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HOC: What's the damage?

6th November 1982
Page 5
Page 5, 6th November 1982 — HOC: What's the damage?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE HOUSE of Commons transport committee has started its • investigation into damage to motorways and trunk roads by heavy lorries.

In giving evidence to the Committee last week, James Hannigan, Deputy Secretary of the roads and transport division of the Department of Transport, said that damage was not • caused by the overloading of the lorry axle weights, but by the amount of traffic on the roads. Lorry overloading is a problem, Mr Hannigan admitted, but he did not have the right to comment on it while Transport Secretary David Howell was still formulating new guidelines on the problem.

He did, however, concede that the DTp was looking into the idea of installing axle weight indicators on vehicles as a standard fitting.

• Bridges have also come under an increasing amount of strain from the increased traffic during the last 10 years, he explained. "The increase in heavy goods vehicles has posed problems for our older bridges. We are at this moment completing an assessment of the situation.

"An increase in lorry weights would not add significantly to the problems we are already facing. These problems are with us now," he added.

Heavy lorries have not had a large effect on motorway damage, as the motorways are • now built to higher standards.

Checks on their condition are carried out frequently, and most stretches have a life expectancy of 20 years.

Trunk roads and local roads, although not built to the same high standards, have not suffered more from heavy lorries -than the motorways, he explained.

This is simply because fewer lorries use them for the whole journey, but rather as a kind of slip road when coming off the motorway and into towns, said John Jefferson, head of the DTp's highway and maintenance division.


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