Safe Speed Forums

I've had a query from a truck driver who says that his transport manager is telling drivers off for exceeding 56 mph on the motorway (presumably from tachograph records) and stating that, where a limiter is fitted, the applicable speed limit is actually 90 km/h (56 mph), not 60 mph.

This vaguely rings a bell - does anyone know any more?

It's certainly not mentioned in the Highway Code.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I've certainly never come across such legislation.

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Paul Smith
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the speed limit is 60 regardless of whether or not a speed limiter is fitted. the limiter does not affect the legal speed limit. it merely governs the max speed that the vehicle will do.
you can also let him know that his boss is of the common variety that being, he knows diddly about transport

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Richie

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That's nothing to do with the actual speed limit but with the EU limiter law. If VOSA catch him exceeding 56 (90kph) they will slap a prohibition order on the truck and the tacho and limiter will have to be recalibrated. He can't personally be done for speeding however unless he exceeds 60mph.

I know this because the other half got one yesterday. He was pulled over into one of the routine testing stations that VOSA set up and they proceeded to plug something into the tacho head that can apparently tell what the limiter is set to (something to do with setting the engine running at limited speed in top gear and seeing what it revs to - I don't really understand how it works). According to the device his limiter was set to 91kph (dispite the fact that the truck actually won't exceed about 53mph or 86kph which can be proven from tacho chart records and the fact that he gets overtaken by pretty well everything else on the road ), so he now has 10 days to get it recalibrated and inspected. More than likely the device VOSA was using was out of calibration or something else was amiss here, but his employer will still have to fork out for the inspections.

So I can understand why his manager is a bit sensitive about it - unit off the road for half a day + calibration and reinspection costs...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Incidentally the prohibition notice was cancelled when the local HGV MOT centre requested a copy of the callibration certificate for the device used to check the limiter. Guess what, there wasn't one!

I wonder how many notices they issued that day...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.