Princes Highway reduction of lanes for trucks

Hi all, not sure where to place this post but hopefully this is the spot. This morning in the local paper, the Geelong Advertiser they are running a poll on peoples reaction to the Government announcement that as of July this year in Victoria the 3rd lane on the Princes Hwy, between Lara & the Western ring road interchange will be unable to be used by trucks. Fine for doing so will be $350.00 with no loss of points.
I have been on the site & placed my comment. If you wish to add your 2 bob's worth the site is
www.geelongadvertiser.com.au
read the article & part way down the page is where you click on to add your comment. cheers tim

I dont really see the sense of it, will just have trucks tailgating in the second lane.
On a road which is 110 for cars it might have some merit, but trucks will still need to use the third lane occasionally to overtake.

Unless it's change since I was there nearly 20 yrs ago this is a standard rule for motorways in the UK. When trucks struggled to make 60mph which was also the speed limit for them there were long queues to overtake - and then the cowboys started coming over from Europe in their speed wagons and ignored the rules and it all changed. Roland, what's the latest over there?

G'day Mammoth, I was in the UK almost 2 months ago , and what you said I believe is correct, HGV's ( Heavy Goods Vehicles , as they call them there ) are restricted to only the left hand 2 lanes. I had to take a National Express bus from London to Nottingham, up the M1 , the main North / South motorway through the UK, and I could not see any problem .
We made good time , not appreciably slowing down at any time. All the drivers I saw seemed to be quite courteous letting faster vehicles by and moving over.
Then again I don't have to drive there for a living, maybe Roland as you said could fill us in more.
One thing I did have a problem with was the heater on the bus must have been set to about 38 degrees ! I thought I was going to pass out
When the the rellos picked me up in Nottingham , the heater in their car was set to about the same temperature. What is it with these Poms?? .. er sorry Roland !
regards Harleigh

Harleigh,
We had the same problem in the UK with the heating. One B and B we stayed in we had strip all the blankets off the bed it was so hot inside. We learnt to wear just a t shirt under our heavy jackets because soon as we got inside anywhere you had get straight down to the tshirt to survive the heat

I think the Poms are proud of their central heating system and crank it up to impress the visitors. When I was over there my brother in law had just bought a car with air con ( in England ??) :-?and was determined to show it off. One day it hit 21 and he insisted on putting it on and freezing us to the seats.

I guess the idea behind this stunt is to try and get through to a lot of ignorant Aussie drivers (both car and truck, but starting with trucks), that right hand lane hogging is a no-no.

I am absolutely fed up with people who insist on right-lane hogging, at 10 kmh below the limit, and who will stick there, regardless of how many vehicles are banking up behind them. They introduced the compulsory keep-left rule, here on the left coast a few years back, then abandoned it .. for reasons that I haven't figured.

In Pommyland, the drivers are much more educated, much more courteous, and they KEEP LEFT!! If you try to hog the right lane, you will very promptly get lights flashing in your mirror, warning you to move over.
In general, Pommy motorists treat the right lane like a no-mans land, and get out of it, the instant they've overtaken someone.
If Aussie motorists were less selfish and more courteous, like the Poms, there wouldn't be a fraction of the road rage incidents we see and hear. I don't know what it is about the average Aussie motorist, but I reckon they are the most ignorant and selfish drivers around. People pull out in front of you, making you brake .. then they drive up 100 metres, and turn off into a side street? WTF?? They need to be in the lead, even if it means making all the traffic brake twice, just so they can get into the next street??

I reckon we need to be like the Finns, with compulsory driver testing every 2 years, and make people smarten up their driving skills and road courtesy levels. Don't even get me started on the number of people yapping on phones, or even texting whilst driving. I reckon if I was a copper in an unmarked car, I could claim 150 kills a day on phone use alone, because that's at least the amount of people I see yapping on phones whilst driving, in one day.
I have to admit, people are getting really subtle and expert at hiding the little pocket phones, so you have to look twice to see if they really ARE on the phone.
The wandering-all-over the road, and the switched-off looks on their faces, generally gives them away, though .. >

Another factor is the poor road design and engineering in many places. In pommyland, if they have a street that is 3 lanes wide, the street is divided into 3 lanes, and the centre lane is reserved for, and marked for, right and left turns into side streets.

Here, if there's a street that's around 3 lanes wide, the so-called "experts" always manage to insert about 100 concrete median strips every kilometre, that are less than car width .. and then they stick in a bike lane, and run two marked lanes, with a no-mans land in the middle, that isn't wide enough to pull into, if you're doing a right turn .. so cars turning right, end up blocking traffic behind, or people swerve into the bike lane, thereby usually knocking any hapless cyclists off their bikes (that they never saw or even looked for) .. >

AFAIC, if there isn't enough room for a bike lane, and two or four full lanes, then the bike lane shouldn't even be installed. I ride a pushbike every now and then, but I won't go on roads where traffic is a nightmare, and where cars are brushing past me only a foot away. I stick to footpaths and bike paths, which is where all the bikes should be.
I've never been to Uni, but I reckon I could design a whole lot better road layout than these Uni-educated dopes .. whose main aim in life, appears to be creating as much frustration as possible to motorists .. what with excessive amounts of median strips, kerbs you can't climb over, jump-ups, tight roundabouts, "traffic-calming devices" (usually in Industrial areas, where semis are regular street users) .. blocked-off streets, and God-knows-what-else, they can think up.

The classic of all these idiots stunts, that I've seen, was in Northam, where they diverted all the long-distance East-West truck traffic out of the main street and over a bypass bridge. Then some clown got the idea of putting a tight roundabout right at the end of the bridge .. that you could barely get a semi around, let alone doubles and triples. The truckies soon fixed that idea up. They drove straight through, and over the roundabout, and totally destroyed it, within weeks!! ..

The council came along, and in their new-found wisdom, decided it wasn't one of their best ideas ever, and promptly removed it!! ..

1trak. Comparing Pom & Aussie authority attitude to road engineering is given in these examples. In Aus cops get to scene of single vehicle accidents real fast so victim can't leave scene before booking them. In England the focus is on a) putting things to right for property damage b)collating information so eroad engineers cam learn about traffic & road dynamics. In any fatal the adhesion of the road is tested and if it's not up to scratch coroner points finger. Never seen one of these pendulums used in Aus and they might not even have them (ignorance is bliss). Also it was a real shock to see exits from Right hand lane of motorway -WTF! and don't start me about sign posting.

Another brain dead idea which will lead to more accidents and I have heard that there will be a loss of three demerit points along with the fine- time to retire from the job and this Stalinist state with its regressive and punitive outdated laws which seem to be more appropriate to the dark ages - perhaps we need to lower the speed limit for trucks and have an individual walk in front of said beast waving a red flag to warn the poor car driver usually driving at 95 kph ! >

I know we are getting off the point but what gives the sh#ts is when looking for a certian road of a freeway and put up a sign saying to some place but not the road and then you about under the under pass and there is the sign saying the road you looking for !!!!.

Why cant they put these signs at of the off ramps I purpose this would to easy. dave