I believe that the curent LGV speed limits were set in the 1950s when the safety systems on lorries were, to say the least, minimal.
We are now 50+ years on and the modern lorry has an array of safety and back-up systems so why are the 1950s limits still in force?
Perhaps the powers that be think the lorry driver would not be able to cope safely at higher limits - I dont believe that to be the case as the training and test to drive one has been vastly improved since those days in the 50s.
Has the traffic on our roads got to the point where it would be dangerous to increase the limits? - I dont think so, it is being delayed, unnecessarily, in my opinion, in a lot of cases where the limit for LGVs could safely be increased.
So, should we change the LGV speed limits & to what?
For all single carriageway roads or just some of them?
For dual carriageways?
For rigid lorries only or all?
What would be your reason for the change?
Would the modern lorry driver be able to cope safely if the speeds were increased?
Any other points you think ought to be considered?
In my opinion, to change the limts on certain roads would require very little. Government legislation and some new road signs with a picture of a lorry on them and the speed that they are allowed to do on a particular stretch of road with the same sign at the end of the higher limit with a red line through it denoting the end of the higher limit and retuning to the national limit for the size of vehicle.
50 on single lanes
60 on dual carriage
60 motorways
back when limiters was no where to be seen,there appeared to be less delays,certainly with wagons overtaking each other,when you had the speed but was governed by the weight you was carrying.
ie: 40t up hill slow
20t up hill truck could pass without being limited.
my old man moaned back in the sixties,when his wagon was governed by the gearbox to a (now)mind numbing 75mph.
we could do with that limit today?.
once shoved a ERF 14ltr ■■■■■■■ along the M6 in the middle of the night at well over the legal limit for cars,truck was empty,and by did it go.
No, leave them as they are. What do you want to get the job done quicker for? You are either going to earn less money or get more worked heaped on you to do in the same time you did less work. Don’t see the attraction in either option.
Its fantasy island that you need to be on. How ever is raising the speed limit going to help road safety? I have heard all the crap about 40 limits and car drivers taking unnecassary risks to overtake. If you were doing 50 on a single track road the car drivers would still want to be past. Most of the drivers do not have the ability to overtake safely in any circumstance
Turn on the radio any morning and listen to the reports.
Truck overturned here, truck jackknifed on the M62, truck hit a bridge etc
Any politician who put his head above a parapet to raise speed limits needs a check up from the neck up.
We have to improve our image to the public, not whinge about wanting to go faster. I agree limiters have caused their own problems but as the name suggests, it is a limiter, that doesnt mean you have to stare into space like its a narrow tunnel when another truck is trying to pass and refuse to back off. It is that what ■■■■■■ motorists and bikers off most.
Driver training is required and I dont mean driver assessments by a company. The level of instruction has to improve, even if the test is made more difficult to pass. I wont be popular for this post but the problem now is that drivers are not born to be drivers or learn from the grass roots. Many just see a fancy truck and think I can do that job. Im not saying it is a difficult job but it is a way of life which is unlike most other jobs in the world.
If we want to be seen as professional why do we allow someone to be in charge of a 44 tonne truck after minimal training over a week?
Driver apprenticeships are what are required, like the old days, you learn from your dad, or you work in the yard or as a 2nd man.
To my mind the limits should be left as they are. The rest of Europe manage to keep going using a 50mph limit on most motorways.
If you worked in a sausage factory, and there was a sign on the wall saying “Only make 56 sausages an hour”, why on earth would you campaign to be allowed to make more?
I can’t belive that you have even posted this link as you seem to be well versed in all matters regarding driving .
No, you’d have to work harder !!!
Think of the money that the government would lose in speeding fines,
Not at all, I never used to charge about when I was an OD either. I drive at the same speeds now as I did then and on the many occasions this question has been asked before on here my answer has always been the same - leave the limits as they are.
Limits are ok as they are, as long as you are given enough time to do the job, the place I work runs, vans alongside trucks, interchangeable day by day, as to who requires what, or what is broken down, its all a bit chaotic, and people forget that the trucks are limited, so wonder why the day runs on 2 hours longer than would be expected.
I’d drive at 30mph on the motorways if the limit was imposed. As long as people were aware that it would take longer to get there
I’ve never minded going slowly in a truck, it just seems the norm. It bugs me to go slowly on my bike or in my car however, as I know better progress can be made.
While there are still accidents with trucks, regardless of the statistics when compared to cars, you are never going to convince anyone to relax any limits whatsoever. The general public is only aware of the existence of trucks when one has jack-knifed, and held them up, the image of trucks on UK roads is pretty crappy as we all know.
To go off on a tangent, to improve this industry, we need something along the lines of what wheel nut said, apprenticeships and suchlike. Turn this back into a career. Not just a green light for mr polish and his agency idiot crew to earn easy money and take the ■■■■ out of us.
Independance from Europe would be a great start in my book.
I personally believe that 40 mph is a little slow on many single carriageways (though I do stick to it). A good local example of this being the A16 around Spalding, where the road is very wide and smooth. The curves are very gentle and you can see for miles ahead. 50mph would be fine here, possibly 60 mph.
However, I would leave the limit as it is because there are also many roads with the same classification that are narrow, bouncy and twisty in places. For example, the A1073 from Eye to Spalding.
The problem as I see it is that how could you raise the limit on one of these roads and not the other? Raise the limit along the A1073 and you’d have a Fowler Welch artic in the ditch on an hourly basis.
50 mph on a dual carriageway and 60 mph on a motorway is fine.
When you see some of the idiots driving trucks on the road, is it any wonder we have different speed limits and speed limiters? Can you imagine what it would be like out there if we didn’t? 600bhp Volvos and Scanias charging about everywhere at 90 mph - no thanks.
I do my job safely and I am productive enough as things are - I don’t really want, or need, to go any faster thank you!!
ROG:
I believe that the curent LGV speed limits were set in the 1950s when the safety systems on lorries were, to say the least, minimal.
We are now 50+ years on and the modern lorry has an array of safety and back-up systems so why are the 1950s limits still in force?
Most roads are just as crap as they were in the 1950’s, trucks may have better brakes but they are generally carrying more weight & there are more cars about, gettng in the way & doing stupid things.
Go and drive a tipper if your bored doing 40mph, no speed limits apply
leave the limits alone. i dont want to do more for less.
trucks so called safety systems may have improved over the years but the big smashes, jack knifing and roll overs occur on a daily basis.
my personal opinion as to why there are more rollovers etc is the facts that 3 axle tractors are by design inherrently dangerous in corners. one possibly two steer axles and all the rest want to go straight on. especially on wet roundabouts where it seems a lot of roll overs occur. is this a coincidence .
also i dont care how may people say that a modern curtain is designed as a load securing device. a load will move unless its tied down securely.
Suppose it depends what you do and where you do it.
In Scotland going down south your on basically quiet motorways most of the time from Hamilton to Preston. The 56mph limiter if you actual even get a truck capable of doing that speed seem really slow and draining at times.
As for getting paid less, well we had a fleet of trucks all sat at 52mph and one sat at 57mph. The guy with the faster truck was into the depot in Manchester relaxing having a cup of tea when we were driving in. We all left at the same time, he got longer break, getting back to Glasgow again he was back allready to go home by the time we got in and we all got paid the same.
Drove his truck one night when he was off, felt much more alert and comfortable going that bit faster, felt as if actually getting somewhere since you were overtaking more rather than sitting for 4hrs 20mins in lane 1.
To me anyways a faster truck within reason makes the journey easier espec at night on long motorway journeys. I wouldnt like to go back to the days of no limiters for the reason some companies would give you jobs knowing fine well you will really need to really hammer it to get them done and some drivers would do it.
On the other hand you work days in parts of the south of England can have no limiter and aint gonna make much difference, so much traffic gonna be sitting at 50-55mph anyways. Delivering to places like RDC still gonna be sitting for hours waiting to get tipped.
The 40mph on single carriageway roads, in some places it needs adjusted and on other roads it should remain. In Scotland some of the main routes are single carriageway roads but are very wide and pretty much straight. Some places the police won’t bother if your sitting at 50mph other places they will. Its ok saying but get paid less, in most cases wouldnt make a difference to me. Been out all day wanting to get back done overtime anyways and risking not getting back within my drivers hours sitting at 40mph on a straight piece of road seems stupid, espec when your in a truck with a daycab and nothing on your person for a night out.
Saying that some A-roads you wouldnt want to be doing above 40mph because they are so twisty and tight, people with half a brain wouldnt try breaking it and don’t. I dont think you could have a blanket raised speed limit or single carriageway roads but certainly on some its too slow.
i don’t know
You had in Past much more Accidents in Countries with 50mph (80km/h) Speed limit then in Countries like UK and Spain you could travel with 60mph
the other site is,that you safe a lot of Fuell by 50 against 60mph.
anywhy,in a few Year will we have Overtaking not alowed anymore and will travel on First Lane the Speed of the slowest
I guess that whilst some single carriageway roads are a bind at 40mph it’s generally about right.
Doing a dual carriageway at 56mph never seems to be a problem, nigh on everyone seems to do it and gets away it.
After all it’s your own choice whether you stick to the limits or not.
I was coming down the M40 on Saturday in my car cruise control set at 70mph for quite some time I was behind a Jan de Rijk trailer being pulled by Brit reg’d R580 at one point he was pulling slowly away.
Now he wasn’t otherwise driving recklessly, but he was taking his chances with the battenburg or plod if he got stopped.
Leave em as they are.
The 40 mph ■■■■■■ me off big time,as I have said on here before,(to harsh criticism and people wanting to burn me like a witch)
I think maybe a review on some of the good single carriage way A roads would be a good thing,or maybe the police using a bit of discression like keeping it at 40 but the threshold being 50 before they would do you.
I think raising it to 50 would mean a lot of people then going 56-60 on all roads.
Its like the 70mph on motorways for cars.The police know people speed and I heard on a programme before that they pretty much turn a blind eye to people going upto 80.(but then again they are’nt ■■■■■■■ around anyway)
if you then went and raised the limit to 80 it would mean more ■■■■■■■ idiots then pushing the boundaries that little bit further.
I would generally say leave them as they are. However an increase to the still legal 60mph on motorways would reduce the differential between cars and trucks at entry ramps.
As for single carriageway, yes I agree in some instances 40mph can be unsafe. Mostly from the point of view of the idiots desperate to pass the “lumbering juggernaut”. However regardless of improvments in vehicles the reasons 40 does well on single carriage way IMO are several. Firstly singles generally have side roads coming onto them. Car pulls in front of truck at 50 or 40 ■■?. That problem is compounded by the fact there may be no evasive route for the truck except into oncoming traffic
The biggest problem in many instances seems to me to be the difference in speed limits between cars and trucks, compounded by the poor judgement of many drivers of both cars and trucks. So I say why not bring the single carriageway limit for cars down to 50. That way there would be less gained by desperate overtaking
Also bring the car limit down to 60 on Dual carriageways to bring them closer to our limit and not roaring up behind us at great speed
Lovlyperson:
i don’t know
You had in Past much more Accidents in Countries with 50mph (80km/h) Speed limit then in Countries like UK and Spain you could travel with 60mph
the other site is,that you safe a lot of Fuell by 50 against 60mph.
anywhy,in a few Year will we have Overtaking not alowed anymore and will travel on First Lane the Speed of the slowest
Never really seen any stats, one web site mentioned that it was hard to find stats for before and after speed limiters. Some stats seem to suggest an increase in accidents. Before limiters greater chance of going to fast and not been able to brake in an emergency as easilly and ramming someone. Wher after limiters that kinda droped but a rise in accidents to do with concentration wavering and people falling asleep.
I used to drive vans through the night, never a problem prob covering more hours than trunkers etc… but never felt that tired. When i moved onto HGV’s found it hard at first doing night trunks trying to keep awake and trying to keep the same level of concentration. Doesent bother me but as i said before being an agency driver driving differnt trucks can get frustrated when you get a truck which has a very low limiter setting and your going a long distance.
As i said aswell depends on your job, just finshed doing supermarket deliveries so not in a great hurry. So mostly sit at a lower speed like 50mph on motorways anyways because doing localish drops and no point rushing around costing you money.
On a web site as well quotes some road safety guide advising not to keep to slow constant speeds as will make you more tired and reduce your concentration.
Poacher turned game keeper eh Coffee?
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I would generally say leave them as they are. However an increase to the still legal 60mph on motorways would reduce the differential between cars and trucks at entry ramps.