Scots face cuts in roadside checks
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by David Harris I Roadside spot checks on trucks in Scotland will be cut even further this year, despite the fears of Scottish Licensing Authority Michael Betts that the level of enforcement is already unacceptably low.
The latest cutbacks are confirmed by roads minister Steven Norris in a letter to shadow Transport Secretary Joan Walley: last year's figure of 13,278 checks will fall to 10,435.
This cut comes just a month after Betts highlighted last year's fall in spot checks in his annual report: "Spot checks, which I believe to be the most accurate assessment of a vehicle's condition at any time, fell from 19,141 in 1993/94 to 13,278 this year, a reduction of 30.6%...such a reduction in the number of vehicles examined is very worrying in terms not only of vehicle standards but also because of the increased opportunity for the unsafe operator to escape detection."
Norris says that the latest fall in Scottish spot checks is due to a change in the way the Vehicle Inspectorate decides where it will target its checks. Previously they were set LA Betts: reduction worries, according to pre ceding inspection results, so that the worse a traffic area's record the more checks it would have. Now they are simply calculated on the number of vehicles in each region.
"Unfortunately, this has meant that Scottish areas will have rather fewer checks this year," says Norris.
The Vehicle Inspectorate declines to comment on the cuts in checks in Scotland but confirms that from this year the number of checks will be related simply to the number of vehicles in any licensing area.