“We will let the rest of the D1 be fitted with signs,” company spokesman Jan Rýdl confirmed to Novinkám. This is the second stage of the placement of signs prohibiting overtaking of trucks. They will be added from Mirošovice at the 21st kilometer to the 90th kilometer near Humpolka and also between Jihlava and Velký Meziříčí. These signs have been in Vysočina and in the section before Brno since November.
According to Rýdl, the road workers decided to wait with the second stage for the completion of winter maintenance. Originally, the head of road workers, Radek Mátl, talked about the deployment as early as February, if the weather permits.
The spokesperson has not yet announced the exact date in April. However, in November, the first stage took place over a single weekend.
He is driving in the left lane with a line of cars behind him. A police drone on the D1 was filming the trucks as they slowly overtook them
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Altogether, there will be around three hundred brands at D1. They also build at each on-ramp and then again at roughly kilometer intervals so drivers can’t make excuses for not seeing them when entering the freeway.
Trucks will only be able to overtake in short sections where there are uphill lanes. Otherwise, they face punishment.
“The tightening of the Road Traffic Act has been in effect since January 1st. The police will be able to impose an on-the-spot penalty for unauthorized overtaking in the amount of 4,500 to 5,500 crowns, a six-point penalty is associated with the offense,” pointed out the Minister of Transport Martin Kupka (ODS).
The point penalty is quite severe. If a truck driver were to be caught twice, he would lose points and lose his driver’s license.
Variable marking would be better
During the snow calamity at the beginning of winter, the signs in the Vysočina did not prevent trucks from being blocked, but otherwise, their extension is good news for car drivers. However, truck drivers themselves do not see it that way.
“We would welcome the expansion of bans to be preceded by analyzes of accident rates and traffic flow, and then an evaluation of whether the bans contributed to improvements. We have never seen anything like this before,” Martin Felix, spokesman for the Česmad Bohemia Association of Automobile Carriers, objected to Novinkám.
“To the west of us, the overtaking ban is often handled by variable signs and adapts to the current situation. We would like to see such an approach in our country as well, because it is unnecessary to limit driving to one lane on an empty highway,” added Felix.
Traffic expert Roman Budský from the Vize 0 platform would also advocate for variable markings, as they have in Germany or Austria. “When the traffic gets denser or the weather worsens, there will be variable markings prohibiting overtaking or a complete ban on trucks driving in the left lane.” he told the News.
However, such signs are expected only for future sections of highways with a speed limit of 150 kilometers per hour. Such telematics is expensive compared to metal signs.
According to Felix from Česmad, it is unfortunate to solve everything only with restrictions. “The reconstruction of the D1 and its expansion to three lanes was a missed opportunity when it became clear that the capacity would not be enough,” he added. According to the ministry, the D35 highway from Bohemia to Moravia should ease traffic in the future, but we will have to wait a few more years for that. The planned completion date is 2029.
The police were catching trucks that were blocking traffic on the highway by overtaking
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