As more and more firms seem to set their limiters to 85 km/h (52 mph) in order to save fuel and environment. Are there downsides to this■■?. 
For example I used to work for a well known container haulier a lot of the drivers used to complain of the boredom and tiredness of sitting their at 85 km/h just flashing trucks in all day every day, with some trucks even undertaking dangerous manoevures in order to join the motorway ahead of you so there not stuck behind you being held up.
Having recently spoken to a few driver colleagues who are about to take delivery of new digitach trucks set to 52 mph (Yet still expected to do the same workload as before, some of the runs are already tight for time as it is!!!). Im wondering if this poses a problem, as they`ll be trunderling along holding up quicker 56 mph trucks (through no fault of their own!!!). This will cause more and more trucks in the middle lane overtaking an ever increasing number of 52 mph trundeling in the nearside lane mixed with 56 mph trucks and the newly limited 7.5 tonners. 52 mph trucks pulling out in front of 56 mph trucks causing them to brake and starting potential phantom jams and tailgating.
Drivers getting more stressed as they have to travel the same distance only it will take longer to get to the destination potentially causing speeding (more accidents!!!) on minor roads in order to make up the lost time■■?
Is this progress■■?. Or am i just ranting!!! Is it really the best way forward■■?
Will the next step be to drop to 50 mph or even lower to save fuel, environment etc.■■?
u obvious dont know jd
you think 52mph is slow, spare a thought for one of our poor members who sadly can only dream about travelling at 52mph let alone 56mph 
infact he may dream every night of overtaking a trolley dolley :!: 
IMHO going by the amount of UK registered trucks that overtake me on motorways at warp 9 like i’m parked up (even national hauliers) when in fact i’m driving at 56mph/90kmh there cant be that many doing it
we only have 2 trucks that are limited to 52mph (MAN’s) the rest we have DAF’s set at various speeds 54,55 and 56. and renaults at 56mph also.
but the DAF’s say 85kph on the window 
every scania seems to say 85kph on the tacho head althought they run at 56mph
unless my previous scania 
would b the 1 passing u at warp 9
our Daf’ts are 54/54 on the cruse were down to 52/53 no problem just takes longer paid by the hour
When we wound our limiters down to 52 it took me a week to notice 
I don’t think it’ll make a shred of difference. Even with all trucks supposedly set at 56 there’s enough variation that you get trucks doing from about 53 to 57 depending on how they were calibrated and the state of the tyres etc. A lot of them will claim to be set at 85kph and in fact do nearer 90kph anyway as there’s a +/- 5kph tolerance in the calibration regulations anyway so most places will aim for nearer 90kph to keep the customer happy.
Paul
Depends what kinda work your doing, if your just doing localish stuff, like say Glasgow to Edinburgh i don’t notice a huge difference espec during the day, talking a five minutes espec with traffic where at times your lucky to get near 56mph on the motorway. That five minutes you could make up if the traffic lights are in your favor.
But if your doing night trunks like Glasgow down the M6 to Warrington, Haydock etc… it can make a huge difference can be an extra 15mins enough to mean you can’t plan to do the run in under 9 hours espec with digital tachographs.
One of the trunks i do they have trucks limited to 50 and 52mph depending on the make means a trunk to Haydock now involves two 45min breaks. If its a bank holiday or there is roadworks even at night could be looking at not being able to do the run in 10 hours.
Boredom wise doing the night trunk in a slow truck is soul destroying everyone flying past you, does make it a much longer night. Wouldn’t say it makes me a danger and likely to crash but then again def feel much more alert and awake in a truck which is going faster overtaking stuff.
repton:
I don’t think it’ll make a shred of difference. Even with all trucks supposedly set at 56 there’s enough variation that you get trucks doing from about 53 to 57 depending on how they were calibrated and the state of the tyres etc. A lot of them will claim to be set at 85kph and in fact do nearer 90kph anyway as there’s a +/- 5kph tolerance in the calibration regulations anyway so most places will aim for nearer 90kph to keep the customer happy.Paul
Problem with that depending on the make a lot of new trucks come out the factory doing 53-54mph when they are supposed to be doing 56mph according to the tachograph and speedo. Very few are going to under read unless its been done on purpose. When some companies knock them down to 52mph they are really knocking them down to 50mph or less one i had that was limited to 50mph read 48mph on the satnav.
lol i wont say anything bout jd haha
No matter what the max speed of the vehicle it is the perception (mind set) of the driver to it that is the key.
Being limited to 50 may be boring for one driver and another may say the same at 56 so where does the line get drawn
Many drivers would like the line to be scrapped so they can go as fast as they deem safe.
I think a lot of this is annoying for many LGV drivers as the UK law say a 60 limit but EU law restricts it to a lower limit - perhaps we should lower the UK limit to fit in as the EU law will not change
Thinking that ‘this is MY limit’ before starting the drive will usually become a more relaxed drive.
If the driver is not happy with their limit then that will become an issue throughout the drive so the driver must ask themself - should I drive this if it is going to cause me stress?
Westy:
‘…more firms seem to set their limiters to … 52 mph … Are there downsides to this?..’
Yes, Westy: Now being on a 52mph fleet I feel like I’m a middle-aged Asian lady wearing curtains and my nose up against the windscreen of an L-plated Micra. I’ve so much un-used testosterone that I’m probably fit to burst.
I get cheesed-off going through differing combos of ‘disco-flashing’ and seem to spend a lot more motorway time covering the brake for the umpteen merchants re-enacting their WWII fighter-pilot skills by getting back to lane one ASAP by taking my offside bumper off: Why the flippin rush, brothers - my right thigh is now honed like Red-Rum’s neck…
Depending on whether it suits me or not, I often take a ‘safety-stance’ (or do I mean ‘the pee’?) by setting the cruise at 50 mph depending on my mood/how green I’m feeling/time of day/hours to go, etc.
I also anticipate that if the company eventually cuts to limiting at 50 mph I’ll then drop either to 48 mph, or a half-gear, etc.
Don’t get mad at the TM in the company Beemer, though, eh!
When I worked for B&Q at Grantham Wincanton took over the contract from TNT one of the first things they did was limit half the fleet to 52 and left the others at 56 there was absolutely no difference in fuel figures at all not even a smidgeon.
i can see this is my thread…
im limited to 48mph as are all the leeds lorries except 4 and it doesnt make a blind bit of differance to the fuel figures although it hammers journey times. we do a regular collection at newton aycliffe and it adds 20 mins to that journey. from scunny steel works to leeds now takes 25 mins longer, and more often than not we have to drop the loaded box at doncaster railport first so add another 20mins in for that… and so on.
considering after 10 hours we are on £12.67 ive working out its costing my firm an average of £18.00 minimum a day extra in overtime payments per vehicle minimum and with no fuel savings.
they still expect the same journey times as at 56mph… in fact no they expect the journey time as the crow flies as by what the computer says. so we are constantly running late and under pressure and then they wonder why in the middle of the afternoon none of the drivers want to go anywhere.
yes it is dangerous running at these speeds as drivers do race you on slip roads and drive within a few inches of your back doors they swing out with plenty of trailer swing then cut straight back in again.
pathetic that what it is… but then again what do you expect with college idiots running firms that dont even have a license.
anyway westie aren’t bulmers limited to 52 on the cruise control but if you use the accelerator you can do 56mph.
I think HGV’s should be limited to 62mph. The flow of traffic would be better. Other drivers wouldn’t treat HGV’s as slow. I can’t see a 6mph difference be major in a crash. If anyone or anything get’s hit by a lorry at 30mph, they or it’s going to get killed/destroyed. However, the 6mph difference would probably enhance MPG for HGV’s. Companies would get devliveries quicker. And HGV drivers wouldn’t be as stressed out.
Why not limit them to 70mph and increase the limit on motorways to 70mph Trucks are gonna cause carnage if they crash at 56mph so i cant see an increase of 14mph is going to make any difference.
KevinKevin:
‘…HGV drivers wouldn’t be as stressed out…’
Don’t count me in that category …whatever the speed, I don’t do womens work in my office.
I’ve started to set my cruise control to 85kph and i was pleasently surprised how it did’nt really affect my journey times and how much more relaxed it is too drive.
After all i don’t have to take mile after mile to overtake people now as i don’t do the overtaking.
Just try it one day,you may be pleasently surprised.
KevinKevin:
I think HGV’s should be limited to 62mph.
I was hoping the EU would opt for that when it was first brought in as it would be 100kph - a nice round figure