Regulation of Oversize Vehicles

If the Traffic Committee proposals are passed this week, articulated lorries up to 16.55m long (nearly 55 foot), 2.6m wide (8 foot 6.5 inches) and weighing 44 tonne will be able to travel on “Approved” roads that the Traffic Committee say are “capable of handling this size of vehicle”, between 9 p.m. and 6.45 a.m.

These roads service industrial sites at Northside, Lowlands, La Hure Mare, Braye Road and Pitronnerie Road, yet the “Approved Route Network” also includes roads that are not essential for these industrial sites, and most people would agree that they are not suitable for this size of vehicle.

This “Approved Route Network” includes Baubigny, Les Effards, the Bouet, the Coutanchez, New Road, the Bridge, Grandes Maisons Road and the Grand Maison end of Les Tracheries. All these roads are narrow, and pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders are endangered by even normal traffic using them. Alternative, wider, routes are available to all the industrial sites listed.

“For example,” said FoE spokesman, “why are Grandes Maisons Road, New Road and Church Road included when the alternative route of Bulwer Avenue is available? Why are Baubigny and Les Effards included when lorries could use Route Militaire and Braye Road? Why is the Bouet still included when the Admiral Park through road is now completed?”

The Traffic Committee are not proposing any means of checking or enforcing these limits, yet they admit that current limits are not being followed, and that outsize vehicles are already using local roads, unregulated.

The Traffic Committee proposals will also allow Island wide circulation of any vehicle, without permit, with a width up to 2.31m (nearly 7 foot 7 inches), and of buses up to 2.49m (8 foot 2 inches) wide.

Friends of the Earth Guernsey fully supports the majority of Islanders who believe that the size of vehicles currently using our roads is too great for local road conditions, and that pedestrian safety will be severely compromised by these proposals.

The group would support the Traffic Committee in publishing a list of roads on which all lorries are excluded, except for access. Members of the public who support this proposal are urged to contact the States Traffic Committee, and States Members.

“We all accept that there is a price to pay for living on a small island. Most of us would prefer to pay that price rather than make our streets so dangerous for pedestrians that we are imprisoned in our houses or cars,” said the FoE spokesman.

Michelle Levrier

Friends of the Earth Guernsey

December 2001