’t tell how far it is to the merge. So you get two lanes of traffic that have to merge right before one lane ends instead of having at least some cars that will get over before the last minute…