What does the industry think?
Page 21
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Paul Arthurton Owner Paul Arthurton Transport Norfolk Arthurton is one who feels there is no room in the industry for part-time or consultant transport managers.
“There should be no need for them,” he says. “If the guy owning the company cannot get his own CPC, then he should not be running a fleet of trucks.
“You wouldn’t go to a dentist who had borrowed someone else’s qualifications to do the job. So how can you take control of a lorry worth £30,000, pulling a £15,000 trailer, with a £250,000 load and carrying a million pounds’ worth of public liability insurance?
“Maybe if people took the CPC a bit more seriously we would not have so many idiots in the job, and we wouldn’t have people renting out their CPCs for hire. I think that should be outlawed completely.” As for an international register of offenders, that has to be a good thing, he says. “With cabotage being opened up, we should all have to obey the same rules.” Charles Burke Owner-driver/truck dealer TRS Engineering Rhonda Valley The new rules are welcome, says Burke, but don’t go far enough.
“If a transport manager is in charge of vehicles, he or she cannot be in control of them without being there on a day-to-day basis. If a part-time manager has four operations, he cannot be in all four at the same time. I think every centre should have its own dedicated transport manager.
“I can see why it suits some people to have a ‘surrogate’ manager. “But that manager is going to have to take lots of decisions and they cannot all be referred to the CPC holder.” Burke sympathises with smaller firms where the owner may have started at a young age, had little education and does not feel equipped to take the CPC test. In these cases, a wife or daughter may be the official CPC holder.
The real problem, he says, lies with the bigger firms who want to get round the cost of employing a CPC holder at each traffic area centre.
Like other panel members, Burke supports attempts to crack down on drivers who go unpunished for serious offences involving drivers’ hours, tachograph fiddling and overloading.
“But the likelihood of it working properly is minimal,” he warns, “because most other countries probably won’t enforce it.” Charlie Anderson Northern transport manager Clipper Logistics Group Newcastle-under-Lyme The use of part-time or consultant transport managers, says Anderson, reflects the fact that many people in the road transport industry “do not take their responsibilities seriously enough”.
She adds: “Unless you put in a significant amount of time and effort, you are not going to see problems before they arise. A lot of these part-time managers are people who are not necessarily in transport any more. They may still have links with the industry but aren’t really in touch with what’s going on.” Anderson herself covers three sites stretching from Stoke to Scotland, and says four has to be the limit for managers to have any chance of doing the job effectively. The access regulations do not place any limit on how many vehicles a full-time transport manager may take responsibility for – although the TCs have guidelines, as referred to earlier.
Kevin Brooke MD Recruitment Driven Wakefield, Yorks As Brooke says, the issue of part-time transport managers is a matter “close to his heart”: because he is one. He works for a major UK plc – not a haulier – which runs a small fleet of 12 vehicles spread over four different traffic areas.
“I have been doing it for three or four years and they don’t want to employ a full-time transport manager because it’s not worth it.
“I can understand where the EU is coming from and I think the limit of four operating centres and 50 vehicles is just about right.
“If it goes above that then, really, they should be employing a full-time transport manager. But if a firm has two or three vehicles, how can they possibly justify having someone in a full-time post?” As for the offenders’ database, Brooke agrees it’s a sound idea in principle. The big question is whether all member states will make the information fully available and, even if they do is, whether it will be properly used.
“It’s about time VOSA and the police started to come down a lot heavier on foreign drivers that offend and really make them pay.” Martin Barnes Project manager Charles Gee and Co East Hunstpill Somerset “This is one of the few EU regulations where I can honestly say ‘it’s about time’,” is Barnes’s