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Speeding towards a level playing field?
Page 12
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The issue of speeding foreign trucks has sparked a strong response from CM readers concerned about the perceived Lack of action by police and fears over road safety. Jennifer Ball asks how effective new plans for on-the-spot fines can possibly be.
I Drivers of speeding trucks.ihether foreign or LIK-regisff-ed—can look forward to a lampdown under new proposIs. And discussions with the iepartment for Transport may lean that foreign operators ;sued with penalties can be ursued once they have eturned to their own countries.
Few issues have prompted so luch response as CM's covergo on on speeding foreign trucks CM 18-24 July and 25-31 July). 1any readers have come out in upport for Brynle Williamsrmer, former fuel protest iader and prospective Tory canidate for the Welsh Assembly— to is calling for the government ) introduce on-the-spot fines for peeding foreign trucks.
A number of drivers conIcted CM to say that they are ngered at the way that they face nes abroad, but UK enforce)ent agencies turn a blind eye to reign drivers because they lack ?sources and are only able to sue a prohibition.
The drivers claim the extra aperwork involved eters police from stopping foreign trucks, so they concentrate on prosecuting UK drivers where they know they can get a result. They feel that this is yet another advantage that foreign drivers have over them.
Williams claims: "Foreign trucks come over here with a belly full of diesel, drive as fast as they can without getting stopped and take our work. Our own hauliers are left to pay for the cost of highways and police and are treated like secondrate citizens."
Gavin McArdle, owner of Somerset-based GL McArdle Transport, agrees: "Most foreign trucks do break the law and run to the maximum. But as long as the police haven't got a roadside court set up they are unable to do anything."
However, the claims are disputed by the Association of Chief Police Officers. "Any driver caught speeding, whatever his vehicle's or his country of origin, is liable to be stopped and prosecuted," says a spokesman. 'We are looking at ways of clamping down on speeding trucks and car
rying out joint operations with a number of other European forces to tighten up on both UK drivers in foreign countries and foreign drivers in the UK. We hope that this will get the message across," he says.
"One major problem we are following up with the Department for Transport is enforcing penalties when the driver goes back into his/her own country."
But, from some UK hauliers' point of view there are problems with introducing on-thespot fines; they would apply to all road-users, meaning speeding UK hauliers would face onthe-spot fines too.
The Freight Transport Association's head of external affairs, Geoff Dossetter, says: We understand the reasons for endeavouring to introduce onthe-spot fines for foreign operators as it could yield payment of fines, which at the moment is hard to enforce. But the assumption is that fines would also have to apply to domestic operations, which may not be so acceptable to the industry.
"Speeding is a topic of great concern, with much debate, especially on single carriageways where HGVs are limited to 40mph, which is without doubt an artificially low speed that causes frustration among both HGVs and car drivers."
He adds: "Evidence from the FTA's Well Driven? scheme shows that half the complaints are about HGV drivers going too fast, while the other half are about trucks going too slowly, which ironically apply to the people keeping to the speed limit. Lorries continue to be the safest vehicles on the road despite inappropriate speed being a potential danger."
A spokeswoman for the Road Haulage Association agrees that on-the-spot fines would be welcome. She says it would mean enforcement taken against foreign drivers in the UK would be level with that taken against UK haulers abroad.
• For more on speed abuses and limits, see letters, page 20. Better still, send us your views!