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Page 8
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FTA urges EC to get tough on foreign drivers ignoring law
by Chris Tindatt THE FREIGHT Transport Association (ETA) is urging the European Commission (EC) to include LGV-specific offences in its proposal, which will facilitate the prosecution of drivers flouting the law outside their member state.
The call from the ETA comes after the European Union's transport chief, Jacques Barrot, unveiled plans to reduce the number of foreign drivers evading prosecution. The proposal involves technical measures and legal instruments being put in place to identify and prosecute EU drivers for offences committed in member states other than that in which their vehicle is registered.
However, the offences that the proposed directive covers are not specific to LG Vs, such as speeding, drink-driving, not wearing a seatbelt and failing to stop at a red light. The EC says it wants to see a system introduced within the EU, which will make it easier to deal with these offences across national borders, because they are often the cause of accidents.
But James Hookham, the ETA policy and communications managing director, says "a lack of political boldness and imagination" is preventing foreign LGV drivers that break the law from being prosecuted.
Hookham says: "The EC's proposals need to be extended to the operators of visiting heavy goods vehicles and cover such matters as vehicle condition and drivers' hours rules.
"When unsafe foreign vehicles and drivers are stopped, there is no easy way to trace the operator or employer and deal with the causes rather than the symptoms."
Hookham says this could be achieved by supplying, in advance, the details of the ownership and origin of all foreign-registered trucks entering the UK — this could be financed through a vignette charge on each vehicle.
The FTA:s head of road freight policy, Joan Williams, adds: "The only way you are going to enforce it properly is to share information. y At the moment, the sharing is ; patchy. This is the start, but it aligns F. with what we've been asking for: the exchange of information."