HAULIERS and politicians have welcomed news that heavy lorries will be allowed to go faster on the A9 in a three-year trial.
Transport Minister Keith Brown announced the limit will increase from 40mph to 50mph when average speed cameras are introduced on a 136-mile stretch of the road from Dunblane to Inverness, possibly by the spring of 2014.
The trial will run alongside a safe driving campaign led by the haulage industry and A9 Safety Group.
The news comes as lorry drivers prepared to protest before Christmas on the road over the introduction of average speed cameras without a higher speed limit for HGVs. They had planned to stick to 40mph in "rolling roadblocks", to show what it will be like with the cameras, before the road is upgraded to dual carriageway.
Conor Mckenna, the Inverness-based organiser of the protest, said: "I am delighted for all concerned and all those who want to improve road safety on the A9 and my fellow HGV drivers who are aware that travelling at 40mph on the A9 was causing tailbacks and frustration.
"I thank the Transport Minister for eventually listening to us all," he added.
Phil Flanders, director of the Road Haulage Association in Scotland, also welcomed the news. He said: "We anticipate a smoother flow of traffic and a substantial reduction to the frustration among car drivers that the low speed limit creates."
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, who heads the Dual the A9 campaign, said: "The deadly reputation of the A9 is built on its confusing layout and accidents being caused by frustrated drivers overtaking slow-moving goods vehicles. Hopefully some of that can be neutralised by this move."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article