Freight magazine
Theo de Pencier, chief executive, FTA
Foreign operators: a matter of life and death
One in three unroadworthy, one in four out of hours, one in eight overloaded… The idea that some foreign operators are running poorly maintained vehicles, that their drivers may not be adhering to the strict letter of the law on drivers’ hours and that their vehicles may not fall exactly into line with legal gross vehicle weight limits is hardly new. And while we didn’t exactly need ITV’s Killer Lorries to tell us what we already know, we’re glad the matter has been thoroughly highlighted to the general public by the programme.
All the more baffling, then, that the Department for Transport (DfT) has rejected industry’s calls for the creation of a database of foreign operators who visit the UK.
The DfT obviously recognises the need for more checks on such vehicles and their drivers - just look at its recent announcement of an extra £24m to provide more targeted enforcement of foreign trucks. Confusingly, however, the DfT has now dismissed the case for a vignette on the basis that it would only save one life in the next 10 years, along with trivial savings in property costs and wear and tear to the roads.
You don’t need to be much of a mathematician to see that just one unnecessary accident resulting from just one poorly maintained or overloaded vehicle could claim far more lives than the DfT’s model suggests.
Establishing a database of visiting operators would have sent a clear and unequivocal message to those who deliberately flout the rules. It would, quite literally, have told them that we know where they live, how often they come here, how long they stay and how well they respect the rules while they are here.
Combined with a graduated fixed penalty scheme, this would have been a powerful incentive to comply with the rules when operating in the UK. Instead, it seems foreign operators will now continue to slip through the net on a daily basis. And things look set to get worse in the future, as cabotage restrictions are gradually relaxed. More foreign operators staying longer in the UK to carry out more local work means more chance than ever of a poorly maintained vehicle or an over-tired driver causing an accident.
It’s vital that the DfT takes another look at this issue, if the accidents, congestion, loss of life and flagrant flouting of the rules some foreign vehicles are responsible for are ever to be properly addressed. At the very least, the worst offenders should be named and shamed by VOSA, as naming the offenders would let UK transport buyers make more informed choices about who they buy their transport from.
Foreign vehicles have every right to operate in the UK - that’s what the law says. But the law also requires them to be safe. And UK operators, transport buyers and the motoring public at large have every right to expect the law to be just as enthusiastically applied to foreign vehicles as it is to domestic drivers… after all, we’re all on their database, aren’t we?
Robin Meczes, Freight Editor
Whatever you do, keep those wagons rolling
As any driver knows, driving a large goods vehicle is a tricky business. But stopping one is fast becoming even trickier. I refer, of course, to the many issues surrounding parking.
The level of fines being slapped on goods vehicles as they go about their daily business in built-up areas is now getting beyond a joke, with a growing number of operators already facing charges of over £1m a year. And what are they being fined for? Unloading quite lawfully at the kerbside, in far too many instances, because traffic wardens (alright, alright, Civil Enforcement Officers if you must) don’t take the trouble to check whether locked vehicles are illegally parked… or legally unloading.
As if that were not bad enough, parking is also a problem for drivers just looking to comply with the law on rests and breaks as they go about their daily duties. The number of truck parking facilities in the UK remains a serious issue, as does the quality and capacity of those that do exist.
When is all this going to change? Well, in theory at least, the new rules on parking should mean fewer PCNs being issued for vehicles that are loading and unloading, and they should also make it easier for operators to successfully appeal. So make sure, if you’re ticketed inappropriately, that you do just that.
As for the truckstops, your guess is as good as ours. But one thing is clear: without a proper national policy on lorry parking, the UK is doomed to continue suffering from too little parking capacity. And that, surely, can only encourage one of two things: either drivers are going to park up wherever they can or they’re going to push on and on and on – possibly running out of hours – until they find somewhere suitable to take the breaks the law requires.
These days, it seems, actually driving the truck is only half the battle…