Police must enforce laws on A14 lorry drivers

[rob_k]

'A councillor has called for the police to crack down on lorry drivers who break the law when using the A14.

Coun Nick Guyatt, a member of Huntingdonshire District Council Cabinet, has written to Chief Constable Tom Lloyd asking for a meeting with him to discuss safety issues on the heavily congested road.

“I would like to see the police enforce the laws on lorry drivers, especially those on tailgating and overtaking,” Coun Guyatt said.

The authority has already called for flexible 50mph speed limits to be applied at busy times and for lorry bans to be put in place between 7am and 9am and from 4.30pm to 6.30pm.

Coun Guyatt said lorries travelling nose to tail at speed were clearly a safety problem and there was also an issue with lorries overtaking each other and staying side by side for several miles as they try to pass, causing delays for other road users.

He said he wanted the council and the police to present a united front on improvements for the A14.

Coun Guyatt said the Cambridgeshire Councils Association was also writing to the Chief Constable separately calling for a meeting with him and the Highways Agency to discuss the road.

He was critical of the Highways Agency following its announcement of £600,000 of improvements to the A14 west of Brampton Hut.

The scheme replaces a £24 million package of improvements, which included flyovers at junctions.

Under the new scheme, unveiled this week, there would be improved signs, road markings and surfacing at key junctions.

The Highways Agency has said by targeting improvements carefully the scheme could bring major safety improvements to the troubled road.

A Cambridgeshire police spokeswoman said: "It is hoped the Chief Constable, Tom Lloyd, will meet key opinion formers over the coming weeks to further discuss the issues and progress the A14 debate.

“Mr Lloyd very much welcomes contributions from people who use the A14. Please send views in writing or visit the force website where you can add all your views.” ’

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Oh right. Don’t want lorries on the A14 . No problem, I’m sure we’re all capable of hurtling along the single-track roads racing through the thousands of villages as an alternative . Then we’ll see what they have to say about keeping lorries off the A14.

[zb] idiots .

If they bothered to open their eyes and clear the [zb] out of them they’d see that the majority of the overtaking on the western end of the A14 is because of [zb] car and van drivers dawdling along 45-50mph but when they see a wagon going faster than them they speed up to match its speed.

A 50mph limit it might be for trucks, but you show me a wagon doing 50mph along there.

Cheers.

[liberace]

A 50 miles an hour speed limit, and a lorry ban at certain times of the day are two of the suggestions being put forward in the light of a spate of recent accidents including a fatality two weeks ago which saw major delays on the A14 and roads around it for many hours. This prompted the Chief Constable to seek a meeting with the Highways Agency at which ways forward for resolving safety issues were discussed.

That’s the reason for them blowing hot and cold about it - I wonder if the fatality involved an HGV by any chance? I can’t see anyone driving to the suggested 50 limit unless they put speed cameras on it - don’t they have them anyway down their ? And that would nacker everyone nicely as car’s wouldn’t be able to overtake trucks and trucks wouldn’t be able to overtake the “dawdling” cars. I’d be quite happy to start running through the villages and annoying the residents . Then they’d really stuff it up by putting 7.5tonne weight limits on them and taking the lorry ban off the A14 - back to square one.

[conor]

cambs.police.uk/campaigns/a14/

Make sure you all e-mail them.

[rob_k]

What do we reckon should be done then

What’s causing the problems

Then we can email them, although in all likelihood our suggestions will simply be filed in the bin.

I might just mail them my signature instead

Cheers.

[desaint]

i can see some very large companys consider moving if restrictions are put the carrageway…

say maybe TNT moving from wellingbro’ to say daventry… how many jobs lost,
if enough feel it ain’t worth the hasle how much unemployment would occor along the a14 corridor because some council person don’t like smelly wagons.

i worked for a company that had restrictions placed on it at one of it sites… some new houses got built around the factory, new residences complained of the factory working all night, council put a cerfew on the factory.

so the powers that be worked out how to move prodution… it took 8 weeks and nearly 1000 local people lost there jobs.

i think the A14 will get left well alone in the big scheme of things

[coffeeholic]

lorry bans to be put in place between 7am and 9am and from 4.30pm to 6.30pm.

Instead of banning trucks completely at those times, resulting in other roads and villages getting the trucks instead and increasing the journey times for the trucks, why not just introduce an overtaking ban for trucks at those times? At least the trucks can still use the road then which has to be better than diverting.

[pecall]

I was thinking of the same thing. A timed overtaking ban would appease some people but I believe it would cause further congestion. The Huntingdon junction/roundabout is a prime example. Heavily laden vehicles come down a slip road off a roundabout onto the A14 and onto a short steep hill. Trucks coming down from the A1 wouldn’t be able to pull out to allow traffic on, so it could cause congestion on the slip road and you will get vehicles ‘pulling out’ anyway, causing problems on the A14. Short slip-roads on some of the junctions would cause more problems as well. Specifically, the slip-road, eastbound from Cambridge services. Sharp bend onto a very short slip-road. Trucks, empty or loaded cannot build up enough speed to join the road safely and rely on other drivers being courteous and moving over.
The stretch from Huntingdon down to the M11 is a very busy stretch of road and I believe an overtaking ban would cause mayhem. This, could be the plan of the people raising these points. Cause major problems on the A14 and then claim more money for improvements.

[coffeeholic]

Good comments Pecall, I don’t know the road, or at least I haven’t been along it for many years, so my suggestion was only made as an alternative to a total ban during those hours. The way you’ve described it means an overtaking ban likely wouldn’t work although I don’t think a total ban would work either.

[jammymutt]

I,m all for it ban lorries on thew A14 then the A1 followed by the m1 then the M25 ( make that one the first).

Just ban lorries from every major trunk in the U.K. between 8 am and 7:59 am the next day.

Go to work guys sit in the truck for a week and then go home suits me !!!.

But to be honest if it aids congestion problems so that the 25 people who live down the same street can all get to school i their 4X4 ,s then i suppose it has to be then eh?..

I wonder if anyone knows how much freight ACTUALLY travels along the A14 at the times of this supposed ban?. facts and figures would be nice also say its a coyuple of hundred trucks where the hell are they going to park until they get moving again and then when they do get moving it would be even worse when they all go at the same time.

[rob_k]

jammymutt:
I,m all for it ban lorries on thew A14 then the A1 followed by the m1 then the M25 ( make that one the first).

Just ban lorries from every major trunk in the U.K. between 8 am and 7:59 am the next day.

Go to work guys sit in the truck for a week and then go home suits me !!!.

Spoken like a true do-gooder

[muckles]

The A14 was badly designed from the outset. Many of the slip roads are to short for trucks. No fly over on major junctions. Mad junctions where the A14 split off the main carriageway (Girton Interchange and Huntingdon) and no hard shoulder of decent run off area for broken down vehicles. They then earmark £24m for improvements and cut it back to £600k.
Banning trucks at certian times would be almost impossible and the traffic would still be at a standstill

[calv]

Instead of this hare-brained idea to ban trucks at certain times of the day why not ban cars off the A14 at this time instead They could use the normal roads instead … wonder how long this would last?

Lets see - if they imposed a truck ban where would the trucks park whilst being unable to move - need a truck parking area at several points along the route. That should be popular in the council planning meetings.

The A14 is one route where trucks do need to overtake each other, given the differentials in bhp/tonne between different trucks, expecially on the hills.

I think we can see the likely chance of something happening on this route by the fact that the Highways Agency have cut the planned spend from £24m to £600,000.

Calv

[thebear]

Pecall:
The stretch from Huntingdon down to the M11 is a very busy stretch of road and I believe an overtaking ban would cause mayhem. This, could be the plan of the people raising these points. Cause major problems on the A14 and then claim more money for improvements.

As Coffee will tell you… it works prefectly well in Germany and Holland to name two
On some Dutch and German roads there is a COMPLETE BAN on trucks over taking between 0600 and 1900 !!! On other stretches it is between 0600-1000 and then 1500-1900. The trucks just have to sit there rolling along in a big convoy… and woe betide you if you do try to overtake… no one lets you back in!!

[coffeeholic]

That’s true Bear and of course there is the other great thing in Holland, I’m thinking of round Rotterdam, where they have a truck only lane. Nothing better than all the cars queued in the outer lanes and the trucks moving nicely along the inside lane passing all the car drivers. Maybe they could do that on the A14.

[rob_k]

Coffeeholic:
That’s true Bear and of course there is the other great thing in Holland, I’m thinking of round Rotterdam, where they have a truck only lane. Nothing better than all the cars queued in the outer lanes and the trucks moving nicely along the inside lane passing all the car drivers. Maybe they could do that on the A14.

DREAM ON ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

[killsville]

Coffeeholic:
That’s true Bear and of course there is the other great thing in Holland, I’m thinking of round Rotterdam, where they have a truck only lane. Nothing better than all the cars queued in the outer lanes and the trucks moving nicely along the inside lane passing all the car drivers. Maybe they could do that on the A14.

Oh look! A flying pig just went past my window.

Why don’t trucks take over the bus lanes - the buses hardly carry any passengers anyway. (This is based on fact - I saw several buses in Sheffield the other day, all double deckers, using the bus lanes and I could have counted the number of passengers on each bus on one hand)

[killsville]

Rob K:

Coffeeholic:
That’s true Bear and of course there is the other great thing in Holland, I’m thinking of round Rotterdam, where they have a truck only lane. Nothing better than all the cars queued in the outer lanes and the trucks moving nicely along the inside lane passing all the car drivers. Maybe they could do that on the A14.

DREAM ON ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Can you enlarge that Rob, I couldn’t quite read it

[coffeeholic]

It works in Holland, and the cars stay out of the truck only lane even when their lanes are queued and the truck one is moving.

[allikat]

Posted on the site:

As a former regular user of the A14 along its’ whole length, the proposal for bans on HGVs by the Huntingdonshire councilman are just ludicrous. The vehicles (many of which are foreign in origin) will just use other roads to bypass any restriction, thus pushing them onto minor roads during the morning rush, and school arrival time.
There are always speeding passenger vehicles on the road, at all hours of the day and night. Many of which are driven in a dangerous and thoughtless manner. An increased police presence on the road, personnel not cameras, focussing on dangerous, eratic or ignorant behaviour on the road would do far more than any other tactic to increase safety on the road.
The A14 is vital to the East of England’s prosperity, and HGVs are the heart of that. A comprehensive education campaign, aimed at the car driver would also be cost effective. As an HGV driver, I have seen far too many car drivers cutting in late for exits, mere feet in front of an HGV and braking sharply. Charging drivers for such willful misconduct should be far more common than it is.

[gearjammer]

As a former regular user of the A14 along its’ whole length, the proposal for bans on HGVs by the Huntingdonshire councilman are just ludicrous. The vehicles (many of which are foreign in origin) will just use other roads to bypass any restriction, thus pushing them onto minor roads during the morning rush, and school arrival time.
There are always speeding passenger vehicles on the road, at all hours of the day and night. Many of which are driven in a dangerous and thoughtless manner. An increased police presence on the road, personnel not cameras, focussing on dangerous, eratic or ignorant behaviour on the road would do far more than any other tactic to increase safety on the road.
The A14 is vital to the East of England’s prosperity, and HGVs are the heart of that. A comprehensive education campaign, aimed at the car driver would also be cost effective. As an HGV driver, I have seen far too many car drivers cutting in late for exits, mere feet in front of an HGV and braking sharply. Charging drivers for such willful misconduct should be far more common than it is.

touche!!!