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EC threatens GV speed limiters

24th January 1991
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Page 6, 24th January 1991 — EC threatens GV speed limiters
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• Compulsory speed limiters on trucks could be injminent.

A plan to introduce limiters on HGVs is about to be submitted to the council of ministers in Brussels, and in Britain, Roads and Traffic Minister Christopher C hope says he is "examining seriously" the introduction of HGV speed limiters.

The council move was revealed by Europe's transport commissioner Karel van Miert in a speech in Brussels last Wednesday.

Last Monday (14 January), Chope told MPs that concern about the "intimidation" HGVs present to ordinary motorists was rising: "There is plenty of evidence that heavy goods vehicles are often driven at speeds far in excess of the limit that applies to them, and that they are not driven as we would wish," he said. "That is why the Government is ex amining seriously the introduction of speed limiters, which we have already introduced for coaches."

Chope was answering an oral question from Welsh Labour MP Paul Flynn, who said that Department of Transport research indicated that the wider use of retarders would reduce accidents by up to 15%.

Speed limiters are already compulsory on all coaches first used since April 1984. Coaches built before then, but after 1974, must fit them by this April.

Speed limiters on coaches were introduced in 1988 after a series of motorway accidents which were said to have been caused by coach drivers going too fast. After crashes involving trucks there are regularly calls for the law to be extended to HGVs.

In his Brussels speech van Miert also called for harmo nisation of maximum weights and dimensions for both international and domestic traffic.

This is seen as a strong hint to the UK to end its derogation on 40-tonne trucks, which is due to last until the end of the decade.

Van Miert also told members of the Belgian manufacturers association FEBIAC that he wanted to ensure the "highest standards" of working conditions for those in the haulage industry.

Transport workers must be free to move and find work wherever it was offered, he said, He intends to study the training requirements of all transport employees to make sure no opportunities are lost in the post-1992 Single European Market.

He also vented his frustration at the poor prospects for deregulating the EC's coach market and freeing the industry from the "bureaucracy with which it is sadled are not good".

Community regulations governing international coach services dated back to 1966 and operators were still living with them, he said. "In the meantime the coach industry has grown enormously but it cannot offer a greater variety of services and expand because of all the legal restrictions."

Van Miert criticised the fact that it was four years since the Commission made two proposals to introduce freedom of services in the coach sector.

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Locations: Brussels

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