Nine out of trucks are illegal
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• The industry's safety reputation has taken another knock after a year-long campaign by West Mercia police found 90% of trucks stopped were illegal. The results, collated after police pulled over 688 vehicles, mean extra money will be pumped into the force's truck law enforcement team.
During the 12-month campaign only 77 trucks were found to be fully legal. Officers found that 90% of the trucks stopped had broken the law at least once, with a hard-core of around 25% com
mitting "serious" offences. Most of the problems were mechanical, with poor brakes and tyres heading the list.
Spot fines, prohibitions and court action was taken against nearly 30% of offenders; others were told to fix mechanical problems.
Driver documents and tachographs were checked by the police 459 times in the year.
The checks were carried out by two officers in Shropshire and Hereford and Worcester.
Superintendent Martin Ellis, head of traffic for the West Mercia force, says: "It is clear from the results that the work needs to continue...we accept that there are responsible lorry drivers and operators both locally and nationally, but the results of these checks speak for themselves."