Am I the only driver who thought vans could do 70?

[Squaredy]

My one full time employee recently attended a speed awareness course and was duly informed that most vans are only allowed to do 60mph on dual carriageways and motorways and 50 on single carriageways.

 

I doubted this at first but found it is correct.  It is rather important for me as I sometimes ask someone to do some driving for me (in my work Transit) and would feel awful if I failed to inform them of the lower speed limits on the vehicle and they were then fined.  Our work transit has a speed limiter fitted at 70mph, but legally can only do 60.  More surprisingly my daily driver, a 2004 little VW Caddy van, is also only allowed to do 60.  I have driven similar vans for at least 30 years and am shocked that I have been maybe breaking the law all this time.

 

It seems the only type of vans allowed to do car speeds are classed as "Car derived van" on the registration document.  My little Caddy says "Light Commercial" on the reg document.

 

I am aware that long discussions have taken place on this forum regarding pickups and how some of these are classed as Dual Purpose Vehicle and some are classed as Light Commercial, but I could find nothing really about vans.  How many white van drivers bombing along the motorway at 80mph know they are actually going 20mph over the limit?

Edited June 4, 2018 by Squaredy

[eggsarascal]

When I worked for the local water company they restricted all there vans down to 60mph for that reason.

[openspaceman]

3 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

How many white van drivers bombing along the motorway at 80mph know they are actually going 20mph over the limit?

They are not if they are under 7.5 tonnes as the limit is 70 on motorways. It's single carriageways that they are limited to 50 and dual carriageways  limit is 60.

[Squaredy]

3 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

They are not if they are under 7.5 tonnes as the limit is 70 on motorways. It's single carriageways that they are limited to 50 and dual carriageways  limit is 60.

Thank you Openspaceman, in that case I am wrong about motorways, it is just dual carriageways and single carriageways where the limit is less.  That is well worth knowing, if even more illogical!!

[Doobop]

I had this problem and got stopped myself.
The fact is if your vans gross weight is 2t or over you come under the restrictions.
50mph single carriageways
60mph dual carriageways
70mph motorways

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Doobop said:

I had this problem and got stopped myself.
The fact is if your vans gross weight is 2t or over you come under the restrictions.
50mph single carriageways
60mph dual carriageways
70mph motorways

Can you explain the reason you were stopped and the outcome?

[Doobop]

I was doing 60 on single carriageway and got flashed by mobile camera, recieved paperwork saying I was supposed to be doing 50, Recieved fine

[Big J]

50/60/70 for the van (single/dual/motorway) but 50/60/60 if you are towing.

[openspaceman]

25 minutes ago, Doobop said:

I was doing 60 on single carriageway and got flashed by mobile camera, recieved paperwork saying I was supposed to be doing 50, Recieved fine

Thanks for saying, was the actual speed more of less than 60? I want to know to understand why the camera was triggered as presumably it didn't take pictures of cars doing under 60.

 

The thing is this  information is not available under FOI requests and most is anecdotal.

[Doobop]

They were photographing every vehicle