Surely the "van" speed limits should be applied to these behemoth SUVs?
And the M6 Toll should charge then the van rate?
After all, they are bigger and heavier than some vans.
When I am plodding along gently in Big Van (my sleep-over van, registered as a motorhome, slept in when working away on client sites) it does shock me rather to see the speed those things go at. Move Over White Van Man- you have competition!
GC
I would take this a stage further and categorise any vehicle over a certain size / emissions / weight as being of 'Special Type' and have them fitted with Speed Limiters, may be also Tachographs and require drivers to be better trained and face harsher punishments if they flout the law. I'm sure there are very valid reasons for some of these vehicles, but if they couldn't go above 40mph (a speed that I would also limit HGVs to) then they would only be used by those who really needed them.
Society needs to be moving away from bigger and bigger vehicles for personal transport and I don't see this happening unless these vehicles become onerous to own and use. We need to stop seeing giant 4x4s, high performance limo's and sports cars as desirable and start viewing them as the environmental catastrophe that they are. I don't even see electric versions of range rovers etc being acceptable either, their size and weight will still consume more energy that still has to be generated somewhere.
And if we did start to rid our roads of these oversized monstrosities may be more people would feel comfortable cycling, we need a completely different mind set to personal transport.