Clause 17 - Penalty points
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Greg Knight (East Yorkshire, Conservative)
I would rather deal with the present and the immediate future, not the fantasy of a time when no one in this Committee will be alive to bother about it. [Interruption.] I will answer the hon. Gentleman’s point. I certainly think that a speed limit that relates to a specific class of vehicle should be kept under regular review. There are many reasons for saying that heavy goods vehicles should have lower speed limits than normal motor cars, not least because of their weight and their capacity to cause damage in an accident.
When the hon. Gentleman next finds himself stuck behind a heavy goods vehicle, I ask him to read what is printed on the back of it. Most of them now carry a sign saying “Warning. This vehicle has air brakes.” What does the hon. Gentleman think that means? Why does he think there is a warning to other motorists that an HGV has air brakes? It is because air brakes are more efficient than the standard type of brake. In 1963 when the 40 mph limit came in, all vehicles had the drum braking system, which has since been supplanted in motor cars by disc brakes, which are more efficient. Now, heavy goods vehicles have gone a stage further and have air brakes, which are more efficient but far more expensive than disc brakes, which is why motor cars do not have them.
When considering a speed limit, we need to ask what progress has been made in enabling a heavy goods vehicle, which is a dangerous weapon if it is heading in one’s direction in certain circumstances, to be brought to rest within so many feet. Given the advent of disc brakes, it would not be unreasonable to increase the limit to 50 mph. In many cases, it could be argued that it would be unsafe to drive at 50 mph in a heavy goods vehicle or indeed a motor car, but that is a different point. We are considering whether it is appropriate to maintain a speed limit that was introduced in 1963, given that we have moved from drum brakes to disc brakes to air brakes. We could accept this modest uplift in the speed limit; many accidents are caused not solely by a vehicle’s speed, but by speed that is inappropriate given the road conditions.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire also referred to matters that are not as important as the safety of a vehicle and its ability to stop, but are nevertheless not without force. Heavy goods vehicles have moved from having three-speed standard gearboxes to four-speed and five-speed ones, and now their gearboxes can have eight or even 10 speeds. Such vehicles do not therefore travel in top gear; they use more fuel and are not as environmentally friendly as they might be.
In my constituency, dual carriageways are few and far between and in many circumstances on a fine day when the road is relatively clear, heavy goods vehicles could safely travel at 50 mph. At the moment, queues of holidaymakers travel at 40 mph because they cannot overtake the heavy goods vehicle ahead, which is travelling slower than it safely could because of the speed limit. That limit ought to go, and we ought to embrace the new clause.