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Limits cause other drivers to take risks
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Page 29
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REGARDING YOUR editorial in the 23 September edition about speed limits, all! can say is "YES! At last!"
Let's start by badgering the RHA & FTA to back a campaign to look at speed limits, not only on single carriageway roads but also on dual carriageways too.
There is no reason why HGVs should not do 50mph on single carriageways and 56mph on dual carriageways. It would be, to quote Sir Robert Mark,-a major contribution to road safety".
Jam sure you will get many more letters and e-mails from others who feel the same way.The only people who are likely to disagree are the hourly-paid drivers who don't seem to care how long it takes to get to their destinations!
Martin Bland M&C Transport Bye-mail Editor's note: As you can see elsewhere on this page, the RHA and FTA are already backing our calls fora higher speed limit.
ASPIRING professional drivers devote considerable amounts of time, effort and money to gaining the qualifications needed to pursue their chosen profession. The successful ones receive, from the authorities, the necessary certificate, signifying that they are safe to drive unsupervised on our roads. If that is what a driving licence truly signifies, then there is no further justification for the government to constantly interfere in how [professional drivers] conduct themselves, as long as they do not put others at risk. Judging speed is part of that.
The maximum safe speed at any instant is best decided by those using the road at the time, not dictated by a bureaucrat or politician who may be long-since dead. Instead we have the fatuous position where the same speed limit applies on a wide, clear single carriageway road as on a narrow, undulating country lane with no footpaths.
Politicians have, from the dawn of motoring, sought to impose ever more Draconian limits, pretending that they can somehow impose safety. Pretending that there is a correlation between speed and road deaths is absurd very often, there is no correlation between the posted limit and actual vehicle speeds.
By all means, deal firmly with aggressive, careless and dangerous road users, using the resources currently being squandered on unnecessarily hounding drivers. As a former cabinet minister once said, when you find yourself in a hole, the best advice is to stop digging.
Anthony Phillips Salisbury, Wiltshire IWRITE IN REFERENCE to the 23 September edition of Commercial Motor and the general theme of speeding.
Kevin Gallagher, who wants trucks on the A9 to pull over regularly to let cars past, should consider the effects on the environment of that sensitive area. Every time a truck has to stop means that it also has to start up again and, while that in itself would quickly cause yet another tailback, there is also the extra cost involved for the operator in lost fuel and the overall environmental impact of the extra diesel emissions this causes. Perhaps he should try a little patience or petition the government to allow trucks to travel faster on these types of roads to avoid tailbacks and accidents?
Now to something along similar lines: in the late 1980s,the motoring public were all in favour of slowing down those 'massive juggernauts' speeding along the highways of Britain, and so we were saddled with the curse of the speed limiter.
John Hunt Breaston Derbyshire YOUR EDITORIAL entitled 'Should we raise the speed limit?' (CM 23 September) and the subsequent article The need for speed' (CM 07 October) were most timely The RHA has for some while been battling to get the 40mph on a single carriageway A-road revised to 50mphso far, to no avail.
However, the recentlyannounced consultation process on speeding and penalty enforcement which Minister David Jamieson is conducting does give us a renewed opportunity.We have consulted widely with our members and, together with FTA, T&G and URTU support, we shall be raising this issue at the next Road Haulage Forum on 14 October.We are proposing a 50mph limit, but a reduced tolerance level of 5% as opposed to the broadly understated 10% plus 2mph that currently seems to prevail. This way, we hope we can counter the road safety organisations that seem to believe that any speed of an HGV above walking pace is too high.
So the powers that be will be getting the message,and your support can only add to the case.
Roger King Chief executive The Road Haulage Association Weybridge, Surrey ONLY LAST WEEK the ETA's Scottish Freight Council called for a review of the speed limit on the A9, a route that has been the subject of much debate because of the long tailbacks caused by slower-moving lorries which are obliged to travel at 40mph. It is clear from this case, and the dozens of other routes that suffer the same problem, that raising the speed limit to 50mph for trucks on our better single carriageways makes sense. Professional drivers support this move because they are only too aware of the inconvenience and potential danger to other road users caused by sticking to 40mph when the road conditions support a safe, higher speed.The unions and vehicle operators also see the sense of this move,so together we must persuade ministers to agree.
However, drivers who do go that bit faster to ease traffic flow must remember that they are putting at risk both their licences and the repute of their companies — and with modern speed cameras, more will be caught.
Last month I wrote to the Minister, David Jamieson, on behalf of FTA, the unions and the RHA to ask for the issue of speed Limits to be discussed at the next Road Haulage Forum.
I hope lobe able to report progress soon.
Richard Turner Chief Executive Freight Transport Association ON READING your Comment Section "Should we raise the speed Limit?" in Commercial Motor (23 September) I felt! should respond to your article.
As an HGV driver I appreciate the speed limits imposed on trucks, and also the frustration car drivers go through when stuck behind a truck travelling at 40mph on a single carriageway road.
I believe the majority of car drivers think that the truck is driving at that speed deliberately to hold them up.They do not realise that the truck driver is going about his or her daily work and would dearly love to drive at a more appropriate speed for those roads— such as 50rriph —but are prohibited.
If you ask a car driver the speed limit for a truck on a normal single-carriageway road, I'm sure they would say 60mph.Yet it is the truck driver who is penalised for travelling faster, by getting points on his licence. Even when the lorry is allowed to travel at 60mph on a motorvvay,it is again prohibited by the speed limiter, which slows it to 56mph. Tam sure the average car driver will not realise this either.
An HGV licence is a vocational licence and, in order to obtain one, you have to attain a certain driving standard with the necessary ability to manoeuvre such a vehicle through busy town centres and narrow country roads. The abilities of every I IGV driver are greatly underestimated.
Should we not give the driver the responsibility to judge when he is able to travel at the higher limit of 50mph on roads that are suitable? As they are the ones in sole charge of that vehicle and its load, then surely they are the best judges of a safe speed limit for the road and conditions Melanie Butler By e-mail REFERRING TO THE numerous articles in this week's Commercial Motor (23 September) regarding the present 40mph limits on single derestricted roads, I would like to agree with the arguments put forward for the raising of the limit to a more sensible 50mph.
As a C4-E driver I have witnessed, on many occasions, the frustration and dangerous overtaking manoeuvres of car and van drivers while bowling along at the legal limit for my vehicle. A few times, the drivers have managed to get past and then stopped at a junction or roundabout and accused me of bad driving!
The speed limits are set by government and. with this in mind,they have to be advised by people in the know; let's face it, how many people in the know are they actually listening to? Do the police seriously think the present limit is safe? But they have to enforce the limit, regardless of the practicalities.
The number of times trade magazines have advised of the benefits of a raised speed limit, you'd think the message would be getting across by now, but this has yet to happen.
The majority of professional drivers will drive in a safe manner, just because they could go lOmph faster (if the limit was raised) would not mean that they would drive much differently than they do now.
I was nearly involved in what the media would have classed as an `LGV accident' while travelling south on the MI recently.A car pulled out from the on-slip, forcing another car to take avoiding action —across a couple of lanes and the central reservation!The driver then brought the car to a halt in the centre lane, right in front of me. I used all the technology that was available and avoided flattening a small hatchback. The truck stopped quickly, and in a straight line. It's about time that these advances were recognised by people other than those in the industry. Times have changed.] can remember when a mobile phone cost £1.500 plus, was the size of a brick and had the kind of reception a cheap walkie-talkie would put to shame.
With this in mind, let's move forward and accept that your average Joe in a 44-tonner does not want to emulate a badlydriven Saxo trying to impress a bunch of friends in a built-up area.
As for the Scottish bloke who wants us to pull over and let all the frustrated motorists pass, he has got to be on some kind of prescribed medication the road fund licence on the windscreen of my unit averages 10 times his, and gives me the same right to be on the road.
I feel that the image and way we work has to be brought up to date to ensure we are treated as professionals. rather than a mobile roadblock with a bad attitude.The w.ay forwards is not backwards.
Bob Beattie Oxford