'Lethal' recovery
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• Cost cutting by some of the UK's vehicle recovery operators is down grading the industry and could be lethal, says Doug Maltby, chairman of the Basingstoke firm Easylift Systems.
"Companies are failing to invest in quality equipment that is man enough to carry out the full range of breakdown operations demanded by drivers in 1988," he said at the Association of Vehicle Recovery Operators exhibition in Warwick.
"Many major companies are buying lightweight equipment to reduce capital expenditure," he said. "This presents safety problems because there is a temptation for recovery crews to tackle work for which the equipment is not suited, with the very real risk that it could fail under excessive pressure during operation."
One of the problems is that companies do not Want to bear the high costs of putting drivers through the heavy goods vehicle training necessary to drive larger recovery vehicles, he said. Neither did they want to bear the cost of top-quality equipment or the units themselves.
The savings could well prove a false economy, said Maltby. A serious equipment failure could not only prove highly expensive but could lead to death or injury on the part of the operator.
The problem did not occur in most parts of Europe, he said, where recovery operators insisted on the right standards of equipment from the outset.