ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION
Page 10
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
New owner-drivers should have to meet tougher standards of financial and professional competence, the Transport Select Committee has been told. Lee Kimber reports.
Hauliers and representatives from the industry's trade associations were giving evidence last week to the parliamentary investigation into the effectiveness of truck regulation enforcement. They warned MPs that cut-throat competition tempts hauliers to cut maintenance costs and puts pressure on drivers to break the hours rules.
"It costs £13,000 to run a 38-tonner for the industry's current 90-day payment period," said Road Haulage Association director-general Bryan Colley. He told the committee that new entrants should be required to show that they have that much cash available before being given an 0-licence.
Stobart chairman Eddie Stobart agreed with Colley's estimate and with the principle of higher financial entry requirements which were supported by both the RHA and the Freight Transport Association. The committee is expected to support tougher entry conditions but it continued its efforts to assess the scale of illegal operation. Some committee members were clearly unimpressed by FTA and RHA assertions that only a tiny minority of hauliers break the law.
MPs questioned how much faith the industry puts in Transport Minister Steven Norris' controversial claim that only 1.8% of vehicles are illegal, citing roadside checks that find up to 20% breaking the law.
FTA director-general David Green stressed that the industry needs better enforcement rather than new laws because only a tiny minority of hauliers operate illegally. But committee member Keith Hill replied: "Five out of six hauliers are not members of trade associations."
Transport Development Group training manager Richard Davies told the committee that hauliers can gain £5,000 a year for every truck they run illegally. Committee members were visibly shocked when he told them that the test of professional competence is seen as a "ticky box" exercise whose simplicity has led 800 Dutch drivers to come here to take it.
The committee learned that owner-drivers and small hauliers think consignors should take some responsibility for overloaded trucks and drivers' rights should be reinforced so they can resist pressure to break hours regulations—although owner-driver Len Clementi, trading as CL Haulage, told MPs that he simply refuses illegal work.
Jack Crossfield of the Drivers Action Movement added that drivers' hours should be reduced, their facilities improved and their wage records examined after roadside stops to see if their pay tallies with the hours their tachos show they drove.