Driving Regulations (Hansard, 25 February 1994)

§ Mr. Key

The Vehicle Inspectorate is the Department's vehicle and traffic enforcement agency. In the 12 months ending 31 March 1993, the inspectorate inspected 295,125 heavy goods vehicles and 40,508 public service vehicles, the majority of which were "O" licensed vehicles. The results of inspections by the vehicle inspectorate provide the traffic commissioners with details of traffic and roadworthiness offences by licensed heavy goods and passenger vehicle operators. The performance of operators is monitored by the licensing review board in each traffic area office which can make recommendations for disciplinary action by the traffic commissioner.

In respect of specific aspects of compliance and non-compliance listed in the question, the position is as follows:

(a) operators acting illegally without an operator licence

The Vehicle Inspectorate's traffic examiners carry out roadside and other spot checks on lorries and also visit operators' premises. Intelligence from co-operation with other enforcement organisations including the police is used to target co-ordinated enforcement checks against suspected illegal operations.

(b) parking and routeing restrictions

Enforcement of local authority parking and routeing restrictions for heavy commercial vehicles is primarily an operational matter for the chief officer of police in consultation with local authorities. It is a matter for them to assess the effectiveness of the enforcement effort. Traffic commissioners, as licensing authorities, can impose conditions on the number, type and size of authorised goods vehicles which at any time may be at a licence holder's operating centre for the purposes of maintenance and parking. The licensing authority may also impose conditions on a licence regulating the parking arrangements for authorised vehicles at or in the vicinity of a licence holder's operating centre.

EC regulations require the fitment of tachographs to most heavy goods vehicles over 3½ tonnes and also to certain passenger carrying vehicles. The tachograph records the drivers' activities—driving, rest and periods of other work—as well as vehicle speed and time. The resultant records allows retrospective checking by enforcement authorities. The Vehicle Inspectorate checked 1,656,353 tachograph charts for heavy goods vehicles and 208,278 tachograph charts for public service vehicles in the 12 months ending 31 March 1993.

(d) overloading

One of the declarations that an applicant for a goods vehicle operator's licence must make to the traffic commissioner before a licence is granted is that he or she will make proper arrangements to ensure that vehicles, including trailers, will not be overloaded.

Checks on vehicles weights are carried out by staff of the Vehicle Inspectorate, the police and local authority trading standards departments. For this purpose, the Department of Transport has provided some 69 enforcement weighbridge sites which are used regularly by the enforcement organisations. There are also a number of public and private weighbridges which are available for use by drivers and enforcement officers.

Statistics on heavy goods vehicles weighed by vehicle inspectorate traffic examiners are reported in the annual reports of the licensing authorities, copies of which are 461W available in the House of Commons Library. In the year ending 31 March 1993, 124,004 heavy goods vehicles were weighed by Vehicle Inspectorate traffic examiners.

(e) general conditions placed by the licensing authority on operators

There are no mechanisms in place routinely to monitor the compliance or non-compliance by operators of conditions imposed by traffic commissioners. Failure to comply with conditions attached to a licence can be drawn to the attention of a traffic commissioner by local residents, local authorities, police and other enforcement agencies. This can result in a specific monitoring exercise being initiated, and, if necessary, follow-up action being taken including disciplinary action against the operator for non-compliance with the conditions of the licence.

(f) payment of vehicle excise duty

Estimates of the revenue loss through evasion of vehicle excise duty are derived from periodic roadside surveys of moving vehicles, updated by an ongoing exercise conducted by the Department's statisticians to monitor trends. Details of the most recent survey can be obtained from the transport statistics report "Vehicle Excise Duty evasion in Great Britain in 1989–90", which is available in the House of Commons Library. The next survey is planned for June 1994, with the results due to be published in September.