R COMMENT
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• It's crunch time. By next Tuesday (17 Dec) British hauliers should know if EC legislation will force them to fit 50mph speed limiters to their trucks. Judging by the headlines in this Monday's Independent its already done and dusted. An unnamed transport minister (they always are when they leak) is now warning that Brussels is likely to interfere even more with British road traffic law: "I think the Commission is competent now to require us to drive on the other side of the road in the interests of road safety," he says.
Road safety? He must be kidding. Implementing the EC's 50mph limiter legislation will have exactly the opposite effect on the safety of Britain's motorways because the speed differential between cars and trucks would go up, not down.
As for the EC having the "competence", there are still plenty of people in this country who believe that's the last thing it possesses, not least when it comes to road transport.
Surely the real message that Transport Minister Malcolm Rifkind should be carrying to his meeting with European transport ministers next Tuesday is: "The EC may have the competence, and you may have a majority vote — but Parliament still sets the laws in our country and until it changes its mind then British trucks will be limited to 60mph, not 50mph."