No sooner have we had the government allowing farmers to use larger tractors and drive faster when they travel on roads, than ministers want the army’s tracked vehicles – tanks and other armoured vehicles – to be allowed to drive on roads at double the present their speed maximum speed.
A consultation has begun on the government proposal to increase the maximum speed for military tracked vehicles from 20 mph to 40 mph. Such vehicles are known as ‘armoured vehicles (tracked)’ or AVT (and AVT is a plural acronym.)
Wiltshire – and specifically of course the Salisbury Plain – is one of seven ‘key training areas for military AVT in England’. And as we saw last Monday (March 9 at 1.55pm – photo right) AVT and their learner drivers do, from time to time, stray from the Plain into Marlborough High Street.
This consultation is to put right a quirk in the law: from 1977 to late 2013 these AVT were able to drive on public roads at 40 mph. Then they were deemed to come under an Act of Parliament that only allowed them to travel at 20 mph.
This change has, we are informed, interfered with the proper training of AVT drivers. And 20 mph is below “the optimum operating speed for AVT making most of them less manoeuvrable/responsive than at their higher design speeds.” And there are fuel efficiency considerations and maintenance considerations from the additional wear on vehicles when they travel more slowly.
The consultation paper continues: “There are safety implications of the speed differential when travelling at 20 mph on fast flowing roads with limited sight lines where civilian vehicles travelling at speed may encounter one or more AVT. Additionally tailbacks resulting from slow moving AVT may lead frustrated motorists to attempt dangerous overtaking manoeuvres.”
However, once readers have taken that in, it goes to say that “…an increase in speed means that when accidents do happen, they are likely to be more serious.”
There is also a problem of logic: tail backs are just as likely on some roads behind vehicles limited to 40 mph as behind those limited to 20 mph. And an AVT travelling at 20 mph is most likely to be more easily overtaken than one travelling at 40mph.
If Mr Clarkson’s show was still in the BBC’s television schedules, we might expect him and a Stig or two to see how fast it is safe (or unsafe) to drive these vehicles on some deserted stretch of public road.
The consultation papers can be read here – and anyone is free to respond to them.
