Tax dodgers targeted
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• Truck road tax dodgers face a massive police crackdown in a nationwide three-year campaign launched this week.
The campaign starts in Cumbria where the police will work in conjunction with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to set up roadside checks. Dumfries and Galloway will follow with four weeks of checks.
The Department of Transport estimates that vehicle excise evasion amounted to £104m in lost revenue last year; 386,000 tax dodgers were prosecuted or settled out of court between 1990-1991. The DTp does not have separate figures for truck offenders.
Drivers found without a tax disc will have to pay up to five times the annual rate of duty, back-duty and prosecution costs, warns the DTp.
El The European Commission is considering making it compulsory for trucks of 12 tonnes or more to have speed limiters fitted by October 1992. The proposal may specify devices which have an overide facility allowing lorries to accelerate above 80km/h when overtaking, but which cut out after a time, cutting the fuel supply to the engine.