Cost warning on retrofit limiters
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• Operators who retrofit speed limiters to their HGVs could end up paying twice as much as for a limiter installed on line, warns the Road Haulage Association. It is making a last-ditch effort to block plans for the fitting of limiters to all artics up to four years old by July 1993.
Instead, the RHA wants retrofitment to apply only to artics weighing more than 32.5 tonnes registered on or after 1 August 1990 — in other words, H-reg trucks and newer. It agrees that new lorries of over 7.5 tonnes should have limiters from August 1992.
The RHA is responding to an official consultation period allowed to the industry by the Government. Transport Secretary Malcolm Rifkind's announcement in May that he wanted tractor units up to four years old fitted with limiters from 1993 seems to have preempted the normal consultation process, but the RHA says there is still time to influence Marsham Street. "We are still in the consultative process," it says. It believes that fuel savings generated by speed limiters will be greatest on heavy vehicles.
"The newer the vehicle, the longer its remaining life and thus the greater potential saving," says director-general Bryan Colley. "The older the vehicle, the greater the cost of speed limiter fitment as a percentage of the vehicle value."
Limiter manufacturer Lucas Kienzle says its agents currently charge up to £475 to fit a limiter to a used truck.
On new vehicles, a limiter adds £595 to the price of a Grange Renault tractor; fveco Ford charges £435.