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ICs to tighten up on drivers
Page 6
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m by Sally Nash
Drivers who break speed limiter and hours rules are set to face stiffer penalties under new rules being drawn up by the Traffic Commissioners.
Senior Traffic Commissioner Michael Betts says a national standard for dealing with speed limiter and tachograph offences is being considered by government in response to a huge increase in the number of serious offences.
DoT officials are considering the TC's draft document Practice Directions for Drivers which, if approved, could lead to much harsher action against drivers' licences. "Sadly, there has been a horrendous number of cases so we need to formalise a national standard for consistency," says Betts.
Research carried out by the BBC suggests that 15% of HGV drivers regularly break the hours rules. This ties in with figures from five police forces showing that more than one in seven of the drivers they stopped over the past month had broken the hours nags. The worst figures were in Essex, where a third of drivers had exceeded their hours.
Specialist transport lawyers believe any crackdown on limiter and hours offenders will include driver licence suspension for months rather than weeks. In 1994 guidelines were published to help TCs deal with endorsable offences; the latest move reflects an increasingly harsh approach to hauliers involved in road fatalities.
Most transport firms are not doing enough to prevent deaths on the road, according to transport lawyer Stephen Kirkbright. He warns that with the courts taking a more punitive view, hauliers involved in fatal accidents are at greater risk of prosecution for corpoi manslaughter. Defending sui case can cost up to K750,I "Most hauliers believe are doing enough: they prola aren't," he adds. "Perfectior is the only answer." Kirkbr points out that Stephen Julie Bowles, the director Roy Bowles Transport, in given suspended sentence! 1999 following a fatal accic because the Old Bailey deci that they had failed to preve driver from working exces hours. And this was des issuing the driver with two v ten warnings after spot tachograph irregularities.
Roy Bowles has pledged support for the RHA I scheme which is designed protect hauliers from crirr prosecution. He says: You c be too vigilant."