Road Safety Bill [HL]

Once again consensus has not broken out. The intent of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, appears to be to increase the speed limit for HGVs from 40 to 50 miles per hour on single carriage roads. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, such a change would clearly bring benefits for the road haulage industry in that it would lawfully be able to deliver goods faster and, presumably, be able to make its operations more cost effective, as other noble Lords have said. Those are very understandable objectives. Of course, we would all like to get where we are going faster and to arrive sooner. However, that desire needs to be balanced against the risks involved. The 40 mile per hour speed limit for HGVs on single carriageways is there for a purpose. It is there because it will generally take an HGV longer to stop than a car at any given speed. The extra distance it will take to stop increases the faster the vehicle is travelling. So whereas it is possible for an HGV travelling at 40 miles per hour to pull up in time to avoid hitting a car stopping in an emergency at, say 60 miles per hour, it would be very unlikely to be able to stop if it were travelling very much faster. Some very modern HGVs might be able to do so—the noble Baroness raised that point, as did other noble Lords, including, I believe, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—but the vast majority might not. That, I suggest, is the problem with the proposal.