Vehicles: Heavy Goods Vehicles

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

I will write to the noble Lord with more detail on that. This is about vehicles that have not yet been put into service, so the various restrictions are around that. I will send him more detail on that.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, at what point does the Minister think she will be in a position to mandate the use of sensors on HGVs to detect cyclists? It cannot be done immediately, but at some point we should be able to do that. When does she think she will be able to do that?

[Baroness Kramer]

The noble Earl is quite right that that will be an important safety development. At the moment the sensor equipment we have that reliably detects other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists is still in development. Unfortunately, some of the systems treat a tree as if it were a cyclist, and of course, once you get wrong information, the driver begins to ignore it. Therefore we are pursuing these issues very rapidly, and the department will welcome any uptake of effective systems by vehicle owners. However, vehicle registration is at the EU level, and mandatory fitment will need to be agreed with the other member states.