S cots crackdown G E r s e s e e n x I bu i lder g u i t d f e a r r
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By Jack Semple
More frequent roadside checks are being held over a much wider area than before, and officers are now stopping lorries at night as well as dur ing the day.
The crackdown is by the Strathclyde force's Motherwell division, which covers the A74, M73, M8, A80 trunk road box south-east of Glasgow.
It also takes in the weighbridge at Beattock Summit.
Officers were specially trained last year in weighing lorries and reading tachograph charts.
Chief Inspector Eric Robertson told CM last week that the increase in checks is "the answer to a lot of the criticisms which have been levelled at us". It would bring the division's enforcement into line with traffic police areas of England which already have rigid controls on lorries, he said.
The first late night lorry checks were held in the Wishaw and Coatbridge areas last month and found lorries running untaxed.
Mr Robertson believes they were being run by operators which could well afford to pay vehicle excise duty.
"To the best of our knowledge money has nothing to do with it at all," he said, and added that culprits were more likely to be local hauliers than those doing long distance work.
Several lorries stopped were being driven by people without an hgv licence, and presumably also without insurance. Established 'firms' lorries were being driven by drivers without licences. Operators should take more care to check licences, he said.
Uncalibrated tachographs, and even two lorries without any tachograph, were discovered.
Asked if he was worried about drivers evading checks by using CB radio, he replied wryly: "That's part of the game and always has been."