Today's been a strange sort of day. The occasion was the first running this year around CM's Welsh test route for vehicles from 5 - 26 tonnes, which starts and finishes at Chieveley Services (M4, J13) and runs in a loop via Newport, Hereford, Cheltenham and Wantage. The weather was perfect, the traffic free-flowing and the test subject, a 5-tonne Volkswagen Crafter with a 17m3 body, ran faultlessly, but I still ended the day very worried!
Why? The VW marked the first time we've had a decent run in a light truck fitted with a speed limiter and it was an experience, not necessarily an encouraging one. "Proper" truck drivers have been doing the 56mph, two-lane tango for years. But by this time next year, there will be the best part of five year's production of 3,501 to 7,500kg trucks joining the melee, driven by relatively inexperienced and undisciplined drivers, bored and frustrated.
Apart from the truckers wondering why what looks like a 3.5-tonne van is struggling to get past, the big problem will be the differing dynamics of the two types of vehicle on hills. Our fully laden VW showed that the light trucks can easily maintain 56mph up hill where typical artics lose a bit of speed. But the lack of weight means the lights don't overspeed downhill, while most heavies can run up to 60mph easily and legally. If you don't get past by the top of the hill, you're stuffed, stranded in the middle lane. And if you do just get past and back into lane one, you're soon going to have 44 frustrated tonnes up your particulate trap.
I foresee a potential disaster area as two worlds, quite literally, collide. I think I'll take the year off!