§ Sir Raymond Gowerasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will consider the adoption of the practice of some European countries of requiring maximum speeds on motorways and other roads, respectively, to be specified on the rear of public service vehicles and omnibuses.
§ Mrs. ChalkerOperators and drivers, as well as enforcement authorities, are well aware of the speed limits which apply to these vehicles on motorways and other roads. Speed discs or labels may be useful in cases, such as in Germany, where a different speed limit applies depending on constructional or other features of the vehicle which are not visible. Our speed limits for buses vary according to the type of road travelled, but not with any other feature, so labels could not serve such a purpose.
§ Sir Raymond Gowerasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will adopt the practice in some other European countries of imposing lower speed limits for motorways and other roads, respectively, on omnibuses and heavy goods vehicles.
§ Mrs. ChalkerAt present heavy goods vehicles are restricted to 60 mph on motorways, and mostly 40 mph on other roads. Buses and coaches are restricted to 70 mph on motorways and to 50 mph or less on other roads. Under proposals which I circulated for comment in the summer, new limits of 50 mph and 60 mph respectively could be introduced for these types of vehicles when travelling on non-motorway dual carriageways.