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Power-to-weight in New E.E.C. Rules

3rd May 1963, Page 9
3rd May 1963
Page 9
Page 9, 3rd May 1963 — Power-to-weight in New E.E.C. Rules
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

THE E.E.C. Commission last week submitted its new proposals on international vehicle weight and size regulations to the Council of Ministers. The maximum lengths, widths and weights proposed by the Commission have not been changed from its earlier standards (published in The Commercial Motor of September 14 last year) but the new proposals now include a series of more detailed specification regulations. These include turning circle and road curve negotiation limits, the minimum unladen weight of vehicle per ton of load, powerto-weight ratio and the ratio between the weight of a motor vehicle and its trailer.

The Commission suggests that a powerto-weight ratio of 5.5 b.h.p. per ton should be the minimum and asks that the Council should give a ruling before October 1, 1964. on how this power should be specified and measured.

All these technical qualifications should be brought into force on January 1, 1965, the Commission proposes, but vehicles registered before the end of 1964, and not complying with the new regulations, will be allowed to operate until the end of 1974.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the E.E.C. Economic and Social Committee has meanwhile got around to debating the Commission's earlier weights and dimensions proposals; it was only M. Lambert Schaus' insistence that both these and the new Commission proposals were virtually identical, that brought the

Committee to the point of discussing them at all, and even when a decision was reached it was with the proviso that this did not prejudge any decision on the new proposals.

In fact, the Committee endorsed its transport section's conclusions in asking that the maximum length for road trains be increased from 17-2 in. (about 56 ft. 4 in.) to 18 m. and that vehicles with maximum single-axle weights of 13 metric tons and tandem-axle weights of 19,tons should be allowed on specially designated roads "in the Community interest "; the Commission's maxima are 10 and 16 metric tons respectively.

A German motion that upkeep of these designated roads should be paid for by the Community as a whole was rejected and the German members of the E.S.C. voted unanimously against the Committee's proposals, which were passed by 54 to 16 votes.

The present involved situation on weights and dimensions is that France and Germany consider these to have been effectively settled by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport in 1960; Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg have, despite a request from the Commission to postpone separate Benelux regulations, brought their own weights and dimensions figures into force and only Italy has meanwhile kept its own national regulations and seems amenable to accepting a Commission and Council ruling.


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