Victoria bans trucks in the right hand lane on freeways

[OilBurna]

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-new...0303-ph73.html

[Tim]

its already illegal for any car to travel in the right hand lane unless they are overtaking. Pointless move in my opinion as its the trucks that are giving traffic the hurry up most of the time anyways.

The real problems are in the stupidity of the average driver. My biggest gripe especially on the monash at the minute is people not following the advice of signs that say to merge right or left to avoid roadworks. Which then causes them to stop traffic as they try and squeeze in at the last second.

Finally if you feel "itimidated by a truck" then i would contend that you arent really ready to be driving on the roads. Trucks arent the problem. Its people who have no idea how to drive in their presence and for the most part arent comfortable driving. And yes if youre that moron that stops on freeway onramps because you cant make your way into the traffic then Im most likely referring to you.

[Hooligan]

I totally agree with you mate.
And I think 83% of motorist that conducted the
survey should have there licence suspended

[Water Boy]

Well said Tim.

[Rocket36]

Read the article. It's for roads with 3 or more lanes. So they still have another two they can use. This is the sort of thing that makes sense when you often sit in snail's pace traffic on the West Gate Fwy because there are trucks in ALL the lanes.

This is a GOOD move.

Although a MUCH better move would be to get the trucks off the road by investing in a state of the art rail network - get the freight back on the rails! NATIONALLY!

[STV4SYT]

I'm all for it, this works in the UK.

And as i am now driving 35km of the monash each way on a daily basis i think it should be extended to All Honda's, Camry's, RAV's and Taxi's aswell.

What annoys me more at the moment is the number of people that sit on 95, both in the 100 zone and when it goes back to 80.

Every morning i get overtaken in the 80's only to get held up by the same cars when i hit the 100 zone and open it up a bit.

[Tim]

Although a MUCH better move would be to get the trucks off the road by investing in a state of the art rail network - get the freight back on the rails! NATIONALLY!

And then teleport it from the railway line to the warehouses? Trucks are here to stay im afraid so we may as well learn to live with them.

The issue is that our roads have hit saturation point. I dont understand what difference it makes if you are sitting in bumper to bumper traffic behind a car or a truck?
Too many people are trying to get to the same place at the same time. Perhaps that is an issue that needs some debate.

I agree though that our rail network is pathetic. If only the gov would have spent money on more infrastructure which is sorely needed instead of pissing it up against a wall. Imagine if convenient/reliable/cheap public trasport was available? Would that help relieve congenstion on our roads?

[Dub_Star_V6]

Although a MUCH better move would be to get the trucks off the road by investing in a state of the art rail network - get the freight back on the rails! NATIONALLY!

Perhaps you've heard of Intermodal Competitive Neutrality. That is, any government-owned business cannot maintain an unfair competitive advantage over a privately owned business.

So while I agree there would be no need for (the majority of) heavy vehicles to be on our roads if we had an efficient rail transport network, heavy freight transport using state and federally-controlled roads will never be converted to rail due to the federal ICN policy. Which is a pity, especially when we have a PM who is constantly banging on about productivity and real-world competitiveness, yet who is in charge of a piece of legislation that effectively diminishes it. Oh that's right, he has the health system to fix will he ignores tax reform. Silly me...

So the reason behind the need for 'trials' such as this is not only for the government to be seen to be doing something (no matter what that 'something' is?) but also to help educate drivers of heavy vehicles, and road users generally, of basics like 'keep left' (which is enforceable i.e. revenue) and limit compression braking' (which isn't).

I mean, is it just me or does 'Straya seem to be catering (pandering?) more and more to the lowest common denominator? Anyhooo...