Truck seizure looms
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by Karen Mlles • Impounding trucks running without 0-licences is inching closer this week as provisional figures from the Department of Transport show about 5% of lorries are running illegally.
The figure, an estimate by insiders at the DOT, means that road safety minister Steven Norris is likely to move quickly to introduce impounding.
The result comes from an October survey of 2,000 commercial vehicles carried out by the Vehicle Inspectorate, which pulled vehicles over to check 0licence discs.
An official announcement revealing the percentage of errant operators is not expected in the immediate future. The VI and DOT are continuing to check the statistics before publishing the result, the DOT says.
A DOT working party studying how impounding can be introduced is not expected to report until April.
Brake, the campaign for safer lorries, has welcomed the development, saying the figure ties in with its own estimates. "If this becomes the final verdict from the DOT then we hope the minister will keep to his promise and proceed with impounding as soon as possible," says director Mary Williams.
At the Road Haulage Association annual conference in Madeira in October Norris said he expected to introduce impounding, but first wanted to evaluate the extent of the problem surrounding operators without 0-licences.
In November he suggested that legislation could be introduced in January, but it will now take longer because of the delay in analysing statistics.