Why heavy lorries should be capped at 15mph in UK towns

The fact that HGVs in towns can thunder past people on foot separated only by small kerb is objectively crazy. A similar level of risk would not be permitted in most other areas of life.

You can’t just wander onto a building site. Health and safety regulations prevents it. Fences, warning signs, and security keep the public out. Guard rails line scaffolding, machinery is fitted with alarms and sensors. And when giant delivery lorries enter or leave, a banksman is there to safeguard passing pedestrians and guide the vehicle safely into traffic. The principle is clear: the greater the danger, the greater the responsibility on those creating it.

Now step onto a UK high street. Here, the very same HGVs can barrel past children walking to school, separated by nothing more than a painted line or a shallow kerb. Out here, there is no banksman. Instead, people on foot are told to not wear earphones and wear bright clothing, while cyclists are encourage to invest in polystyrene helmets. In other words: safety is your responsibility.

It’s a striking double standard. Inside the fence, danger is controlled at the source. At the gate, pedestrians are protected from lorries. Outside on the pavement, we leave the deadliest risks in place and expect the most vulnerable to work around them.

The principles of Vision Zero - the transport planning principles that design out danger and are working so effectively in cities like Helsinki - are already applied in the UK ...albeit within the perimeter of a building sites. Once you step onto the street, those principles vanish.

The reasons are political, historical, and cultural. Car-centric transport was well established before the modern health and safety regime of the 1970s. Motor traffic was baked into daily life, so we learned to tolerate it. The freight and motoring lobbies have also been powerful enough to resist restrictions that would make roads genuinely safe for everyone (for example the way the automotive industry has fought hard to delay the proper implementation of mandatory speed limiters and black boxes). And, unlike building sites where employers are clearly responsible, streets are considered public space - which too often means no one is properly accountable.

We have become so inured to the risk posed by heavy, fast-moving vehicles that we barely notice the double standards anymore. Until we engineer our streets for lower speeds and safer conditions for people, one obvious step would be to restrict the speed of heavy vehicles in built-up areas to 15mph.

After all, when those same lorries enter or leave a building site, every possible precaution is taken to protect the public.

Why should our streets deserve any less?
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