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M-way code for `loco' drivers?
Page 32
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• The Government is to consider a driver's code of conduct for "locomotives"—hgv not constructed to carry a load and with an unladen weight of not less than 7+ tons—using motorways. Promising this in the Commoms this week. Mr Eldon Griffiths, Under-Secretary for the Environment, said that such a code might be appropriate for inclusion in the Highway Code or other advice the DoE offered.
Mr Griffiths was speaking during a short debate on the Special Roads (Classes of Traffic Order) 1971 which was approved without a division. The Order allows such vehicles to ' use motorways in all circumstances and not just when they are drawing abnormal indivisible loads. The date when this Order will come into effect has not been fixed yet but may be towards the end of the month.
The Order also opens motorways to vehicles moving excavated material and those built here for use outside the UK.
Mr Griffiths said there was a condition that all these vehicles should be capable of at least 25 mph.
There were good reasons for making the change, he said. The operators had said that the situation caused inconvenience and increased their costs substantially. The alternative routes these large vehicles were compelled to use often passed through densely populated and highly industrialized areas or through historic towns where considerable congestion and delay could be caused.
Welcoming the Orders as "eminently reasonable", Mr Tom Bradley, for the Opposition, said the vehicles involved would cause far less nuisance on the motorways than on all-purpose roads, but expressed concern about over-taking; on a two-lane motorway a vehicle travelling at 10 to 25 mph being overtaken by a similar vehicle at a slightly superior speed could cause a build-up. Did the Minister intend to prohibit this overtaking?
Mr Bradley said that the Order would encourage the development of higher-speed vehicles, which would require different braking standards.
A heavy haulier told CM that he welcomed the Order which was a tidying up measure which would, for instance, mean that it would ease arrangements fer vehicles changing depots when they were not being used in connection with a load.