Plans to alter NI/way speed limits coming
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• THE GOVERNMENT has no immediate plans to change lorry speed limits on motorways. But the minister has submitted to the Armitage inquiry possibilities for reductions in the limits applying to certain categories of lorry-trailer combinations.
Mr Kenneth Clarke, Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, who gave this news in the Commons, added that the memorandum submitted to the inquiry would be published shortly.
Mr Michael McNair-Wilson (Tory, Newbury) pointed out that there were no fewer than three different speed limits for commercial vehicles on motorways.
, He suggested that as such a large number of lorries seemed to flout these speed limits, there was a case for introducing a single limit, strictly enforced. Another idea he put foreward was governing lorry engines down to the relevant speed limit as set out in the statute.
Mr Clarke replied that he had no doubt that everybody responsible for the management of road transport was aware of the different speed limits, calculated on the size of the vehicle.
He did not think that there was any case for altering the present system to the extent suggested by Mr McNairWilson. Enforcement was a matter, and no doubt a problem, for the police and the Home Secretary.
Mr Albert Costain (Tory, Folkestone and Hythe) drew attention to the problem of enforcing speed limits on lorries from the Continent. He wanted an assurance that the police were able to apprehend and prosecute the drivers before they left the country.
He was not sure that the problems were quite as grave as that, replied Mr Clarke. The police attempted to enforce the limits, and complaints that foreign lorries were somehow exempted from speed limits were always looked into.
If the Government could do anything to tighten up the procedure to ensure that a German driver obeyed the law just as much as a British driver, it would do so.