A legal bridge too far?
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Much media hype last week centred on the Government's Deregulation Bill announced in the Queen's Speech. But draft laws governing high vehicles to be introduced early next year call into question any real desire on the government's part to reduce the administrative burden on the haulage industry.
by Nicky Clarke 111"Truckers do it twice a day" said the local newspaper headlines when the Department of Transport publicised plans to reduce the number of bridge bashing incidents in the summer.
Between 700-800 British Rail bridges are struck each year by hauliers at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds, not just in structural damage but in delayed BR services. So amendments to the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, to be laid before Parliament in the New Year, aim to help reduce the number of bashing incidents.
BR says bridge bashing is "largely due to simple ignorance of basic signs". The DOT admits there are black spots around the country and some bridges "get whacked every week". Why an operator should want to take the roof off his vehicle and possibly be charged an unlimited fine for simply ignoring a bridge height sign is hard to imagine.
But unlike BR, the DOT acknowledges a number of factors about the cause of bridge bashing.
"We don't think it's stupidity. A driver wouldn't purposely want to do it." Maybe some bridges are inadequately signposted, drivers are often unfamiliar with roads and they are often assigned different vehicles of varying heights, says a DOT spokesman.
High-sided
Thus the new law ensures that the driver of a high-sided vehicle is in no doubt about the height of his truck and its load.
The draft legislation, expect
ed to take effect from 1 January next year unless otherwise stated, says: • Vehicles over three metres high must carry a sign in the cab, showing the minimum height of the vehicle so that the load does not exceed the height notice.
• All new vehicles—used on or after 1 June 1994—designed with fixed power-operated equipment that can be raised to 3m above the ground must have a device fitted in the cab which gives the driver an audible and visual warning if the equipment is raised. Alternatively, the equipment must be locked and it must not be possible to unlock it from the cab.
Existing vehicles must be retrofitted with such a device from December 1994.
• Tipping bodies first used before 1 June 1994 have a derogation from fitment of a warning device.
• Vehicles over 4.88m high must give two days' notice of their route to the relevant highways authority including details of time and date and overall height of the vehicle.
While the FTA says it is not against these requirements in principle it acknowledges that
for some operators, particularly in the car transporter sector, the two-day requirement of route notice is unnecessarily onerous. The news that Wakefield City Council is planning to charge operators of high-sided vehicles £20 for route clearance is most unwelcome (CM 18-24 Nov). What, asks the FTA, is the point of giving route notice? Consequently it is currently calling on the government for clarification over whether the Metropolitan District Council actually has the power to make the charge.
And operators required to fit the in-cab warning device— estimated to cost around £200—do not need the additional burden of a route clearance fee, for "the fear is that once one does it, they will all do it," says the FTA.