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Problems with inconsistency
Page 66
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Ray Dickson
wonders how a truck can pass voluntary brake and headlight tests one clay and fail them the next at the same test station.
Many years ago when a driver phoned the office to tell us he'd been stopped for a roadside check! would have waited anxiously for a call that all was well.
Nowadays, with six-week safety checks, proactive and preventive maintenance and a first-class workshop team, we conclude that our standards are of the highest order, Our pass rate at the local (Mitcham) test centre so far this year is 35 passes out of 38 vehicles and trailers presented.
The main concern and frustration of my workshop manager is that in two instances of failure the blame can be laid with the inadequacies of the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) rather than our own deficiencies. In both instances vehicles have been failed for braking problems. However,both vehicles were presented for voluntary testing the day before the test and both passed.
My workshop foreman, Steve Jackson, tells me that occasionally it takes half a day to get through to the test station to arrange a voluntary test. Once you arrive there the vehicle undergoes a brake test and we are given the opportunity to adjust the headlights to the beam setters' correct height.
On arrival at test station the following day,the vehicle is almost always in a different lane to the previous day and obtains a completely different test result.The vehicle which passed the brake test the previous day may now fail.
This is a common occurrence. Yet when pressed for an explanation as to why three sets of brake rollers produce different readings, nobody at Mitcham can give a satisfactory explanation. What's more, the headlights adjusted yesterday are now out of alignment and have to be readjusted!
Should an empty articulated trailer be presented for the test, the rollers frequently show a brake bind problem. In the event of a failure for brake bind, our workshop staff have to challenge the staff at the test station and jack up each axle until no bind is shown, whereupon the VOSA tester will overrule the failure shown on the machine.
Occasionally we have undertaken a voluntary brake test immediately before the test, yet having passed the voluntary test we still have to undergo the brake test yet again, wasting everybody's time.
We must at this stage point that the VOSA staff at Mitcham are most helpful hut are hamstrung by bureaucratic and inflexible procedures and directives.
All of this make you wonder how many vehicles are failing the annual MoT test when in reality they should pass. And vice-versa, how many are getting through that shouldn't be on the road?
Costs of downtime
This perhaps costs our industry thousands of pounds in unnecessary retesting and lost downtime and endangers the public to boot.
If you are dissatisfied with your test result, you should discuss the matter with a lane supervisor; providing it's not lunchtime, in which case you will have to wait an hour before you will seen!
I think our industry has come a long way over the past few years; now it's time that VOSA got its house in order and started to alleviate the inconsistencies which so frustrate us hauliers.
Go on,give us a brake! •