THE EYES HAN IT, MINISTER
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What were we saying last week a consulting with the industry be doing anything rash? It seems Transport Minister Steven Norris finally got the message over the D application of the proposed new EU eyesight d tive by allowing experienced HGV licence ho who meet current eyesi.ght regs to renew licences. In the words of the minister: "It's i that many of them have a long and perfectly driving record going back many years." Isn't what Commercial Motor has been saying ever ! the DOT embarked on its misguided applicatic the EU eyesight standards? We're all in favoi improving road safety, but not by throwing I sands of perfectly safe, experienced HGV, dr on the scrap heap.
There's clearly a serious side to the news 300 goods vehicle operators have gone ing" from their last known adi:Iresse Yorkshire and the North East. But we're tempts paraphrase Oscar Wilde's supreme matriarch Bracknell: "To lose one haulier may be regardE a misfortune. To lose 300 looks like carelessn Considering how much trouble operators has go through to get an 0-licence how can they E cavalier when it comes to keeping them? The number of individual 0-licence holders in the UK is still falling. In 1988 there were close to 92,000; by 1995 the total was down to fewer than 69,000. When it comes to the chance of surviving in these cut-throat times, the message to wannabe hauliers is in the words scrawled on the envelopes sent out to all those operators and subsequently returned by the Post Office: "Gone Away".