A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK
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Could you ignore a man who's pleading? The Department of Transport can. In the latest annual report of the Licensing Authorities, senior LA Ronnie Ashford says: "Present sanctions [against unlicensed operators] do not work and I plead yet again For the power of confiscation or impounding as a counter to this problem." If the man charged with maintaining operator standards is keen to get to grips with unlicensed operators why doesn't the DOT help him? The trouble with unlicensed operators is that the LAs can't touch them. They're already outside the net of 0-Licensing, having opted to play the game by their own rules. So the only way to deal with them is to take away their means of earning an unlawful crust—their trucks. Impound them. While we're on the subject of tough measures, between April 1993 and March 1994 the seven LAs revoked 730 licences. Not a bad tally, up more than 16% overall on last year. Only two LAs revoked fewer licences than last year, while Western LA Ashford and West Midland and South Wales LA John Mervyn Pugh both raised the number of scalps taken by more than 100%. But the overall number of revocations is still less than 1% of all 0-licences currently in circulation. And clearly many licences were revoked as a result of business Failures rather than disciplinary misdemeanors. So let's not get cocky and read more into those revocation figures than is justified. In the battle against the cowboys we've still got a long way to go. In the past Commercial Motor has chastised the LAs for not getting tough enough. These latest figures at least show some movement in the right direction. But for the sake of the industry don't stop now. Tough nuts require tough sanctions. The most revealing passage in the report came from Eastern LA Compton Boyd commenting on the number of appeals made against his decisions to the Transport Tribunal. Out of eight, five were withdrawn and the Tribunal backed Boyd on the other three, prompting him to note that as the average cost to the Traffic Area of an appeal is around £1,000: "Perhaps those who withdraw them should be subject to an administrative charge." If that threat means potential time wasters think twice before dragging the LAs away from the serious business of revoking miscreant operators' licences and impounding cowboy operators' trucks then we applaud it.