Suffering in silence A MONTH AGO, CM editor Will Shiers
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asked readers to name and shame unreasonable behaviour by Vosa officers (CM 4 April). He noted operators' understandable reticence to come forward on the record: do you really want to sour a sound relationship with Vosa or make a bad relationship even worse by airing that dirty laundry publicly?
Well, a good number of operators shared their thoughts and experiences as part of April's Trucking Britain survey.
First we asked: "Have you ever felt like you've been victimised by a Vosa officer?" More than a third (35%) answered yes.
We then asked: "Have you recently been the victim of what you feel to be an unfairly issued PG9 prohibition notice?" Nearly a third said they had. We then dug a little deeper...
One small haulier told us: "Although our record is not perfect, the traffic light system is unfair and it's difficult for small haulage companies to improve their score. We have many instances of what I regard as poor treatment: there is no fairness in the way prohibitions are issued."
Indicative of many responses was this curt answer: "We unfair prohibition for a worrying challenged the notice and had reason: "Like most hauliers, I feel it set aside after an eight-hour that to challenge a Vosa decision argument." could provoke increased checking; Here's another that may chime each check loses an hour of prowith other operators:"We received ductivity on the day, plus the trip to a delayed prohibition, and when a station for PG9 lifting. In total, we challenged it in writing, I never [there are] about four hours of received a reply from Vosa." downtime mostly for a repair."
One operator said he failed to Another added: "We got a GV9 challenge what he thought was an for loose wheel nuts; we called out a fitter with a torque wrench and not one of the nuts moved. We didn't challenge: if challenged, [the Vosa officer] would have gone looking for something else."
There also seems to be a recurring scenario: a Vosa officer states that an item isn't working, and yet when checked by another party, that item is working.
One operator managed to suc cessfully challenge Vosa, with the matter going full circle: "A prohibition was issued, which was later changed to an S-marked prohibition, which was later accepted as not S-marked and something that would not have been picked up on a walk-around vehicle check."
How much time and productivity did this operator lose as a result of all this? Nevertheless, the overall feeling is one of fear: don't challenge a Vosa officer because they'll check up on you more regularly.
Whether this fear is justified in reality is immaterial: it is simply how operators feel.
Vosa told CM a Vosa survey from 2011 indicated that 91% of operators were satisfied with the levels of Vosa enforcement.
Regarding driver engagement, Vosa advised that drivers fully engage with examiners at the time of the check. "Your driver is the first point of contact with Vosa examiners; they need to talk to the examiners and ask to be shown any defect that is going to attract a prohibition notice. If you get a prohibition that you do not agree with, raise the issue immediately — we can only properly investigate if the vehicle is in the same condition as at the time of the check."
And finally:"Talk to Vosa — don't be afraid of challenging decisions — this is how we can make things better together," added Vosa.