Vito impound trucks following Budget cut
Page 6
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Miles Brignall • The Government has told the Vehicle Inspectorate that it will get a below-inflation increase in next year's Budget, just days after announcing that it intends to allow the VIE to impound illegal trucks.
The effective cut in the amount of money the VI has to spend on enforcement was revealed in a written answer to a House of Commons question. For the financial year 1998/9 the VI will receive an extra £254,000; an increase of just 1.5%. With inflation running at around 3%, the VI would have required an increase of around £500,000 simply to maintain its spending power.
Despite the fall in income, the VI's outgoing chief executive Ron Oliver declared himself happy with the increase and is promising more front-line staff next year. No increase was made last year and the VI only got an extra £146,000 in 1996/7.
However, the Government seems to have heeded calls from the Road Haulage and Freight Transport Associations to give all the money raised from the Operator Licensing system to fund the VI.
Under current Treasury rules all money raised by such schemes must go into the central pot to be reallocated. But now the Government is looking at congestion-charging and giving all the cash raised to fund local public transport directly. This would break the current Treasury restraints; the RHA and FTA want a higher 0-licence fee to be 111111PECTORATE EXECUTIVE ACENCV
• The Government finally announced its consultation of the drink-driving limits, just hours after a drunk Essex truck driver was jailed for six years for killing three people.
The proposal is to cut the legal alcohol limit from 80mg per 100mg of blood to SOmg—the equivalent of about one pint of beer. Random breathtesting will also be considered.
East Tilbury lorry driver Steven Murray was found to be three times over the legal alcohol limit after his truck killed three people. Murray, who pleaded guilty to three counts of dangerous driving, killed Andrew Cole and his two sons in an accident in Chadwell St Mary, Essex. Basildon Crown court heard Murray had been to a party. After sleeping he had wrongly assumed that he would be fit to drive.
passed on to the VI in the same way.
In an another written answer, the Government finally confirmed it is to allow the impounding of unlicensed trucks. Once again, this will be consulted upon although it is unclear if an announcement will be made ahead of the March white paper on integrated transport. No details are currently available.
Baroness Hayman, the minister who would be responsible for such a project, is understood to be very pro-safety and ready to move ahead quickly on the matter.