Overtaking is where professional driving most visibly meets the public: the cyclist on the A-road, the tractor before harvest, the queue behind the bin lorry. For HGV drivers the Highway Code’s overtaking rules - 162 to 169 - apply with extra force, because the vehicle doing the overtaking is long, slow to pass, slow to return, and catastrophic when the judgement is wrong. The same rules also govern what other drivers do around your truck, which shapes what you should expect and accommodate.
The modern Code puts numbers on courtesy. When overtaking motorcyclists, cyclists, horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles, give at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car - and for cyclists the guidance is at least 1.5 metres at speeds up to 30 mph, with more space at higher speeds. Extra care and more space apply in bad weather, including high winds, and at night: the turbulence and spray behind a large vehicle at 50 mph is a physical hazard in itself.
The rule that disciplines everything else: if it is unsafe or not possible to meet those clearances, you wait behind. Not squeeze through at half the clearance, not time the gap between oncoming cars - wait. For a professional driver on a schedule, that is a policy matter as much as a personal one. A route timed so tightly that drivers cannot wait behind a cyclist is a route designed to produce a close pass.
The pre-overtake checks in the Code are a professional routine: make sure road users are not beginning to overtake you, and that there is a suitable gap in front of the road user you plan to pass. Do not get too close to the vehicle you intend to overtake before moving out. Do not assume you can follow the vehicle ahead through its overtake - there may only be room for one. Once committed, move quickly past, allow plenty of room, and return to the left as soon as you can without cutting in.
In a truck, “move quickly past” is doing heavy lifting. A loaded artic’s overtake of even a modestly slower vehicle takes road and time. That is why the Code’s advice about large vehicles - written for those passing you - should be read by you as well: it takes longer to pass a large vehicle, and following another vehicle through an overtake of a long vehicle is dangerous because they may abort and pull back in. Expect cars to misjudge your length, and leave them the margin they will not leave themselves.
Passing on the left is only acceptable in narrow circumstances: when the vehicle in front is signalling right and there is room, or in slow-moving queues where your lane happens to be moving faster. The Code adds a pointed warning for cyclists passing lorries on the left near junctions - which is simultaneously a warning to lorry drivers about who may be in the nearside space when you turn.
You MUST NOT overtake where it would mean crossing or straddling double white lines with the solid line nearest you, entering a solid-white-lined traffic divider, passing the vehicle nearest a pedestrian crossing - especially one stopped for pedestrians - entering a bus, tram or cycle lane during its hours, or after a No Overtaking sign until the restriction is cancelled.
Rule 166 adds the doubt test: do not overtake if there is any doubt, or where you cannot see far enough ahead - approaching corners, bends, hump bridges, the brow of a hill. Rule 167 lists the conflict points: junctions on either side, where the road narrows, school crossing patrols, crossing facilities, between the kerb and a stopped bus or tram, queuing traffic at junctions or roadworks, level crossings, and anywhere you would force another road user to swerve or slow.
Two entries in Rule 167 are aimed straight at left-turning trucks: stay behind if you are following a cyclist approaching a roundabout or junction and you intend to turn left - do not cut across cyclists going ahead, including those on cycle lanes and tracks; and the same for horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles. The left-hook collision is the pattern these sentences were written to prevent, and the truck that overtakes a cyclist fifty metres before a left turn is building one.
For operators, overtaking discipline belongs in driver training and telematics review: harsh events near vulnerable road users, close-pass complaints, and route timing that leaves margin for waiting. The Code’s structure - explicit clearances, an absolute doubt test, named conflict points - gives you an auditable standard. “Give the clearance or wait behind” is a policy a driver can follow and a manager can defend.