Last updated on May 7th, 2024 at 11:20 am
I was driving back from a business meeting earlier this week and was amazed by the number of vans that were passing me on several stretches of dual carriage way on my route.
While it’s well known that the fastest vehicles on the roads are white vans I wondered how many of the thought that they were abiding by the speed limits here in the UK so I thought I’d blog about it to raise awareness and possibly save the small business owner that drives a van a possible fine and points on their license.
I would imagine that almost everyone knows the limits for cars and that heavy goods vehicles and vehicles that are towing have lower maximum speeds but are you aware that vans have their own limits as shown in the table below (taken from the direct gov website) ?
| Type of vehicle | Built-up areas | Single carriage-ways | Dual carriage-ways | Motorways |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mph (km/h) | mph (km/h) | mph (km/h) | mph (km/h) | |
| Cars & motorcycles (including car-derived vans up to 2 tonnes maximum laden weight) | 30 (48) | 60 (96) | 70 (112) | 70 (112) |
| Cars towing caravans or trailers (including car-derived vans and motorcycles) | 30 (48) | 50 (80) | 60 (96) | 60 (96) |
| Buses, coaches and minibuses (under 12 metres in overall length) | 30 (48) | 50 (80) | 60 (96) | 70 (112) |
| Goods vehicles (under 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight) | 30 (48) | 50 (80) | 60 (96) | 70 (112) If articulated, or towing a trailer, limit is 60 mph (96 km/h) |
| Goods vehicles (above 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight) | 30 (48) | 40 (64) | 50 (80) | 60 (96) |
These limits apply unless otherwise indicated (for example a 20mph limit near schools and some other roads or a 40mph / 50mph / 60mph limit may be indicated by roadside or overhead signs).
Notice that car-derived vans are treated the same as cars – so that for example
are all treated as car-derived and can drive at the same speed as a car.
You may have spotted that the restriction is car-derived (and weighing under 2 tonnes when loaded) so the typical transit type of van has to stick to a slower speed on both single carriage ways and dual carriage ways, but unless they are towing can drive at 70mph on a motorway. This also applies to vehicles like pick-ups as they are not derived from cars and certainly can weigh more than 2 tonnes when they are loaded (for example a Nissan Navara has a maximum gross weight of 3.2 tonnes).
Hopefully, if you are a small business and use a van you are aware of the lower speed limits, but if you weren’t I hope that this blog post saves you the problems of speeding tickets in the future.
** Bear in mind that since September 2023, the default speed limit for built up areas in Wales is 20mph unless signed otherwise.