Government wont budge on 40mph for HGV`s

newmercman:

scanny77:

manowar:
Speed limits for HGVs, and cars, should be carefully considered for each individual road, regardless as to whether it’s single, dual carriageway or motorway.

There are some single carriageway roads which are wide, straight, and safe enough (ie. no junctions) which are perfectly safe for 56mph. It’s these roads where frustrated car drivers make poor overtakes and die/kill others. There are others, or certain sections of others that are currently national speed limit (40 for heavies) which probably should be reduced to 30 because of the severity of bends/condition of carriageway, but these are the kind of stretches where HGV drivers would already drive at 30mph unless they judge it incorrectly and possibly end up on their side.

There are some dual carriageways where the lanes are so narrow or have dangerous turnings/crossovers which should have and sometimes do have reduced speed limits.

There should never be any one blanket restriction for the whole road network, the many thousands of miles on it, it doesn’t work as most of us can already tell. One-size-fits-all policies never have. The alternative requires some legwork and thought going into it. This is where the problem lies, and why it’s probably never going to happen:

  1. They’re not going to do it as if they get it wrong, someone might be held responsible, and nobody’s got the balls to answer criticism.

  2. Speeding fines are a nice little earner for the government, free-flowing roads are not.

your suggestion would cause more accidents as a direct result of confusion. if people are constantly on the look out for changes to the speed limit, they are not concentrating on the job of driving, regardless of category. taking responsibility from people is not the way forward. you need to educate them well enough to understand the principles of driving and how to read the road and any given situation. to back up my claim, there are many members here who do not stick to the 40 limits, thats a fact. it is also a fact that they are not having endless accidents because they know what they are doing. if you then throw constantly changing speed limits at them then they will be looking for road signs which is a distraction from watching the road ahead, very similiar to the way that people have accidents caused by mobile scameras. they are looking for them, when they see them they then watch the speedo from fear of crossing the limit by 1MPH. neither of these things are watching what is going on around them hence, detrimental effect on road safety!
sorry mate but you are wrong on this one :exclamation:

So the only thing that can cause a crash is immediately in front of you on the road is it?

i didnt say that!

Yes the speed limits should be raised to 50mph on A roads, but not along the whole road network, there are plenty of roads that do not warrant any speed greater than 40mph.

thats true for any vehicle but it doesnt mean you need to change the speed limit every time there is a bend/junction/pothole in the road

Also you’re wrong about being more efficient at 50mph

i didnt mention efficiency so how am i wrong?

scanny77:
if people are constantly on the look out for changes to the speed limit, they are not concentrating on the job of driving,

I always thought that looking for signage was part of driving - constantly looking for all sorts of things IS the driving task.