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Channon crackdown
Page 6
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• Transport Secretary Paul Channon has announced that he is planning to crack down on Britain's tachograph system and introduce "tough new rules" to reduce the number of speeding and hours offences committed by HGV and PSV operators.
Channon says that he wants to give examiners greater powers to scrutinise tachograph charts and boost the deterrent factor in the rules. Next week he plans to announce a whole range of measures to make motorway driving safer. He is reacting to a series of horrific motorway crashes last year, and he clearly feels that the HGV and PSV vehicles involved could have been subjected to tougher controls.
Neither the Road Haulage Association, nor the Freight Transport Association are willing to comment on the proposed changes until they see the details, but both agreed that the industry's speeding and hours offences problems will not be solved until the DTp allocates more manpower to the problem. The Government has enough regulatory controls in place already, says the FTA — it just does not have enough examiners to cope.
If the DTp introduces electronic tachographs, from which data could be downloaded to computers, rogue offenders could be caught more quickly. This is unlikely at present, however, as the current European Community rules stipulate that a mechanical system must be used.
Modern electronic "black box" tachographs made by manufacturers such as ICS are now being used for light vehicles on the Continent, and many more such systems are being developed for HGVs.
Lucas Kienzle, which supplies every traffic area office with its computerised M-FOS tachograph chart analysis systems, says that more money needs to be spent on policing the tachograph system if it is to become more effective.
The problems were first raised last September when a lorry crashed into a mini-bus and car on the M6, killing eight people. The next month 13 people died when a tanker crashed into a line of stationary cars queuing at roadworks.