A limit to limiters
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Iwould accept your comments in A Limit to Credibility (CM 31 Mar-6 Apr) that there are certainly plenty of speed limiters fitted which are not working and there are many trucks which should have limiters fitted but don't. But are you aware that limiters were only fitted to vehicles going back to 1 January 1988?
1 believe a substantial number of the articulated vehicles monitored in the survey did not have limiters fitted, nor do they require them. You also mention that this survey could have been carried out on a downhill section of the motorway where a speed limiter would not have held back an artic. This may be true to a degree but gradients on a motorway are restricted therefore overspeed is minimal.
I suggest it is time you got off your soapbox with regard to speed limiters and accept your responsibility as one of the premier publications in our industry, Anything which increases safety and is environmentally friendly, can only be a good thing for the industry.
We produce a product that will control the top speed of vehicles and have proven on numerous occasions that there have been substantial fuel savings and, in the more responsible fleets, drivers have welcomed their introduction. We are not responsible for the Department of Transport's restrictive introduction of these devices, nor are we responsible for operators and drivers who abuse this product and other products such as tachographs. This is the responsibility of the industry.
Gerald F Gray Managing director, Romatic, Warrington, Cheshire.
MI It may well have been the case that the artics monitored in the DOT survey fell outside the limiter requirement. Frankly we doubt whether they were in a majority. Our practical experience with roadtest vehicles also suggests that on a long downhill run over-speeding is more than "minimal"— indeed many drivers use this to get past other LGVs that they haven't been able to overtake thanks to the limiter.
CM will continue to back any device which improves road safety. Unfortunately the jury is still out on whether limiters do that—there is a strong argument to suggest that vehicle bunching caused by limiters has done the opposite.
We await the DOT's own statistical evidence with interest. One solution to the problem of speeding LGV drivers; namely that the DOT spent more money on VIA operator visits including tacho chart inspections, would have netted the miscreants.
Instead the Government placed the enforcement burden of legislation on the whole haulage industry, including the vast majority who weren't breaking the law, in a move that at best was less than comprehensively applied and at worst totally illconsidered—Editor.