Will changing HGV and car limits help?

Scottish government is considering a consultation on increasing HGV limits to 50mph whilst reducing cars to 50 mph on single carriageway roads.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqdgy8rq0eo

Of course some people are already saying it is crazy but I can see the logic.  Overtaking is the dangerpoint.   I see the usual suspects are already declaring it madness…

Logic maybe  but lets be fair any driver with an ounce of sense would over take in a safe manner, even at 50mph some car drivers would still risk it ..

No.

I am firmy in the ‘bad driving is dangerous, not just speed’.

There are many times when current limits can be safely exceeded, just as there are many times when the current limit is far too generous.

This is a race to the bottom.

I can’t think of any road where trucks drive as slow as 50mph (other than the average speed camera zoned A9) , let alone the 40mph they’re supposed to drive at.

Unusually the a76 in east Ayrshire is signed with 40mph signs for HGVa which are ignored but truck but google’s street car have obviously read them and google maps tells car drivers the limit is 40mph so you sometime get tourist driving pretty slowly along there

I’ve even chatted with newly qualified HGV drivers who werent even aware of the 40mph limit on A roads

In the past the road hauliers assoc threaten that their drivers will effectively ‘work to rule’ and drive at the 40mph NSL as a protest when there are fuel price rises. Which is a remarkable threat – threatening to abide by the law.

EDIT – actually driving in Northern Ireland hgv drivers seem very adherent to the 40mph NSL

I’d be happier if they just reduced the car speed limit to 40. There is no need to go faster except on motorways.

It’s effectively the case in E&W now

Most larger single-carriageway roads have a signed 50 limit rather than NSL for cars, etc, and lorries>7.5T are already legally at 50mph (60 on dual carriageways and mways) since April 2015

Data here of every conceivable type… https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/reported-road-accidents-vehicles-and-casualties-tables-for-great-britain#full-publication-update-history

Please help yourself 🙂

I can see a safety argument that having all traffic with the same speed limit should reduce the number of overtakes and that should reduce the number of collisions.

Having said that, of the 57,000km of roads in Scotland, I can think of many where 50mph is excessive for a HGV. That’s the problem with these blanket laws.

A limit of 50mph would also be better for emissions and fuel consumption, so that’s a benefit.

However, it will lead to increased journey times for many, particularly rural, travellers.

All of this presupposes that drivers actually abide by the speed limits anyway, and we know that many (most?) don’t.

Can you tell that I’m a bit conflicted on this?

Unusually the a76 in east Ayrshire is signed with 40mph signs for HGVa which are ignored but truck but google’s street car have obviously read them and google maps tells car drivers the limit is 40mph

The similar, 50mph for HGV, signs on the A9 were replaced by a different design for this reason. They no longer have a red circle around the 50 so that Google (and some automated car systems) don’t read it as a speed limit sign.

Ireland did something like this: most roads are 80km/h at most on the emptier parts, NSL signs are now very scarce, and only the highest standard single carriageway roads have a 100km/h limit. Driving standards are still woeful, but it definitely felt a lot safer driving and cycling there recently than it used to.

It’s going to be like the speed bumps everywhere, all the hgv  SUV’s 4×4 etc just straddle them whereas I have to crawl over them due to front springs broken in the past

I’ve had folk overtaking me at the bumps

Why do some areas have faux speed bumps just a bit of white marking on the road?

It’s been 50mph for HGVs on single carriageways for a while now in England and Wales, so can’t really see a problem with this being upped in Scotland.

In reality this means HGVs drive at 56mph  (just like they do through average speed cameras, as they won’t get clocked by cameras).

My experience of this in England is that I’m less likely to overtake a lorry as they’re doing close to the 60mph limit anyway.

It will be a good thing if it stops drivers going for last minute overtakes on the dual carriageway sections of the A9 where it narrows into single carriageway. I’m often alarmed with some of the kamikaze moves drivers go for to avoid bring stuck behind a 50mph lorry for a few miles. It should also eliminate frustration on other single carriageway A roads when car drivers feel they are being held up by a lorry. If the lorry is driving at your speed limit you don’t feel the need to overtake.

Scotland has lots of narrow A roads, when we were last in Scotland there was a Tanker off the road on it’s side and later in the week a bus had gone off the side off the road and nearly down a steep embankment with the sea at the bottom.

There were plenty of driving gods travelling  at inappropriate speeds for the roads and making interesting overtaking decisions.

Lowering speed limits and enforcing them might result in less accidents but it might also be better for the environment.

I am not convinced that driving slightly slower significantly increases journey times in real life.

Having the road shut to sort out accidents will adversely affect journey times

I think the people who can be bothered to stick to the posted limit are the kind of people who limit their overtaking to sensible safe places anyway.

The obvious question here is “help with what?”

You can certainly make an argument that the NSL for unclassified roads should be a lot lower, e.g. 30/40mph, and many French N roads are now 80 km/h IIRC.

Not just about safety, also reduces emissions and noise (which are important in urban areas) and fuel consumption.

HGV’s already do 50mph+ on the A75 (I live <5miles from) and when driving to dumfries from kirkcudbright at the speed limit of 60mph they are regularly parked right up my arse so close that I cannot read their numberplate in my rear view mirror. The only HGV’s that stick to speed limits are supermarket HGV’s.

As to reducing the speed limit to 50mph on such a road it’d make no difference as dicks gonna be dicks no matter what and I’ve had more close calls with dickhead drivers overtaking than any other road user.

Never thought id ever say it but data loggers should be used in all cars.

I don’t think any HGV drivers actually drive at 40mph on Scottish A-roads. Try doing that speed and see how many HGVs get stuck behind you!

I think the reduction to a 50 mph limit would be effective.

I also wonder about the way cars are marketed to us , you tend to see a luxury car going fast on an empty road a lot of the time.  Not a car inching forward on busy city street.

I also tend to travel outside of peak times if I am going any distance. Most of my longer journeys involve the A82 if it’s in the tourist season  I set off at teatime and save myself forty minutes to an hour.

I’d be happier if they just reduced the car speed limit to 40.

I’m not sure if there’s some sarcasm I’m missing here or if you really think this?

and many French N roads are now 80 km/h IIRC.

That might be what the law says.  In my experience the French are much better at obeying speed limits in urban areas and completely ignore them once outside urban areas

This proposal has all the hallmarks of revenue generation and little to do with road safety

However, it will lead to increased journey times for many, particularly rural, travellers.

Will it? Very few of my rural journeys in Derbyshire give me much chance to safely go above 50mph, so any increased journey time would be marginal.

HGV’s already do 50mph+ on the A75 (I live <5miles from) and when driving to dumfries from kirkcudbright at the speed limit of 60mph they are regularly parked right up my arse so close that I cannot read their numberplate in my rear view mirror.

Unlike cars, HGVs have calibrated speedometers and a tachograph. If you regularly see them breaking the speed limit / tailgating it’s more likely that it’s you driving under the limit.

Unlike cars, HGVs have calibrated speedometers and a tachograph. If you regularly see them breaking the speed limit / tailgating it’s more likely that it’s you driving under the limit.

You see this regularly on sections of motorway with a 50mph average speed camera section (for roadworks etc).

Cars all doing what, on their speedo, is an indicated 50mph and lorries thundering through at (what looks like) about 56mph and getting all upset when they get stuck behind a car doing (indicated) 50.

Either that or they just don’t care and are ignoring the 50 limit. Who knows?!

All of this presupposes that drivers actually abide by the speed limits anyway, and we know that many (most?) don’t.

actually it might be a realisation that a fair proportion of hgvs are not sticking to 40 and not crashing all the time but car drivers programmed to drive at the limit are doing dodgy passes to to make sure they can do 60+ on the straights?

there may be lots of hgvs not sticking to 40 – but it would be unusual to drive the length of the A82/83/84/811 and not encounter HGVs doing 40 with a long queue behind them.  As soon as the driver behind the HGV is content to do 40 or too hesitant / not stupid enough to overtake the only people who will be going faster are the reckless so I’m not sure the journey time argument stacks up.

The obvious question here is “help with what?”

in order of priority I would expect the government objectives to be:

– reduce road casualties

– improve ease of public transport by making journey times more predictable

– reduce pollution from constant changes or speed

– improve economic prosperity by making it easier to move goods around the country

– improve economic prosperity by making it easier to move people, including workers and tourists around the country

– reduce congestion and thus quality of experience for drivers on rural roads

you might have different priorities on those but I don’t see how “help” is going to be on wildly different criteria?

Unlike cars, HGVs have calibrated speedometers and a tachograph. If you regularly see them breaking the speed limit / tailgating it’s more likely that it’s you driving under the limit.

Jumping to conclusions cougar?, I set my automatic cruise control as soon as I’m on the A75 so it follows speed limits and I relax

I’d be happier if they just reduced the car speed limit to 40. There is no need to go faster except on motorways.

Says a man that never drives anywhere and/or lives near to a motorway no doubt…

The nearest motorways are at least 60 miles away from me, in any direction – and all roads to them are fast & open single carriageway A roads.

If you want to drive at 40, crack on!

Will it? Very few of my rural journeys in Derbyshire give me much chance to safely go above 50mph, so any increased journey time would be marginal.

Whereas here I can usually average +50mph on NSL’s.

Will it? Very few of my rural journeys in Derbyshire give me much chance to safely go above 50mph, so any increased journey time would be marginal.

My commute is 80% NSL and about 90% of it can be safely done at 60mph.

So one size does not fit all.

He added: “We also know that lorries use less fuel and create fewer emissions when they can drive at 50mph, and shorter journeys create savings which can be passed on to customers.”

Has someone defeated one of Newton’s Laws…

Pretty sure drag increases exponentially with speed – therefore wouldn’t increasing speed from 40mph to 50mph (near enough) double drag?

Has someone defeated one of Newton’s Laws…

Pretty sure drag increases exponentially with speed – therefore wouldn’t increasing speed from 40mph to 50mph (near enough) double drag?

It could be to do with where in the rev range peak power/torque is – there might be a sweet spot where an engine works ‘better’ at a certain speed, and in the case of a HGV that might be 50mph rather than 40mph. That’s lots of ifs buts and maybes though and I struggle to believe faster = more efficient in general.

However… our Transit Custom was more efficient towing a 1400kg caravan at an indicated 65ish than sticking to the legal 60mph on motorways. Over about 6k miles of towing 23mpg vs 27mpg. Towing faster – though not legally – meant less instances of losing speed on inclines, or dropping to 5th or 4th gear to maintain speed, and being more ‘matched’ to the speed of more other vehicles and thus less deceleration/acceleration (and increased efficiency).

So one size does not fit all.

Very much this. 50mph on A9 south of inverness is realistic for HGVs, as is 60mph for cars (and T5-sized vans, but that’s another argument), but not appropriate for many A roads near me. Problem is too many folk see them as targets rather than limits: the ability to drive sensibly to conditions seems lost on many.

Currently on singlecarriageway A9 the same 50mph limit applies for my 2100kg Transit Custom, my 2100kg Transit Custom towing a 1800kg caravan, or a 10-20x heavier HGV.

All of this presupposes that drivers actually abide by the speed limits anyway, and we know that many (most?) don’t.

You may “know” this but it’s not true. I looked at some stats a couple of days ago when we were talking about cars on another thread. Some people drive over, some drive under, but on the whole folk drive at or fairly near the limits regardless of whether it’s a 70, 60 or 30 zone. The only exception is 20mph limits which are largely ignored.

Jumping to conclusions cougar?, I set my automatic cruise control as soon as I’m on the A75 so it follows speed limits and I relax

Yes, but, that doesn’t set an actual speed of say 50, it sets a speed it thinks 50 is. It’s becoming less common with newer cars, but many speedos over-read (because it’s illegal to under-read and exact measurement is difficult without GPS). You could well be doing 45mph despite what your dashboard says.

Yes, but, that doesn’t set an actual speed of say 50, it sets a speed it thinks 50 is. It’s becoming less common with newer cars, but many speedos over-read (because it’s illegal to under-read and exact measurement is difficult without GPS). You could well be doing 45mph despite what your dashboard says.

Its a 5 month old car, I think I can trust the ADAS system to correctly determine the speed that It is set at

Overtaking is the dangerpoint.   I see the usual suspects are already declaring it madness…

Shit overtaking is dangerous. It’s madness, I fail to see the logic behind this.

Its a 5 month old car, I think I can trust the ADAS system to correctly determine the speed that It is set at

Well, yes, I would assume so. Like I said, it’s less common with newer cars. Mine is spot-on also as far as I can tell, but many are not. No slight on you was intended, I have no idea what you drive.

Anyone asserting that all HGVs are restricted to 56mph needs to give their head a wobble. ?

Shit overtaking is dangerous. It’s madness, I fail to see the logic behind this.

@Drac – shit overtaking is dangerous so presumably the logic is that if everyone has the same limit it stops the “need” to overtake thus meaning that many of the shit overtakes don’t happen at all.   On paper you’d just stop people doing shit overtakes but there is no sign that has ever been effective.

England already has 50mph HGV limit and special rules apply on the A9 precisely to reduce overtaking.

Jumping to conclusions cougar?

He’s pointing out that digital tachos are bench-tested to 1% on distance and 1km/h on speed and are tested every two years (they’re allowed 2% and 2km/h once installed). Speed limiters don’t limit speed on steeper downhill stretches, so you could get a large vehicle pushing behind you (assuming it’s legal in the first place 🙂 )

Cars are correct to 10% at 30mph and probably never get tested. Individual vehicles may be more accurate

No sympathy for any of them. Drive slowly. If you want to get somewhere get up early. I really wonder if we had a dedicated, ring fenced motoring police force that was funded by fines, driving offences would go down. Lets say a thousand for every mph over the limit. In. a few years the force would police themselves out of a job. Brilliant

I’m not sure if there’s some sarcasm I’m missing here or if you really think this?

I *really* think this.

I really wonder if we had a dedicated, ring fenced motoring police force that was funded by fines, driving offences would go down.

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

This is why we have FPNs and the old ACPO guidelines for prosecution were 10%+2 over the limit. There isn’t the infrastructure to enforce / prosecute it as it is, let alone with a magic ringfenced police force you’re going to pull out of your arse somehow. It’s all well and good saying ram the fines right up, but you can’t fine people money they don’t have. Why stop at a grand, why not make it 10k? I don’t know if you’ve seen the news recently but there’s a cost of living crisis going on. So then what, lock them up when they can’t pay? Where, magic ringfenced prisons staffed with magic ringfenced warders none of which exists? We’re releasing hardened criminals early because we have no other choice.

And sure, we can argue “slow down then,” but people are fallible. If you’re going to claim that you’ve never accidentally done 31 in a 30 or 71 on a motorway, either you’re driving everywhere like a rolling roadblock or fibbing.

I *really* think this.

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

People are more willing to obey rules that they believe – rightly or wrongly – are appropriate. See my previous post, 20mph zones are the worst for people sticking to the limit. Why, your guess is good as mine but I expect many feel it’s too slow. There’s roadworks on the motorway near me at the moment with a 50 limit. It was ignored, there was never any bugger there. They put up a sign saying something like “limit reduced due to workers under the bridge” and most people started obeying it.

Why stop at 40? If we went back to having cars with a man waving a red flag walking in front of it the accident rate would be zero. Of course, your 1-hour commute would become a 20-hour round trip but that’s a small price to pay.

No sympathy for any of them. Drive slowly. If you want to get somewhere get up early. I really wonder if we had a dedicated, ring fenced motoring police force that was funded by fines, driving offences would go down.

easier to prove driving offences (like speeding) would get detected more and might go down but hard stuff would be overlooked…

Lets say a thousand for every mph over the limit.

and then there would be a huge incentive to challenge every speeding offences, not just for guilt but precision in court and the courts would grind to a halt (but get no more money), so rapes, murders and death by driving offences take years to get to trial because someone is trying to save £3k in fines.

In. a few years the force would police themselves out of a job. Brilliant

at that point you end up with a sort of steady state – where the small number of detections funds a small traffic police but lots of people go undetected.  That’s the current situation except fines go to gov then gov fund police rather than the fines go direct.

I sometimes think a dedicated traffic police would be a good thing but cops (who might know what they are talking about!) say traffic cops actually detect a lot of ordinary crime – stolen goods, drug dealing, etc and a dedicated traffic force would likely have different priorities; meanwhile ordinary cops will ignore people using phones whilst driving etc as it’s a different departments job.