London plans to ban unsafe HGVs by 2020 to make roads safer

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced proposals to make London’s roads safer by removing the most dangerous lorries from the capital’s roads by 2020.

TfL’s Direct Vision Standard, a world first, will use a ‘star rating’ from 0 to 5 stars to rate construction and other heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) based on the level of vision the driver has directly from the cab.

Under the plans to be consulted on shortly, the most dangerous ‘off-road’ HGVs will be banned from London’s streets entirely by January 2020.

These HGVs would be ‘zero star rated’ by the Direct Vision Standard. Only HGVs meeting 3 stars or above – ‘good rating’ in the new Direct Vision Standard - would be allowed on London’s roads by 2024.

Recent data shows that HGVs were involved in 22.5 per cent of pedestrian fatalities and 58 per cent of cyclist fatalities on London’s roads in 2014 and 2015, despite only making four per cent of the miles driven in the Capital. The restriction of drivers’ field of direct vision by vehicle design has been proven to have contributed to many of these fatalities.

Promoting safer lorries through a new Direct Vision Standard was outlined in Sadiq’s manifesto. There are around 35,000 of the zero star-rated ‘off-road’ HGVs currently operating on London’s roads, and they were involved in around 70 per cent of cyclist fatalities involving HGVs in the last three years. It is this type of vehicles the Mayor has pledged to remove from London’s roads by 2020.