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Drivers' tip-offs catch offenders

24th April 1997, Page 6
24th April 1997
Page 6
Page 6, 24th April 1997 — Drivers' tip-offs catch offenders
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

by Lee Kirnber

• Dozens of hauliers breaking driving hours regulations have been prosecuted in the past year as a result of information supplied by drivers, say unions and the Vehicle Inspectorate.

For more than a year the United Road Transport Union has been running a whistle-blower campaign to persuade drivers to inform on law-breaking employers, but this is the first confirmation that prosecutions have resulted.

An URTU spokesman says around half the cases reported are successfully prosecuted. Several tip-offs have uncovered such serious offences that the police and VI are delaying raids on hauliers' premises in order to accumulate more evidence. "There's a lot happening beneath the surface, but not everything leads to action when you would expect it to," he says.

The VI confirms that prosecutions based on tip-offs have been successful, but it cannot produce numbers because records are only kept locally. Most of the tip-offs concern alleged tachograph and hours offences, but details of other alleged offences have also been given to the VI, including drug smuggling and the carriage of illegal immigrants.

The URTU is also keen to encourage drivers to report unscrupulous employers who encourage drivers to claim the dole white working. Generalsecretary David Higginbottom says: "I say to drivers that if they know of an employer who pays peanuts and forces others to claim benefits they should report him to the authorities. This kind of behaviour is helping to destabilise our industry."

VI: Plans to raid hauiiers.

• URTU is campaigning for drivers who offer information on law-breaking employers to be given immunity from prosecution. The union believes that even qualified immunity would encourage more drivers to tell the authorities when laws are being broken.

"Many drivers get fed up with being eforced to break the law, but by then it's too late because if they come forward they will be implicating themselves and their fellow workers," it says.


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