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It's an old problem
Page 28
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WITHTHE current debate regarding the speed limit for HGVs on single carriageway roads it would be easy to think it a new phenomena. It isn't, indeed it could almost be considered part of transport tradition.
I can remember on roads like the A30, A5,A41,A4 and A40 seeing speeds in excess of 40mph but rarely below 40. I can only go back 30 years of personal experience, but even then speeding on singlecarriageway roads was nothing new.
Bringing the debate into the open may, at first sight, seem a good idea. Legalising what has been happening for decades may save a few photographs being taken, but it won't increase productivity or safety as, apart from the roads where strict enforcement of the 40mph limit is in place, nothing is going to practically change.
I'm not against raising the limit, indeed I'm fully in favour of doing so, but just don't see that it will ever happen. The downside is that it will inevitably, as is already being seen, provide opportunity for the safety lobby groups to make it harder for the -blind eye" to be turned and more and more enforcement can be expected. Surely quietly maintaining the status quo is better than rocking the boat and forcing stricter enforcement?
Furthermore, persuading the government to fly in the face of safety, for that's how it will be portrayed by the headline seekers, is expecting a U turn that even this government will find too tight to achieve, especially with the threat of the LRUC looming. Roy Larkin Birmingham