P LETTER OF THE WEEK
Page 20
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Stick to the rules and avoid a public inquiry
AS SOMEONE WHO represents operators at public inquiry]. read with great interest the interview with Traffic Commissioner (TC) Sarah Bell (CM 22 April). I fully agree with her comments that "operators have to be diligent.., there are lots of areas to keep up to date with".
In the last three years alone there have been so many changes in legislation, as well as new legislation coming into play.
Driver's hours rules have changed, the Driver CPC has been introduced, Graduated Fixed Penalties have been brought and the emergence of the Operator Compliance Risk Score (OCRS) means that operators have to keep up-to-date on legislation or instead make sure that they get the support they need to keep their operation compliant.
Sometimes, however, things do go wrong and if you are called to a public inquiry then it's more important than ever that you can demonstrate you have taken steps to ensure compliance in the future.
It's not just about putting a solicitor in place to defend your case; you would also need to be able to demonstrate effective control of your operation and demonstrate compliance to the rules.
The TCs will measure how things are on the day of the inquiry, as well as looking into why things slid before.
This balanced decision will be helped by any evidence provided in order to demonstrate improvement of compliance within your organisation, The TC has to be convinced that they can trust operators to move forward with compliance in mind, so it's very important that operators don't put off talking to the experts that enable them to achieve this If you've had a visit from VOSA that has shown gaps in your organisation's compliance or your OCRS is slipping into amber or even red, you simply must take action.
Don't wait until you are called before the TC to put things right.
Belinda Howard
OLMC LTD