Industry accuses Dip of dithering
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• The Department of Transport has been accused of dithering over plans to retrofit truck speed limiters.
Ministers are reviewing their retrofitting proposals following December's Council of Ministers decision to set 56mph limiters for all new trucks over 12 tonnes from 1 January 1994, and for most older HGVs by 1996.
Marsham Street had planned to bring in 60mph limiters for new HGVs from 1 August this year, and from 1993 for trucks up to four years old.
TNT's chief engineer Alan Parker says that the department's stalling is causing chaos to his budget plans. He says he needs to know now whether he will need to come up with extra cash to fit £500 limiters to 800 vehicles before August next year. "The matter must be resolved as quickly as possibly," he says. The Road Haulage Association says that the difference between the EC and DTp plans has created a "complete nonsense".
"We've had a deafening silence from the DTp," says the RHA. "We need some form of statement at least saying 'we have a conflict and we plan to resolve it'," it says.