Speed Limiters for Heavy Vehicles

Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs whether the Traffic Police will implement speed limiters for heavy vehicles to reduce excessive speeding of such vehicles.

All goods vehicles and public service vehicles with maximum laden weight exceeding 12 tonnes and 10 tonnes respectively are already required by law to be installed with speed limiters, which restrict their maximum speed to 60 km per hour. Tipper trucks, prime movers, tankers and public service buses are covered under this requirement. Vehicle owners are responsible for installing and maintaining the speed limiter in their vehicles.

Despite this, many heavy vehicles are still involved in speeding violations, which suggests that the speed limiters have either malfunctioned or have been tampered with. In the first six months of 2013, the Traffic Police (TP) detected 1,766 speeding violations by Singapore-registered vehicles, an increase from 517 violations recorded over the same period last year. To address this, we announced in May this year that vehicles which are fitted with speed limiters but are found speeding would be required to undergo additional speed limiter inspection checks. This is on top of the annual vehicular inspection mandated by the Land Transport Authority. TP has informed the industry of the enhanced inspection regime, which will take effect from 1 November 2013.

Under the enhanced regime, vehicles caught speeding for the first and second time will be subjected to six-monthly inspections for a period of two years. Those caught speeding for the third time and beyond will be subjected to three-monthly inspections for two years. The additional checks will ensure that the speed limiters are functioning properly and deter tampering.

Page: 161