Load security is road security
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by CM reporter
CONCERN is being expressed about the mounting tonnage of material which is being scattered about the motorways, much of it from commercial vehicles. This is putting the lives of other road users, the police and the highway maintenance men at risk continually.
Reluctant to believe that lorry drivers could be so irresponsible as to leave debris on the motorway to remain an accident hazard. I went to the Break spear motorway maintenance area at junction 8 on MI. where I was shown a startling variety of loose material picked up. The illustrations speak for themselves.
Some of the litter recovered was certainly unconnected with commer cial vehicle drivers. Such items as roof racks and personal effects were obviously from private cars. Indisputably from commercial vehicles were spare wheels, large wings, crates, pallets, and even items which had formed part of the consignment and for which operators would be held accountable by their customers. Not the least of these items was a carton of continuous stationery which, unrolling yards of paper on the motorway, could have blown across the windscreen of following cars to obliterate the view of the drivers.
Not all of the debris is of a lightweight nature so that lorry drivers would be unaware that it had been dropped. The depot foreman it Breakspear told me of a 2ton girder which had been left in the outer lane of the two-lane stretch between the Harrow and Hemel Hemp stead turn-offs w involved three cars in a up and which cost one his life.
What I was shown a< up to several tons of I collected in one week ov miles of motorway. could be multiplied se, times over the w network.
Although the hie maintenance staff patro motorway regularly clear litter which they recovery is not simple. V could be involved is fin exercise by the polict control traffic at least h mile back from obstruction and then ac recovery by the mair ance staff. Thus the livt two service members al risk. This takes no aced of the danger to other dri before the litter can be fc and removed: a hazard any time but deadly in dark. he reluctance of drivers risk prosecution for a ctive vehicle or unsafe I by reporting that they lost part of the vehicle oad is understandable. seek immunity from ;ecution at the cost of ebody else's life is, ever, despicable. More-, the driver who does so d be the next to be dyed in an accident from nilar cause.
Ir J. L.. Hammond, ;mitt chief engineer, hway Services, at the artment of the Environt, told me that it was lrent that operators did adequately assess the ,unt of wind resistance e to be encountered on motorway. It should be -eciated that the pressure up by the speed of the ;le is augmented by the prevailing on the road. y operators use ropes of q uate strength to -e the load. This is orted by the number of 3 • broken and otherpicked up on the ie problem is not conto roped loads, howMr Hammond quoted 44 as an example where eeted quarry material dropped on the eastd carriageway resulting unnumerable broken screens. In the westerly tion, probably because talon sites often )me tipping sites .tually, unsheeted rubbish and waste constitute an equal hazard.
Every effort is made to trace and prosecute the drivers concerned; the driver of the vehicle which lost a wing bearing the registration number of the vehicle brought in to Breakspear while I was there will certainly be found.
It could be that the responsible individual who reports losing a component or part load would almost certainly face prosecution unless he could prove that all reasonable precautions had been taken. His action in reporting the matter could, however, have a bearing on the permltv imposed.