Setting the rules on impounding trucks
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by Karen Miles • The Labour Government has taken the first steps towards the impounding of trucks belonging to cowboy operators.
Discussions on impounding between the Home Office and the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions have been hailed as an important step by the pro-impounding lobby.
The inter-departmental talks are believed to centre on which enforcement agencies should be given the power to confiscate law-breaking vehicles.
The Home Office is believed to favour restricting this power to the police, excluding Vehicle Inspectorate staff.
But its willingness to discuss the issue is seen as an improvement on the last Government's record. Previously, the Home Office and police had highlighted the extra workload it would bring to police as well as the problems associated with storing impounded trucks.
Labour pledged in opposition that if elected it would introduce tougher enforcement for truck operators. Customs and Excise and the Environment Agency can already impound trucks which break their rules, but the planned changes would go much further.
Before impounding becomes law the Government will have to decide which kind of offences should warrant seizure—repeat offenders, or only the trucks of companies running without Operators' Licences, for example—and whether the seizure should be temporary or permanent. The practical issues of how and where impounded trucks should be stored will also have to be settled.
Road Haulage Association director-general Steve Norris, who was the minister overseeing impounding discussions in the last Government, welcomes the inter-departmental discussions: "This represents the next stage and as such is rather a hopeful sign," he says. "The biggest enemy to hauliers isn't the Chancellor of the Exchequer but cowboy operators. We wholeheartedly support impounding as a way of ridding the industry of them."
CI A Sussex-based owner-driver has attacked his local enforcement authorities over their "excessively strong" procedures which are costing him money. Howard Charman claims he was pulled over nine times last year and has been checked three times this year.