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Cars to blame
Page 125
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• Like many people in the road transport industry, I have followed the news of speed limiters and lower speed restrictions being forced upon us by the bureaucrats at both Westminster and Brussels — both of whom have limited perception of the road transport industry or driving LGVs on the roads.
It seems that the main reasons for this legislation are safety and reduced fuel consumption, both of which are very dubious.
Firstly, the number of accidents which involve LGVs are considerably less, approximately 10 times less, than that involving private cars. Of these accidents LGVs are rarely the cause. On fuel savings it is likely that the cost of fitting and retrofitting limiters and the losses in vehicle efficiency will far outweigh any fuel savings.
It is time the • Government concentrated on the real safety problem in the UK and introduced more training and speed limiters on cars; 75% of cars surveyed on motorways were found to be over the speed limit in a recent Department of Transport study. These cars create much more of a safety problem, Yet again we in the road transport industry are easy scapegoats for the problems on the roads.
G S Donaldson Address supplied.