Member

403: After Clause 144, insert the following new Clause— “Traffic Regulation Dispensation Order(1) The Chief Officer of police may, on receipt of a notification of a proposed movement of a vehicle or trailer carrying a load of exceptional dimensions, grant a Traffic Regulation Dispensation Order (the Order) to an operator engaged in the movement or the escorting of the vehicle or trailer.(2) The Order can permit designated traffic regulations to be disregarded for the purposes of allowing the vehicle or trailer to negotiate the notified route.(3) The Secretary of State may make regulations designating which traffic regulations the Chief Officer of Police can relax.(4) The Chief Officer of Police may relax a traffic regulation for the whole of the movement or only at a specific point in the journey and different relaxations can be made for different traffic regulations.(5) The Order may impose conditions including the number of escort vehicles and attendants required, if any.(6) When considering whether or not to grant an order and the extent of the Order, the Chief Officer of Police may take into consideration the operator’s experience, resources and capability(7) The Chief Officer must link the Order to a specific notification of the movement of a vehicle or trailer carrying a load of exceptional dimensions but the Order can cover several movements under one notification(8) In this section “vehicle or trailer carrying a load of exceptional dimensions” means a vehicle or trailer the use of which is authorised by an order made under section 44(1)(d) of the Road Traffic Act 1988.(9) In this section “operator” means the person who is remunerating the driver of the vehicle carrying the load.”Member's explanatory statement The amendment seeks to allow the police to authorise an abnormal load driver to break normal traffic rules in order the negotiate the chosen route for the load (for example, crossing double white lines and passing a traffic island on the wrong side).