• COMMENT SAFETY COSTS
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• So skilfully did all the speakers at last week's Fleet Management Conference address their subjects, and so well did conference chairman John Mather sum up the mood of the conference, that any further attempt at summarising the event would merely gild the lily. One topic, however, seemed to run like a thread through the 23rd FMC and certainly warrants more attention. It is the plight of smaller operators, who are desperately keen to follow the fine example on safety being set by their larger and richer counterparts — but who simply cannot afford to do so.
Probably the best example of this relates to the annual testing of HGVs. It is generally agreed that the network of government-run HGV test stations works well — so well, in fact, that as Peter Bottomley pointed out at FMC last week, some operators have come to use the annual test as "a cheap way of discovering what they need to do".
He is right to condemn this practice — but before translating his condemnation into action to prevent it, he should consider more deeply how much responsibility for aiding the smaller operators lies in the Government's own hands. Bottomley was reminded last week of one positive step the Government could take: it could ease the restraint imposed on local authorities by the Goods and Services Act of 1970, which prevents them from making their extensive vehicle maintenance and testing facilities, such as rolling road brake testers, available commercially, except to other statutory authorities.
The local authorities themselves, probably all 167 of them, would welcome the extra revenue that greater use of such testing equipment could bring them, and there is little doubt that many private operators, who cannot justify the high cost of a rolling road tester would jump at the chance of improving the first-time pass rate of their vehicles at the annual test, provided the cost was not unreasonable.
Furthermore, this appears to be one of those extremely rare subjects on which there would be general agreement between the two main political parties, judging by Bottomley's comments last week and by the thrust of the Labour party's new transport policy, an advance copy of which Commercial Motor has acquired. We can see no reason, therefore, why action cannot be taken either to repeal the offending, outdated Act, or at least to exempt brake testing from its scope.
It would be a shame if Government plans to take action on this front — and Bottomley has hinted that he has this in mind — were shelved again as deck-clearing begins for a general election. Many smaller fleets operators are tired of being dubbed collectively as cowboys. They would like to see more support from a government which claims to understand the needs of the small businessman.