Friday 15th June 2001

Lorries Larging It

What's being done about the tonnes of lorry hurtling around at illegal speeds?

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[philshort]

One of the mysteries of life for me is to do with temporary limits at roadworks. Normal traffic is reduced from 70 to 50 in order to protect road workers. Fine, though personally I wouldn't want to be hit by a Volvo (car-allegedly) at 50mph either. HGV''s have to reduce their speed from 50mph to, er, 50mph. Doh! In what way exactly has a 32 tonne projectile at 50mph suddenly become less dangerous? Surely lorries should be restricted to 30mph in a 50 limit? Just another example of the twisted logic that gives us "speed kills" campaigns I guess. Edited by philshort on Wednesday 20th June 17:13

[MattC]

You know, Phil, I've just had a thought. If the lorries were restricted to, say, 40 mph, then they could drive through the speed cameras at an illegal 50mph and never get caught. Do you think this might be relevant? No, what AM I saying - surely law-making would never be influenced by the feasibility of automatice fine dispensing equipment?

[philshort]

You might have a point there. Its a cynical old world isn't it.