Slow-vehicles ban on the Al
Page 10
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Karen Miles • Slow traffic is to be banned from a stretch of the Al in a pilot scheme on Tyneside.
The Highways Agency's ban—the first of its kind in England or Scotland—will apply at peak times to vehicles that cannot achieve 30mph on the flat.
But the Road Haulage Association fears that the move could restrict recovery vehicles and lowloaders on heavy haulage.
The ban will apply to the 10-mile section of the western bypass between Newcastle and Gateshead.
The Highways Agency says that as the road network operator it will probably introduce similar bans on other English trunk roads where jams are made worse by slow vehicles.
The Tyneside experiment will start early next year and will last six months. Highways Agency officials will assess its impact before deciding whether to fully implement it or abandon it. The initiative follows complaints by car drivers that slow vehicles are exacerbating traffic jams on the 100,000vehicle-a-day stretch.
A Highways Agency spokesman says: "It can be clear behind the slow vehicles and the outside lane solid with traffic."
A weekday traffic count found 574 vehicles travelling at less than 30mph. They included 162 diggers, combine harvesters and other agricultural vehicles; 127 breakdown trucks and funeral corteges; 116 slow lorries; 114 mobile cranes; and 44 military vehicles.
A Welsh Office scheme permanently banning vehicles travelling at less than 30mph is already operating on an 11-mile stretch of the A470 from Pontypridd to Cardiff.