New clause 14 - SPEED LIMITS FOR VEHICLES OF CERTAIN CLASSES
Road Safety Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Christopher Chope (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; Christchurch, Conservative)
I certainly shall not push the matter to a vote, because the new clause does not go as far as I had intended, as the Minister realised. He quoted some statistics and promised to provide my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire with some data, so with that information we may want to revisit the subject.
The point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross was the one that I had very much in mind when I drafted the new clause. If it had been possible to limit it to A roads, it would have probably overcome some of the Government's concerns. Again, if one limits it to A roads, however, one has a definitional problem, because some of them are of a much lower standard than others.
Frankly, the Minister is not on to a good point about the stopping distances, because it is incumbent upon heavy goods vehicles to travel at a safe distance from the vehicle in front. That is what we expect them to do, although the way many of them travel on the motorways, it defies belief that they could ever stop in time. However, that is another story and we shall not get into that now. We have had a short and interesting debate, but time is pressing on. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.