With a view to making it easier for road haulage operators to undertake cabotage operations, this proposal for a directive sought to extend Council Directive 85/3/EEC on the maximum vehicle weights and dimensions authorised in international traffic to national traffic, by means of changes which would as far as possible mean that most of the national standards currently in force, which varied considerably from one Member State to another, could be met. Directive No 85/3/EEC would be coded and recast as a single text. In concrete terms, the proposal eliminated national differences by applying the definitions of the ISO standards to measure vehicle length, width and overall height. It also made it impossible for a Member State to ban the vehicles of non-resident carriers. It prohibited vehicles from exceeding the overall weights and dimensions set out in the directive (some of those in the proposal were greater than those in Directive 85/3/EEC: maximum width of non-refrigerated vehicles up from 2.5 to 2.55 m; total laden weight of all combined vehicles with environmentally friendly suspension up from 40 to 44 tonnes). But exemptions would be possible if no major implications for international competition were anticipated. A transitional period was envisaged, allowing vehicles currently in service but not meeting the proposed standards to remain in service up to 2001.�