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TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
Page 7
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Like the protagonist in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem who came to be "grateful at last for a little thing", maybe law abiding road hauliers ought to grateful to the Department of Transport for coughing up an extra 2350,000 to help in the battle against bent operators. But let's not get carried away; it's not as if we've won the National Lottery. When the money is finally spent what will have been achieved in terms of enforcement gains? VI chief executive Ron Oliver has no doubts that the extra funding will "provide Further enforcement", but how much further? Is that more of the same—or a return to a time when the enforcement authorities were prepared to spend big bucks to get big results? aufiers with long memories may recall the case involving Preston-based Charter Roadways. In 1986, alter 14 weeks in court, two of its directors, the former general manager and two traffic clerks were jailed For conspiring to make false entries on tachograph charts. Twenty drivers subsequently pleaded guilty to making false entries and were given 12month conditional discharges. The cost of the trial and the investigation by Lancashire Police and local traffic examiners was estimated at over El m. Is the VI prepared to put the entire 2350,000 into a single case? Probably not. Given that it still has to meet the DOT's ridiculous 20% "efficiency gains", if it's got any sense the VI will plough it all back into enforcement checks that yield the highest number of individual prosecutions in a bid to keep its political masters happy. But to lawabiding operators who see cowboys on the road every day, that kind of enforcement cuts no ice at all. If the VI is to have more money for enforcement then it really ought to drop the pence/per prosecution standard it appears to be working to. Silent checks, with operators and drivers observed by examiners working undercover, are virtually unheard of nowadays, presumably because the VI's accountants say they cost too much for too few results. The really galling point is that the DOT says there's no guarantee that any extra money raised by increasing the 0-licence fee will go back into enforcement. If it isn't, then why the hell are operators being asked to cough up more for an 0-Licence?
I905.1995
ANNIVERS11.11
It's high time that our overworked enforcement agencies were given the tools they need to do the job—and finally drive the cowboys off the prairie.