DON'T JUST TRY 1T-APPLY IT
Page 7
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According to a trade association director, "Cowboy operators are not bothering to fit the equipment because they've seen from day one that the regulations are not being enforced." Any guesses as to what is not being enforced? It's air-temperature monitoring equipment which, since 1 September this year, is a legal requirement on vehicles carrying frozen goods (see page 6). With the public health at stake it's only right that frozen food passing along the cold chain should be monitored to ensure it's been properly handled. But having brought in the law there's a distinct lack of enforcement by environmental health authorities backing it up. Responsible reefer operators can only sit and watch while irresponsible operators fit nothing and get away with it. According to the Institute of Environmental Health Officers, many large retailers won't award contracts to hauliers without the equipment, "so we're having to rely on self-monitoring within the industry". Surely the whole point of making temperature recorders law was to raise the standards of those hauliers who were clearly unwilling to follow the example of professional operators. Without enforcement what's the good of making the regulations mandatory? Equally it seems ridiculous that EHOs don't have the power to check vehicles on the road. What better place to do it? Presumably the authorities think self-regulation will win the day. But it isn't working with speed limiters, so why should it work with tem perature monitoring equipment? If there is one thing our old friend Joe Soap Haulier understands it's the law. He knows that if the chances of being caught are high, and the penalties are heavy then he'd better abide 1' by it. But if he smells any thing less than 100% enforcement he's apt to say: "Go on, nobody's looking— what's the difference?"He's right, of course. Without proper enforcement of the law, what is the difference?