TESTING TIMES
Page 5
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• During the past six months operators in some parts of the country have found it hard to get their vehicles booked in for annual tests. The problem has been caused by a drastic shortage of Vehicle Inspectors, and exacerbated by considerable traffic growth in certain regions.
What's worse, some VI district managers have been overzealous in their interpretation of instructions from head office and refused to issue temporary exemption certificates — leaving operators unable to use their vehicles. All of which puts considerable economic pressure on hard-pressed hauliers to avoid the annual test altogether.
To fulfil its role of maintaining safety standards, the Vehicle Inspectorate needs to be responsive to the needs of the industry. That, after all, is why almost a year ago the Government made it into an executive agency.
The VI's chief inspector Ron Oliver clearly believes the inspectorate can now be more responsive. He plans to introduce commonsense remedies such as Saturday testing and a new grading structure to encourage the recruitment of new inspectors.
It is to be hoped that the proposals meet with the agreement of the VI staff unions, since without their agreement the changes will be impossible. It is also to be hoped that the changes will be clearly communicated to everybody within the VI.
Poor communication was clearly to blame for the absurd situation in which operators were refused even their statutary temporary exemption certificates.
Inevitably such situations hurt the smallest operators most, and the industry should not have to bear such problems from an enforcement agency.
The Vehicle Inspectorate is clearly full of good intentions. We must hope it has both the resources and the capacity to carry them out.