EC set to lower speed limiter threshold
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• The European Commission plans to extend the compulsory fitting of speed limiters to smaller commercial vehicles.
The move was announced last week as part of the Commission's road safety policy priorities for the next two years. A directive extending the scope of the present regulation is expected to be intro
duced in the autumn when the Commission will issue a progress report on the present eight-year-old speed limiter regulations.
Although there is some support in the Commission's transport services for dropping the existing threshold to vehicles as small as 3.5 tonnes, the more realistic bet is that a figure of 7.5 tonnes or above will be chosen. The current threshold for speed limiters is 12 tonnes.
At the same time the designated overall top speed limit of 90km/h might be raised a little to take into account improved "tolerances", according to Commission officials. However, any new directive is unlikely to take effect before next year and probably not before 2002.
The Commission believes that the tiling of speed limiters in commercial vehicles has been "a huge success" in terms of improved road safety, officials said, Economically, they argue that reductions in fuel consumption have more than offset the effects of longer journey times.