[Early_Adopter]

Yesterday, I was driving on a 2 x 2 Lane National Highway between Hyderabad and Vijayawada and came up with this interesting observation.

The highway traffic reconfigures itself around the trucks!

Let me try and elaborate - When there are only 2 lanes, the slow moving heavy truck drivers end up occupying both the lanes at their own whim. They just wouldn't move from whichever lane they are in, for the other vehicles to pass. This way, the people that drive cars and other vehicles end up weaving in and out of the lanes around the trucks resulting in dangerous manoeuvring at high speeds.

If there are 2 slow moving trucks on both the two lanes in parallel, then, the entire traffic at that moment completely slows down, until one of them barely passes the other and then the charade starts - each car tries to squeeze in between the narrow space of the two trucks across two lanes and then there's this slow moving truck ahead and the saga continues

In summary, the entire traffic system consisting of multitude of vehicles reconfigures itself around the trucks. So, it is not the traffic rules, the road designs, the regulations that dictate highway driving - it is just the truck drivers that decide how the others drive on the highways.

I find it annoying yet am amused at the whole thing.

A quick disclaimer though - I have not been driving on Indian highways for long. Having driven for many years abroad, I certainly find it strange that one particular type of road user decides on how all the other road users should drive on highways.

These trucks are lane squatters and it looks like there's nothing that can be done to change this driving behaviour. The collateral damages are unwarranted accidents due to weaving and weaving out of lanes by the other vehicles, slow down of the entire traffic at various points along the highway.

Note to the Mods: I tried searching on this topic, but couldn't locate easily. Please feel free to merge this post if there's already a running discussion elsewhere on this subject.

I look forward to hearing diverse views from the others.

Cheers

[adisan]

Looking at this from the point-of-view of the trucks:
Unlike cars,it is not easy for them to regain speed. It is important for them to conserve whatever momentum they have. Therefore, when a truck is moving in one lane and another has more momentum, the driver takes another lane so as to overtake. If the difference in speed is marginal, it seems to take forever for the other vehicles behind them. The trucks generally don't occupy all lanes with an express intent of slowing down other vehicles. And once the have passed the slower truck,they stick to their current lane till the traffic behind allows them to safely switch to a lane of their choice. Unlike smaller vehicles, they cannot and do not suddenly change lanes.

Regarding cars manoeuvering at dangerous speeds: the reluctance to drop speed is a major cause of mishaps. Cars can easily pick up speed, and unlike trucks there is no pressing need to conserve as much momentum as possible.

[jkrishnakj]

I have had this thought cross my mind several times in the past 3-4 years.

The hypothesis that I have is, back in the day (say till a decade ago), the trucks usually prepare for their haul around dusk times and do the highways that existed, all night, halt around the mornings and wait out till evening. Roads weee not that great then, and the number of states with god roads were far and few. It made sense for them to use the highways at Night, when the other traffic is the least for them.

Today, most national highways and states have fantastic roads. The trucks come with higher power and creature comforts. They have better network and given the cost competitive nature in logistics business, the truck owners deploy Brie trucks to be running all day and all night long.

I’m not sure and neither do I have data to support my hypothesis, but, I strongly feel that good roads are a reason for trucks to be playing all day as well. Therefore, if in the past, we used to encounter parallel trucks 3-4 times over every hundred KM’s, these days, you probably are almost always inside truck kingdoms.

Try NICE road at Bangalore. Very hard to not using the left most lane to overtake.

[Newtown]

Two things need to be addressed:

1. All sizes of goods carriers in India are almost always overloaded. They carry far more load than what is certified by the manufacturer. There needs to be more check on this.
   
2. The manufacturer must take the responsibility to demonstrate that the goods carrier when loaded to the maximum capacity certified by the manufacturer, can travel at a minimum speed (let's say 30 km/hr) on an incline of some specified degrees.

[One]

Originally Posted by Early_Adopter

The highway traffic reconfigures itself around the trucks!

This is a fairly well-known concept in Operations theory which line managers running Production lines use.

A great analogy was given in the book "The Goal" where the protaganist is taking a group of boy scouts walking in a queue. There's a chubby boy in the middle of the queue who slows down kids behind him and the ones ahead of him have zoomed ahead breaking the order of the queue.

The protagonist lessens the backback weight of this kid (to make him walk faster) and puts him first in the queue which leads to orderly management. The idea being taking the most inefficient aspect in a line and trying to see what can be done to improve it leads to improvement in overall line.

Obviously can't think of a similar solution with trucks, afterall definitely don't want to carry stuff from their "backpacks" into mine.

[krishnakumar]

Trucks in India are not just lane squatters, but they are fast lane squatters. And in general I don't agree with the sentiment that trucks need to maintain momentum and therefore, they will overtake at snail's pace blocking the entire highway. That is just not fair.

Limit their speed to 40kmph and restrict them to left-most lane. They would hardly gain a few seconds with their shenanigans and by squatting the fast-lane and forcing other vehicles to overtake from left, they are causing more danger on highways.

I find it funny that truckers in the US are considered to be the ones who enforce safety on highways whereas in India they almost definitely force us to make unsafe moves.

I do not want to overtake from the left side. But 7/10 times that's what I end up doing because the truck is squatting the fast lane.

[Bibendum90949]

A valid observation and the case with most highways that has heavy truck traffic, more so if there are elevation changes frequently. The need for trucks to overtake another one moving with marginally less speed is inevitable and in the process some occupy the right lanes too.

But most long haul truck drivers are largely disciplined on lane keeping.

So what's the solution? Can't think of anything other than wide 6 lanes(3*3).

[airbus]

I tweeted these photos to NHAI, but there was no reply, probably they don't consider this as a problem

[krishnakumar]

Originally Posted by Bibendum90949

Can't think of anything other than wide 6 lanes(3*3).

Doesn't work actually. The fundamental law of traffic design is that More Lanes = More Traffic.

It is counter-intuitive and even I had a little tough time to accept this. However, this video by Wendover Productions explains this very well although the moot point of this video is much larger on how to fix traffic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4PW66_g6XA

Coming to the problem of trucks, what we could do is to reduce the number of trucks on highways at any given period of time. And then enforce lane discipline for trucks in a meaningful way. All of this is WORK and is beyond NHAI's capabilities.

[Rahul Rao]

Originally Posted by Newtown

The manufacturer must take the responsibility to demonstrate that the goods carrier when loaded to the maximum capacity certified by the manufacturer, can travel at a minimum speed (let's say 30 km/hr) on an incline of some specified degrees.

Such a rule exists, and every country has it.
As per AIS standards on gradeability, a truck loaded to gross weight has to be able to start from dead stop, and gain a particular speed within 25 M on a 1:7 gradient.
This speed and standard differs country to country,
In Indian conditions it is 8 KPH, other countries like Australia, New-Zealand Brazil, Argentina etc follow the same.
For Eastern Europe, Russia, CIS countries it is 10 kph,
Mexico, Canada and USA has 16 kph where as Western Europe has 19kph.

Another measure is Ramp merging which is not applicable in India, where vehicle has to gain a particular speed in an particular distance on a mild incline while merging onto an elevated highway.

There is a third measure called incline break, where they guage how much the speed of a vehicle will fall on a 1:50 gradient. India and other countries in same group allow 40kph here, where as it is 45MPH (72kph) in US and 80 kph in Europe.

Rules are rules if they apply to all, including road construction. Roads are also built as per rules. We have ghats with gradients steeper than 1:7 even on E-ways. We also have speed breakers at the beginning of fly over ramps where loaded vehicle will have to slow to 20 kph and again start accelerating.

Lastly do we think of local commuters residing near highways, as and when police implement the rules and force trucks to LH lane on 4 lane stretches, accidents involving local bikers increase in numbers, police know this and implement these rules for a few days after festive seasons when lot of car users complain, and then stop it.

Lastly when one truck running at say 60 overtakes another running at say 50, how many people have the patience to let the overtaking truck change his lane again, truckers drive maintaining distance ahead of them, and this truck is not going to change lane until he has about 50 M Gap, and suppose there is another slow truck ahead of first slow truck, this truck has no option but to overtake second one too before changing lanes, but cars are not going to wait, but overtake Truck 1 from RH then Truck 2 on LH and again truck 3 from RH again saying that truck 2 is occupying fast lane.

Rahul

[Kosfactor]

Our cars have decent power, good brakes and steering - just be patient and drive around them - Simple!

Trucks have none of those things but they still have to get somewhere to make a living, though barely.

[nitkel]

The most logical reason for truckers being adamant in sticking to the fast lane is the presence of 2 wheelers, other misc. traffic and parked vehicles on the left lane which is a nightmare for truckers and an accident waiting to happen. Also, how many of us car drivers switch to the left lane after an overtake? Everyone knows that the right lane is the best lane in India when it comes to unobstructed movement. The real problem here is this becomes a habit and people hog the right most lane even on empty stretches of the road where all lanes are free.

[tharian]

Two trucks overtaking each other and taking time happens in other countries too, the difference being they are doing a 100 and not 30 kmh.
Most of the trucking companies have a speed lock at 100 or 105 and all of them travel at those speeds. So a truck doing 105 overtaking another at 100 takes few kms to do so.
This is a video of one such incident when visiting US. I enjoyed it though, not much the driver.

https://youtu.be/CMujZV17tqY

Cut them some slack and you need to have patience when on the highway due to these and other factors.

[PaddleShifter]

Most of the things I was planning to write have already been said.

I just wish to add that I am happy that the truckers drive in a straight line in a lane of their choice. Many car drivers drive dangerously around them. Just imagine the kind of blind spots around a car. It sometimes conceal an entire car or bike behind the A pillar (I am an ex-Punto user). The blind spots around trucks are even more and it is a big task to drive a truck. Ensuring to drive in a straight line is kind of a defensive driving tactic in my personal opinion.

[Hayek]

Think the bigger issue is the lack of power and brakes in trucks. Most countries have a ratio of Power to GVW which is mandatory for trucks to ply on highways. Back in 2003, that was 10 BHP per tonne in Korea. So a 40 tonne GVW truck (standard for a tractor trailer pulling a 40 foot container) would need 400 HP. In India, even Bharat Benz sells a 4023 (230 HP) and 5528 (55 tonnes, 280 HP) - so half the minimum mentioned above without overloading. The other development has been that trucks plying in India now come with additional axles - and the authorities don’t care about the load in the truck as long as the load per axle is below the regulatory cap. And of course, lots of the trucks plying on our roads have old rebored engines with a lot less power than their nameplate rating. No wonder they ply at 20 kmph on the Khandala Ghat for example.

So we have no choice but to weave in and out of traffic - when you have cars with 100 HP per tonne moving around trucks with 30-40 HP per tonne at best, what else can you expect.