Cracking down on HGV speed
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by Karen Miles • Speeding lorry drivers look set to be slowed by Government plans to raise speeding fines. The current £40 fixed penalty for speeding up to 25mph above the limit is considered to be too low to deter many speeders.
Many local councils are imposing parking fines of £30 and the disparity between that and the fixed-penalty fine is considered to undermine the seriousness of speeding.
The Home Office is also likely to empower police forces to charge an additional administration fee to cover the expense of introducing and operating many more roadside speed cameras. Speeding vehicles are increasingly recognised as the biggest killers on the roads and figures out last week from Cumbria police underline that.
Police presence on the busy A66 from Penrith to Brough during the first two weeks of September is believed to have prevented at least three serious speeding-related accidents. During that time 135 drivers were fined for speeding, including 64 lorry drivers. The transPennine route, which alternates between dual and single carriageways, is the worst accident black-spot in the county.
in the past five years the 20mile stretch of road has been the scene of 135 serious and fatal accidents, From April to September this year there were two fatal crashes—both involving trucks—and eight serious accidents.
"We would normally expect to see three serious accidents in two weeks, but we put on extra patrols and saw none," says Cumbria traffic intelligence officer Mike Woolaghan.
• Children's lives are being put at risk in the town of Turford. Notts by speeding !nicks using its streets as a rat-run to avoid roadworks on the Al.
Local owner-driver Annette Robinson is calling on the "hundreds" of drivers involved to slow down because one road is regularly used as a crossing from a nearby primary school.
"Sooner or later one of these kids is going to get knocked down," she says. The drivers must realise Tuxford is not the Al. All we are asking for is some consideration."
Robinson says a group looking at the possibility of imposing a lorry ban through Tuxford town centre will be holding a public meeting on the issue next month.