Lorry speed limit increase will kill cyclists, says Department for Transport

They have to listen if it's going to cost them (government) money or if a valid legal challenge is mounted. What we have with current motoring policies is a totally one sided crusade of violence against an equally entitled, more vulnerable group of the public.

In any other situation you can think of the level of harm from one group to another would be condemned, you'd have MP s lining up to be seen defending the under dog.

Can you imagine if there were five deaths a day and multiple severe injuries caused by a homophobic gang stomping about?

How about the same numbers for a racist gang? What if 5 traffic wardens per day were killed with more critically injured? Gas explosions - 5 a day etc. None of this would be tolerated.

These are the daily figures for all road users, we all drive as well in the majority of cases after all.

There is therefore something of a reasonable expectation that deaths and injuries of that magnitude in any other situation are wholly intolerable.

Why then do we permit these figures on the public highway and even go out of our way to encourage reckless drivers to stay behind the wheel? 35 points and still not banned? Why?

The fact that the vulnerable are having to pay the price with their lives because government is too weak to enforce and draft crushing new legislation must be a form of indirect persecution and given latest evidence proving lives are for sale to those with deep pockets isn't this amounting to some form of corruption?

So, how much do we have to agree to 'donate' to fund future political campaigns so we can get legislation allowing us to do something that will result in death and injury?

I simply do not believe there are no legal avenues at all, however untested they might be. It's negligence on a grand scale and its time it stopped.

Congratulations to the dick heads who have just made the roads even more dangerous. Cups of hemlock all round.

Plus a bloody big one to ironmancole

As much as I oppose the increase in speed limits I'm not sure it will actually make a jot of difference in the real world. I can count on one hand the number of times I've followed a lorry on a single-carridgeway road at 40mph. 50mph is quite common already and the 40mph limit hasn't been enforced for years. I don't expect to see lorries driving any faster than they do already.

The big problem that I have with it is that it sends the message that higher speeds are acceptable on roads shared with cyclists and pedestrians.

I've written to my MP a few times before regarding other issues, and the reply never fails to be a fob-off. "Go away little pleb and leave government to the grown-ups" is how it reads, so I'm unsure what to do about this.

If you look at driver websites, you will realise what we are up against. Try: www.safespeed.org.uk and www.abd.org.uk as a starter and of course a media that is fixated on speed cameras and sympathising with drivers who get speeding points. Watching Fake Britain (BBC1) 7 Aug, revealed the extent of tachograph tampering.

Yes, I just cannot see how this can be passed when they acknowledge it will cause more death and injury.

Can anyone on here suggest any other situation where a worst case scenario involving something as serious as death would be given the green light?

Can I get the ok from the Department for Education to flog cocaine in playgrounds as I can then afford a helicopter?

Anyone up for writing to Social Services asking to borrow some fostered children for a new business you've set up to help sex offenders learn how to behave around minors? Honestly, it'll be just fine.

How about petitioning the department dealing with agriculture to allow me to sell Napalm to farmers to burn old crops - we'll only kill a few slow moving walkers a year and perhaps lose a village or too with an uncontrolled fire - all good though as I'm buying a villa in Tuscany next month.

So, has anyone been informed that the Department for Cars has decided you're disposable to give you time to get your affairs in order? Just who do they plan to kill, which is just about the size of it with all the political claptrap aside.

Just why does a civil servant get to decide what happens with your life?

Why aren't we shouting a collective NO?!!

Yes, ironmancole, that is exactly it!
If as an Engineer, I pass something as acceptable & it islater proven not to be & causes death, I am liable to be prosecuted under the Corporate Manslaughter legislation. This should apply to government too. Maybe if Ministers were held accountable they would pass more legislation that operated for the common good, as opposed to the corporate good (i.e. Profit).

Coming from New Zealand where we really only have rural single carriageways with no hard shoulder to speak of and a speed limit for trucks of 90 kph (55.9 mph); a reduction to 50 mph would be quite nice.

Of cause we have a road toll of 7.4 per 100,000 vs the UKs at 3.5 per 100,000

Yet more proof that the democratic political system millions of our country people died to defend as part of our freedom is actually a poorly disguised dictatorship for sale to those with deep pockets.

I suggest every cyclist and walker using rural roads already having to risk their lives every time they venture out issues a warning to the government that should they be killed or effectively have their lives ended through catastrophic injury that their bereaved families will be rejecting the pittance offered in 'compensation' and will instead be seeking unlimited damages for wilfull negligence.

This is a repeat of the Ford cases in the states where the manufacturer knew of a potentially fatal defect but avoided a recall as it was cheaper to pay compensation to the family than do the right thing.

Far as I'm concerned this is the same, someone has run some numbers and decided our deaths are acceptable as the hauliers will still be quids in.

There is no other way to look at this, plain example of total negligence and all from a government insisting it supports cycling.

What will do about it? Probably nothing.

The cost of a road fatality is £1.8M the cost of a serious accident is £215k. 3 deaths & 9 serious accidents = £5.835M
Savings to road haulage industry £11M
It would require an extra 3 deaths above that, total = 6, to make the increase in speed limit not cost effective.

FFS...

and what will we all do about it?

Another reason for me not to vote for the Conservatives and Lib Dems at the next election.

But it will save far more lives from the pure economics to be spent on NHS and emergency & rescue services. It will also undoubtedly reduce overtake attempts that result in multi casualty crashes too. With all due respect, no-one is forced to cycle among infrastructure and big essential machines. Don't get angry with me making a valid observation now.:-))

Have I wandered onto petrolhead .com by mistake? Do you lot actually ride bikes and if you do where because you appear not need access to public roads.

This change is presented by a minister as improving safety whilst the DFT says it will cost lives, so if it wasnt requested by the DFT who did request it?

The answer is of course the transport industry because it will reduce their costs by opening up loads of new options as effective routes without the need to pay for actual haulage infrastructure.

The losers will be the people who live near these roads that will now get increased traffic and who may otherwise have used those roads but will now make the assessment they are too risky or those who continue to use them and end up dead.

For what? to get some more junk into the pound shops and put a few extra noughts on the bank balance of some tax exile cretin with a pad well away from any traffic.

My point was that not all roads are the same, when you move out of the urban environment onto country lanes they are often national speed limit when the proper speed for some of these roads should be nearer 20 mph whilst some B roads are quite capable of 60 mph or more. As to deaths, unfortunately as soon as traffic moves accidents happen, so what we end up with is compromise between death rates and traffic movement. Speed limits and speed cameras are usually a cop out from engineering roads properly to be safe. Unfortunately on many roads there just isn’t enough room for a cyclist and two lanes of traffic so again we have a compromise. Round here we have inexplicable speed limits, some should be increased and some decreased but the logic of application defies understanding.

I came back from Wales recently and they have a shared use path alongside one of the dual carriageways, the cycle lane was barely 18 inches wide, that shows you the competence of traffic engineers.

As to reducing speed limits why not bring back the man with the red flag and reduce the country to a standstill?

Personally I don’t mind a car overtaking me at 50 mph if he leaves a good separation but I get pissed off with the driver in the 20 mph zone squeezing past with little more than elbow room. Speed limits are not the answer, lots of traffic trained police are, but they have been all but eliminated in favour of cameras that cannot catch dangerous and drunk drivers.

The current speed limits on rural roads aren't even enforced so no chance that any change for HGVs will be.

Quote:

I guess that there isn’t much difference to being hit at 40 or 60, the result would be very similar.

I suggest there is a big difference between 40 and 60. First, travelling at 40, you have much more time to avoid a collision in the first place, and second, the difference in impact in a crash is significant.

I use to drive for a living some many years ago when the roads were regularly policed and truck drivers stuck to 40mph with the result that there would be long queues. The number of near misses I saw from frustrated motorists trying to overtake was incredible. For every road the safest speed is the 85th percentile but more often speed limits are adjusted for political reasons not based on the science. For cyclists to ask for all rural roads to be reduced to 40mph is very selfish and impractical, it would be much better to educate drivers but then in reality 85 percent of drivers are average to good and the odd 15% are idiots who will never be educated. I guess that there isn’t much difference to being hit at 40 or 60, the result would be very similar.

This is not a government.

Its a bunch of chancers like Grant Shapps funded by the likes of Ashcroft and his Belize based companies to get in power.

To be clear, their not politicians corrupted by power, the only reason they exist as politicians is to do the bidding of their paymasters.

Crazy government in the pocket of the motoring lobby! 50 mph is going to kill a lot of people.

60 mph on the motorways I can understand, but speeds need to be kept at a safe level for everyone on single carriage way roads.

I despair of the government with their mixed messages, road safety this, and everyone needs to be more active that, then they come up with this sort of thing. Makes no sense to me!

Having long suspected that Government and LAs don't give a shit about the safety and welfare of cyclists, this confirms it without a shred of doubt.

Fucking madness!