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Driving Change – watch the sessions
Managing Road Risk – in case you missed it.
| Last month we saw many of you at the National Highways Driving for Better Business event – Managing Road Risk: What, Why and How – which took place at the National Space Centre. 100% of delegates scored the event as ‘excellent’ (85%) or ‘good’ (15%) and 96% would attend again. We premiered the final part of our ‘Vehicles Don’t Crash, People Do’ trilogy of videos, and we have now released the brilliant speaker presentations and interviews from the day itself at Driving Change – the 2025 sessions. To access the sessions, and download the presentations, please visit: drivingforbetterbusiness.com/driving-change/videos-2025/ |
| National Highways – update on the Severn Bridge Scheduled maintenance and what it means for fleet operators. |
| As the highway authority for the Strategic Road Network, National Highways are also commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) to manage and operate the Severn Bridges including the M48 Severn Bridge. From 27 May 2025 National Highways will be introducing a 7.5 tonne weight limit on the M48 Severn Bridge. This weight restriction is needed after routine survey work has found that corrosion has caused the main cable on the bridge to deteriorate. Restricting heavier vehicles will enable us to keep the M48 Severn Bridge open to the majority of traffic. As a result of this weight restriction, goods vehicles weighing in excess of 7.5 tonnes will need to use the M4 Prince of Wales Bridge as a diversion route. Please note that Public Service Vehicles, blue lights vehicles, recovery services and gritters are exempt from this restriction, and further details on this can be found on the National Highways website. Affected business will be receiving postcards over the coming days to ensure they have received this messaging. The M48 Severn Bridge is nearly 60 years old, and its location exposes it to extreme weather conditions all year round. The bridge was not designed and built for today’s levels or weight of traffic. HGVs are now much heavier than the 1960s and more of these vehicles now use the M48 Severn Bridge daily. “Safety is National Highways’ number one priority, and, as with all our structures, we will continue to monitor the M48 Severn Bridge. We are satisfied that the bridge is safe for traffic to use – there are multiple structural health monitoring systems active on the bridge and they are currently indicating that the bridge is operational and safe to use. However, continued use of the bridge by heavier vehicles could ultimately see it closed to all traffic. We are acting now to prevent this happening and looking at long term mitigations to ensure that the bridge can remain open to traffic for many years to come.” This is a significant change that will particularly impact customers such as freight firms and the businesses they serve. The Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) for the M48 Severn Bridge was 31,936 vehicles in 2024 and vehicles over 7.5t accounted for approximately 10% of traffic over the bridge. Taken together with traffic modelling, the belief is that most vehicles over 7.5t that use the M48 Severn Bridge have a destination within 50 kilometres of the bridge. Given this local impact there is a plan in place to work with the haulage sector and regional stakeholders to help them adapt their operations. Should you have any questions, please get in touch: [email protected] |
| We’re at The Commercial Vehicle Show next week which takes place from 29th April to 1st May 2025. We will be there with our latest road safety initiatives including our ‘Guide to Incident Investigation’ and the launch of our Car Driver Toolkit. Timothy Bradshaw from Sandstone Communications will be with us, showcasing trauma first aid techniques in real life situations – you won’t have seen a first aid demonstration like it. He will be with us at 11am every day, and again at 2.30pm on the first 2 days. We will also have Live Demos from our Traffic Officers at 10am every day, and again at 1.30pm on days 1 & 2. See you there – we’re on Stand 5B20 in Hall 5 |