CONIMEN'T
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FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS
Ambivalence is a lovely word. It means you can blow hot and cold about something, both at the same time. It describes our feelings towards the latest Report on the Effectiveness as on Enforcement Agency from the Vehicle Inspectorate. It contains some good news: the number of test failure certificates and roadside prohibitions issued because of poor exhaust emissions are down. And some bad news: the VI is still fussing about with the "Smokey Vehicle Hotline" when only half the calls it gets from the Great British Public are ever actioned. But back to more important things—like weighing. During 1997/8 the VI exceeded its target for weighing prohibitions, and it's planning to keep up the pressure on overloaders by using portable weighpads. Unfortunately we're still waiting for the long-overdue revised Code of Practice for enforcement weighing, which won't see the light of day before 1999. This begs the questions, how long does it take to produce one? And how many operators issued with overloading prohibitions last year even knew there was a Code of Practice in existence? But let's not be too harsh. The VI continues to do a good job at a difficult time; this latest report proves it. We're simply mystified by the paragraph at the front which notes that while there's been a significant deterioration in the standards of vehicles presented for test over the past three years, adding: "It's difficult to account for this given there's no major economic squeezes on operator costs which would indicate deterioration in maintenance activities..." No major economic squeezes? Oh really? With ill-considered remarks like that, we have to admit to feeling just a little bit "ambivalent" about the VI ourselves...