Clogged artery

IN your report (18 February) on the A9 average speed cameras, an important aspect of the scheme was overlooked.

What the cameras, combined with the simultaneous raising of the speed limit of HGVs, have achieved is the effective reduction of this A-road speed limit to 50mph. This makes a significant difference to the average journey time for motorists – approximately 17 per cent – and not the slightly longer impact quoted by the Institute of Advanced Motorists.

In the ongoing pilot scheme, HGVs are currently permitted to travel at 50mph on the A9 and motorists find it impossible to overtake and resume their permitted cruising speed. They reason that overtaking would require a speed of more than 60mph and they know that the Average Speed Cameras will make no allowance for this. That is why the infamous crawling traffic jams on this route are even longer and slower than ever. And the drive even more mind-numbing.

Returning commercial traffic to 40mph would address this point. In any case, speeding up 40-ton trucks while slowing private cars makes no sense.

As things stand though, this motorist, who has regularly driven the A9 for more than 40 years, will simply abandon the Highlands and visit attractions somewhere closer than four tedious hours away.

Kit Fraser

Kilrush, Dunbar

East Lothian