Will changing HGV and car limits help?

As someone who spent years patrolling Scottish Trunk Roads and dealt with countless bumps with a multitude of causation factors, I’m kind of conflicted on this. As with many road safety ideas, perhaps the answer is ‘it depends’? LGVs maintaining 50 on the better sections of the big single carriageway trunk roads A75, A82, A83, A87, A9 etc would seem welcome and potentially safer as overtakes would possibly be less frequent. Unfortunately, the distances covered by some single carriageway roads are pretty significant, with no alternative. Leaving Campbeltown behind a truck and your first bit of dual carriageway is at Balloch, some 115 miles away. Thurso to Inverness is 110 and Gretna to Stranraer is 100. Further, some sections, even on the ‘big’ trunk roads are like an English B road, where trucks are slowed, even to walking pace, to pass each other. Average speeds will remain far, far lower than 50 and tailbacks will continue. Frustration and a desire to get by will still be there for many but safe overtaking points will become limited. The very pinch points where trucks are held up aren’t suitable for overtakes and the straight sections where overtakes on LGVs doing 40 would have been safer & legal will become more risky & illegal if everyone is restricted to 50.

The only litmus test for all this is the recent A9 experiment, which, when combined with average speed cameras, appears to have been successful. KSIs are down and it feels less stressful to drive. Cars can still do 60 and the sight lines are excellent. Conversely, average speed cameras have recently gone live on the A82 between Balloch and Tarbet (a similarly ‘good’ bit of single carriageway), with no increase in the LGV limit. LGVs, which previously sat illegally / happily at 50 odd are now adhering to the camera enforced 40 limit. Surprise surprise, tailbacks and dodgy overtakes have become more common.

If ‘it depends’ relies upon motorists driving with restraint and within the law, methinks the Scottish Government may be in for a nasty surprise, not least at the polls. Personally, I’d increase the LGV limit to 50 only on the better sections, leave the car limit at 60 and site average speed cameras along every section subject to the new LGV limit. That way people will feel less compelled to overtake as the queue is doing 50 at those ‘better’ sections and the driving gods who still want to scoot by know that they’ll have to ease off once past the queue / truck.

Car haters out again I see. Anything goes as long as it makes life worse for car drivers. Doesn’t matter whether it achieves the stated aims or what negative side effects it has.

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 

Don’t mean shit when you ain’t on a UK license or regulated lorry though.

Also from what I can see using the roads…. No one cares what the limits are they do the speed they want – and that gets more and more prevalent the further south you go.

Somafunk is talking about the A75, and I’d agree that a lot of the NI trucks seem able to go faster than ones on mainland limiters. If they ever do 40 mph it is because they are stuck behind a supermarket truck (keeping near the speed limit because HQ is monitoring on telematics) or the grapevine has warned them the speed camera van is around the next bend (there is pretty much one speed van “somewhere” on the A75 – so once past that they just hoof it). Trying to drive at the 50 mph van speed limit on that road is very unpleasant if you coincide with the ferry traffic.

What I can’t understand is why they aren’t caught on tachographs. Digital tachos are easy to analyse and they are doing a 90 mile chunk without motorway and only limited dual carriageway sections where they can legally do higher speeds.

I don’t think you can fix this by changing limits. The lower limits encourage dangerous driving, but changing rules isn’t going to fix the attitude of the drivers that break them in the first place.

Also from what I can see using the roads…. No one cares what the limits are they do the speed they want – and that gets more and more prevalent the further south you go

Not sure that’s true anymore, certainly down here. The only places  I regularly see ignoring of speed limits are the M40 between High Wycombe and Brum, oh and the race track between the roundabouts past Silverstone.

Anything vaguely near London, folks are terrified of the cameras.

I cover the whole country and I think people overplay speeding. Most of it, that I witness is in urban areas, with the biggest chance of an accident.
It’s not the Nineties anymore.

Speeds in general on motorways and A roads have fallen in my opinion.

Don’t mean shit when you ain’t on a UK license or regulated lorry though.

How many large vehicles aren’t regulated?

Armed forces, emergency services, those that can’t reach the legal speed or maximum 6 road miles per week

Speed limiters must be fitted >8 seats or exceeding 3.5T laden and it’s part of the annual test

From memory, tacho offences aren’t endorsable, so the licence origin is moot. They’re EU rules

FPN for UK drivers, equivalent fine for non-UK drivers (level 4 £2500 max to unlimited level 5). Tacho offences attract a prohibition, so you park up until it’s paid

Get DVSA in (used to be VOSA) if it’s a problem, way scarier for a driver than the cops 🙂

Car haters out again I see. Anything goes as long as it makes life worse for car drivers. Doesn’t matter whether it achieves the stated aims or what negative side effects it has.

This bothered me it seem the reponse of someone with a persecution complex. Lots of the accidents in Scotland seem to be the result of poorly thought out overtaking manouvers, and it might be better to try all the traffic moving at the same speed. Most of the interesting overtakes do not acheive much just move you further up the line of cars.
If I am driving or cycling if i am holding up the traffic I will happily pull over when it’s safe and let people past.
It’s worth trying something to make life a little safer.

Car haters out again I see. Anything goes as long as it makes life worse for car drivers. Doesn’t matter whether it achieves the stated aims or what negative side effects it has.

I don’t see much car hating going on here, but which of these things makes life worse for car drivers:

– being stuck in a queue of traffic doing 40mph behind an LGV where its not safe to overtake but the car could comfortably be driving 25% faster
– hitting a car coming in the opposite direction during a ropey overtake
– being stuck on the road for 2 hrs waiting for emergency services to clear an accident following someone else’s dodgy overtake
– having to do a 30 miles diversion because the road is closed for a day of accident investigation work following someone else’s failed overtake
– having a 50mph limit on a road which is currently 60mph limit but where you probably can’t maintain a constant 60mph anyway
– being slightly less likely to experience an aggressive overtake if you are driving at 50mph and “holding up” Mr Sporty

Because to me as a driver those all seem like they are to make life better for drivers rather than a war on motorists.

Car haters out again I see. Anything goes as long as it makes life worse for car drivers. Doesn’t matter whether it achieves the stated aims or what negative side effects it has.

This bothered me it seem the reponse of someone with a persecution complex. Lots of the accidents in Scotland seem to be the result of poorly thought out overtaking manouvers, and it might be better to try all the traffic moving at the same speed. Most of the interesting overtakes do not acheive much just move you further up the line of cars.
If I am driving or cycling if i am holding up the traffic I will happily pull over when it’s safe and let people past.
It’s worth trying something to make life a little safer.
Sorry thats what my post should have been.

Not helped by the site throwing a wobbler everytime you post something!

How many large vehicles aren’t regulated?

on the roads round stranraer…..

Car haters out again I see. Anything goes as long as it makes life worse for car drivers. Doesn’t matter whether it achieves the stated aims or what negative side effects it has.
This bothered me it seem the reponse of someone with a persecution complex.

Not necessarily. (But maybe!)

One of the side effects of the Welsh 20mph limits is that my cycle commute to work has become more dangerous because more drivers are avoiding the ‘slow’ main roads and trying to hammer along the quieter side roads which I use. Of course, because they are trying to circumvent the slow roads they are more aggressive in passing me on the bike.

What about the 40mph tractors with huge wide trailers never slowing down for anyone

It was great back in the days to keep up with tractors on my Roberts White Spider but you need to be an olympic athlete now as they wing through the gears often on their phone

What about the 40mph tractors with huge wide trailers never slowing down for anyone

a real problem on Scotland’s roads?  I can’t recall when I last was stuck behind a tractor for more than a few miles.

most of the roads they are travelling on dont need to be done at more than 40 anyway ….. not much long haul A road tractoring going on.

during a ropey overtake

And once again we’re back to driver education.

Is safe overtaking taught as part of the test? I don’t recall doing it and treating it like contraception in a Catholic school isn’t going to work. There are times where you really should be overtaking but it’s so rare that it’s difficult to practice. So under normal circumstances not only is undertaking a relatively high-risk manoeuvre to start with but folk are doing it with minimal ability.

 not much long haul A road tractoring going on.

You don’t live in mid Wales, do you? 😀

You don’t live in mid Wales, do you? 

is that where all the farms of a size that inheritance tax affects ?

Most tractors operating on a nil license for agriculture – rules for that are such that they shouldn’t be used for more than

1.5km between areas of land owned by the same operator.

Will it make a difference?
A few years back, digging in some dusty online archives on road safety, I fould a study looking at the effects acorss a series of speed limit reduction schemes across Europe, typically in the same 60>50mph kind of area. With no new enforcement or any changes other than just the speed limit plates, those found an average of a 8% reduction in KSIs.
Never have been able to find the report again though :S

Most tractors operating on a nil license for agriculture – rules for that are such that they shouldn’t be used for more than

1.5km between areas of land owned by the same operator.

I was joking in my ‘mid-Wales’ comment but I’ve definitely followed tractors further than 1.5km.

Speeds in general on motorways and A roads have fallen in my opinion.

That’s my experience too.

Thru the 90’s and 00’s I use to do in excess of 40k pa, right across the UK (and Europe), had my radar detector sat on the dash and when on motorways and the like was happy way over the limit.  I often had cars used by the Police too – so when something like an Omega flashes you from behind, cars moved out of the way 🙂

And must’ve been safe as I’ve had no accidents in practically 40 years (of car & m/c) AND obviously the faster I drove the less time I was on the road 😉

My middle lad does an equivalent mileage now and he just can’t do the speeds we did back then, long journeys take him forever by comparison – and it does mean more nights in hotels for him too compared to me.

Is safe overtaking taught as part of the test? I don’t recall doing it and treating it like contraception in a Catholic school isn’t going to work.

But surely that is exactly how you do it – pull out at just the right time 😉

I believe if you encounter slow traffic and fail to overtake when it was safe to do so you could fail – but that would be quite a rare combination of circumstances on most test routes.

It could also get very scary as inexperienced drivers in cars they drive rarely feel they have to overtake to pass the test.

The test is a basic test to determine if you have the basic skills to drive unsupervised.

I’ll admit to being a car hater in many ways. Most are not needed. Replace lorries with trains maybe, the infrastructure base is there despite Beeching. Slash recreational based driving. No sympathy for those who wish to get somewhere faster at the expense of others. Get up earlier.

Thru the 90’s and 00’s I use to do in excess of 40k pa, right across the UK (and Europe)

Same, only I’m still on the road. If I drove at what was a fairly normal 90s Motorway speed today, I’d probably lose my licence fairly quickly.
I once drove back from somewhere in Europe as fast as the vehicle would go, to the point of overheating. It’d slow down a bit, cool, then build speed again.

It’s way off topic but, the most obvious difference between now and then is you wouldn’t witness folks watching videos or whatever on a phone in their lap because their car can auto brake.(or not).

I don’t see much car hating going on here, but which of these things makes life worse for car drivers:

– being stuck in a queue of traffic doing 40mph behind an LGV where its not safe to overtake but the car could comfortably be driving 25% faster
– hitting a car coming in the opposite direction during a ropey overtake
– being stuck on the road for 2 hrs waiting for emergency services to clear an accident following someone else’s dodgy overtake
– having to do a 30 miles diversion because the road is closed for a day of accident investigation work following someone else’s failed overtake
– having a 50mph limit on a road which is currently 60mph limit but where you probably can’t maintain a constant 60mph anyway
– being slightly less likely to experience an aggressive overtake if you are driving at 50mph and “holding up” Mr Sporty

Because to me as a driver those all seem like they are to make life better for drivers rather than a war on motorists.

1 is about raising the HGV limit to 50mph, which I haven’t disagreed with.

2, 3, and 4 are not either-or choices anybody makes amongst the other options.

5 is rare in the locations I drive in at the times I drive at.

6 is a non-issue for almost everyone almost all the time.

Lots of the accidents in Scotland seem to be the result of poorly thought out overtaking manouvers

I don’t know either way about this, but that would be bad driving. I don’t support allowing bad driving to continue mitigated by lower speed. We need to get people better at overtaking.

Most of the interesting overtakes do not acheive much just move you further up the line of cars.

There’s always a few that stick in our minds as pillocks, but the vast majority of overtakes are safe and reduce unnecessary delay.

Remember that just because someone thinks it’s dodgy doesn’t mean it is. Compared to the person making the judgement, the driver may have a better sight line, be more competent, and have a more capable car.

Also there’s nothing inherently long in overtaking a long line of cars using intermediate steps. But it’s rare to have the visibility to see where you’re going to pull in, before you pull forward after pulling out to look. And of course it’s pointless if the line is so long that you’re never going to make it all the way.

It’s worth trying something to make life a little safer.

I agree in principle but simplistic thinking always comes up with speed as the thing to focus on, and things that get tried end up permanent even without evidence.

There is a cost in wasted time to these things, and it’s a political choice if we think the saved injuries and deaths are worth it. That’s the cold hard logic of it unfortunately.

Thru the 90’s and 00’s I use to do in excess of 40k pa, right across the UK (and Europe)

Same, only I’m still on the road. If I drove at what was a fairly normal 90s Motorway speed today, I’d probably lose my licence fairly quickly.
I once drove back from somewhere in Europe as fast as the vehicle would go, to the point of overheating. It’d slow down a bit, cool, then build speed again.

It’s way off topic but, the most obvious difference between now and then is you wouldn’t witness folks watching videos or whatever on a phone in their lap because their car can auto brake.(or not).

I’ll admit to being a bicycle hater in many ways. Most are not needed. Replace bikes with cars maybe, the infrastructure base is there despite Beeching. Slash recreational based cycling. No sympathy for those who wish to get somewhere faster at the expense of others. Get up earlier.

Or, “What I do is right. What everyone else does is wrong.”

I’m variously a pedestrian, a pedestrian pushing a pram, a cyclist, a lapsed motorcyclist, and a semi-frequent user of taxis, trams and trains. One demographic ragging on another for the crime of existing is bullshit of the highest order. “WHY CAN’T EVERYONE BE MORE LIKE ME?!?!” Add small boats to the list and get in the ****ing sea. Walking is great. Riding is great. Driving is great. Not having to do any of those things is great.

Ban recreational activities. Jesus H Corbett on a pogo stick.

As long as zero emission vehicles are exempt that sounds like a great idea.

The cynic in me says this is just a means of mitigating the shocking state of the roads rather than anything else. Think about it, if a road was safe to drive at 60mph 10 years ago then why would that not be the case today unless there is some material difference.

Round here verges haven’t been touched in years. Where there used to be excellent sight lines there is just foliage that has been allowed to grow to the point you can’t overtake safely. Maybe if they spent some money on some pretty simple maintenance there would be less unsafe overtakes.

Conversely the road out of town to the north has been reduced to 40mph, it was never a fast road anyway and the reduction has pretty much eliminated folk coming off the road and onto the rocks. There’s always someone that knows better but by and large it’s worked.

So it’s definitely not a one size fits all solution.

The cynic in me says this is just a means of mitigating the shocking state of the roads rather than anything else. Think about it, if a road was safe to drive at 60mph 10 years ago then why would that not be the case today unless there is some material difference.

Round here verges haven’t been touched in years. Where there used to be excellent sight lines there is just foliage that has been allowed to grow to the point you can’t overtake safely. Maybe if they spent some money on some pretty simple maintenance there would be less unsafe overtakes.

Conversely the road out of town to the north has been reduced to 40mph, it was never a fast road anyway and the reduction has pretty much eliminated folk coming off the road and onto the rocks. There’s always someone that knows better but by and large it’s worked.

So it’s definitely not a one size fits all solution.

Politicians are stupid aren’t they? Even on a cycling forum the response is mixed – the general public will rage against this. Guaranteed vote loser.

Same, only I’m still on the road. If I drove at what was a fairly normal 90s Motorway speed today, I’d probably lose my licence fairly quickly.

Unless you’ve no concept of keeping an eye out for fixed cameras and sticking below 80mph on smart motorways then <100mph is still easy enough. 100mph+ appears much less usual now though and the vast majority are traveling at <75mph rather than the 70-100mph that used to be normal. There’s far to few traffic cops out and about.

The cynic in me says this is just a means of mitigating the shocking state of the roads rather than anything else.

Traveling up to Inners in May the state of the A708 was appalling. Driving it in the dark would have been down right dangerous given the size of some of the craters,  but thankfully it’d been patched up when I went up last month.

Traveling up to Inners in May the state of the A708 was appalling. Driving it in the dark would have been down right dangerous given the size of some of the craters,  but thankfully it’d been patched up when I went up last month.

Use the A7 instead, far, far faster road and recently resurfaced for most of its length.

My middle lad does an equivalent mileage now and he just can’t do the speeds we did back then, long journeys take him forever by comparison – and it does mean more nights in hotels for him too compared to me.

Unpopular opinion. On the road reps should have tachos and be subject to the same rules as long distance truck drivers. Many sales reps employers sadly exploit their drivers licenses.