Speedometer Accuracy
House of Lords
Written answers and statements, 12 March 2001
Lord Allen of Abbeydale (Crossbench)
asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in the light of the increasing importance of speed limits, they have any plans to make it easier for the private motorist to have his speedometer tested for accuracy.
Lord Whitty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; Labour)
The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, as amended, allows the use of speedometers that meet the requirements of EC Community Directive 75/443(97/39) or ECE Regulation 39. Both the EC Directive and the ECE Regulation lay down accuracy requirements to be applied at the time of vehicle approval for speedometers. These requirements are that the indicated speed must not be more than 10 per cent of the true speed plus 4 km/h. In production, however, a slightly different tolerance of 5 per cent plus 10 km/h is applied. The requirements are also that the indicated speed must never be less than the true speed.
A vehicle meeting these requirements would not be able to travel at a greater speed than that shown on the speedometer and a driver could not, therefore, inadvertently exceed speed restrictions. Her Majesty's Government have no plans to introduce instrument tests.
Annotations
Gavin Hetherington
Posted on 13 Jun 2007 4:41 pm (Report this annotation)
If this was a written answer Lord Whitty needs a proof reader. He seems to have said that to comply with the requirements, the speedometer of a car travelling at 100kph should not show more than 10.4kph. This is so badly written I'm not even sure what he meant to say.