FORCING STANDARDS
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• It's too easy to become a road haulier— true or false? Ask any gathering of longestablished operators this question and they're bound to reply "True!" But is it?
More importantly if entry standards were made tougher would quality within the industry automatically improve? The answer to the last conundrum is by no means yes.
It's all very well asking new recruits to jump through ever-tightening hoops, as the Belgian Government is suggesting to the EC (see News Headlines), but what really counts is what they get up to once they've got a licence.
Like the learner driver who never crosses his, or her hands on the steering wheel, we all start off with the best intentions. Then
we get the licence and who's there to check up on us?Likewise road haulage. Having satisfied the requirement for proper
Operator licensing by maintenance, suitable depot, sufficient financial backing, a quality, rather than cpc and good repute quantity was always (whatever that means) Joe the way to go. Soap haulier sets off with all the best intentions. And then— well we all know the rest.
If entry standards instilled a proper regard for the law in every operator CM would have a hard time trying to fill two pages of legal stories every week—but we don't.
The key to professional standards always has been, and always will be tough enforcement. If you are frightened of what will happen if you break a law you tend to obey it. And if that means hauliers going round scared of breaking the rules so much the better. Right now too many think they can do without rules altogether. And until they're caught they'll keep thinking it—and keep breaking them.
Putting newcomers on a two-year probation, as the Department of Transport has suggested, would be one way of ensuring that they kept their standards up, if only for two years. But why stop at newcomers? There are plenty of established hauliers who could do with being put on probation.
Mercifully the DOT looks like dropping moves towards continuous licensing— and a good job too. Continuous licensing would only work with continuous monitoring and above all else continuous enforcement and there simply isn't enough money, or vehicle examiners to do it.
Eavesdrop on a gathering of crusty old operators and you'll still hear plaintive cries for the return of "the good old days" of A and B licences.
The truth is the old A and B licences did nothing to encourage professional standards or create a world where contracts were won on service, rather than who was there first. Operator licensing by quality, rather than quantity was always the way to go.
If the Belgians get their way and force through the tougher entry requirements then almost by default we'll end up with higher industry standards. But they'll only stay high if there is a will, and above all else a way, of keeping them there.