North Yorkshire speed
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study in rat-run villages • Lorry drivers travelling through a group of North Yorkshire villages are being targeted in a speeding and traffic survey.
North Yorkshire County Council's traffic manager Graham Cressey has launched the study in response to complaints that lorry drivers are using the villages as rat-runs.
Members of Coxwold Parish Council claim lorry drivers "hellbent" on winning financial bonuses are speeding through places such as Ampleforth and Newburgh on their way to Teesside.
Percy Featherstone, chairman of the parish council, says 50 vehicles a day roll through the villages, causing environmental damage and fears about safety. He wants vehicles to be limited to 7.5 tonnes and lorries to use the A19 trunk road instead.
Cressey says the council will consider a ban, but only after completion of the survey, which is running this month and next.
Three years ago a similar proposal for a ban was rejected by the council because of the "small number of vehicles travelling through the area".
HGVs are damaging many rural roads and are endangering the lives of pedestrians and cyclists, according to an alliance of countryside and recreation pressure groups.
They have produced Charter for Country Lanes, which calls on the Government to reduce the 60mph speed limit to 40mph and stop the spread of developments that encourage extra traffic.