VI switches target to prosecutions
Page 6
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The Vehicle Inspectorate will launch a new enforcement system on Monday (1 April) when it switches its performance targets from numbers of trucks checked to numbers of prosecutions and prohibitions.
The change is part of the latest VI business plan. But VI chief executive Ron Oliver says that within a few years the VI wants to move away from tar gets of any sort, in favour of surveys to calculate the overall level of law-breaking.
The move follows years of criticism from many of the VI's own traffic examiners, complaints from the Transport Commissioners and lobbying from the haulage safety campaign Brake.
All agree that numerical targets do not necessarily mean better enforcement. Oliver admits that the change was partly inspired by the publicity following more than 7,000 truck weighings by VI staff in October 1994 at British Sugar's East Anglian plants—where the sugar manufacturer had its own enforcement regime in place— with the VI using the figures to meet national weighing targets (CM 19-25 January 1995).