WIDE LOAD, LOW SPEED
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• I specialise in transporting mobile homes, and use step-frame trailers on this work. They are up to 14ft wide, and usually weigh no more than 10 tonnes. They can be up to 50ft long. Because of the width, police notice is given and a driver's mate Is on board.
Now and then the police will escort the widest of these loads, but when they do they say the loads are abnormal and the vehicle must not exceed 40mph. This soon causes a tailback of 1-Ws—particularly on two-lane motorways I have always believed the loads are carried under the Construction and Use Regulations, not the Special Types Order, and ordinary speed limits apply. What is the speed limit for these loads?
• The dimensions you give indicate that the loads can be moved under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, and consequently are not abnormal indivisible loads subject to the Motor Vehicles (Authorisation of SpeGial Types) General Order 1979.
The Construction and Use Regulations do not prescribe any speed limit for vehicles carrying wide or long loads, and the normal speed limits apply to the movements in question. They are 60mph on motorways, 50mph on other dual carriageways and 40mph on other roads.
Where notice of movement has to be given to police it is provided, in Schedule 12 of the Regulations, that the vehicle must be used only in accordance with the notified particulars; but the date, time and route can be varied by a direction of a police chief, and a policeman can tell the driver to park to avoid undue traffic congestion. But there is no provision in the Regulations enabling police to require a vehicle to travel at a speed lower tha legal limit.
Perhaps the police keel speed of the vehicle down in they see as the interests of safety. Your drivers migh capable of handling the veil( higher speeds, but the main i lem encountered with wide I is that many drivers of other des—whether overtaking going in the opposite directi fail to see or else misjudg width of extra-wide loads.