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UK trainers penalised
Page 8
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for buying new trucks
• by Sally Nash Training providers are accusing the Driving Standards Agency of a "monumental foul-up" over its plans to introduce a new ELI Directive which will involve changes to driving tests.
Their main concern is that the DSA revealed for the first time last month that it would be penalising providers which have bought new vehicles—effectively encouraging companies to use older, less environmentally friendly trucks.
The DSA's publication Implementing European Changes to the Driving Test outlines a timetable which states that if companies bought a vehicle after 11 October 2000 it can only be used for driver training until 30 September 2003. But those training frms that purchased vehicles before 11 October can use them until 1 July 2007, and in some cases until 2010.
Ed Pargeter, director of Leatherhead-based EP Training Services, is outraged by the timescale in the plan.
"Our company purchased a new Mercedes Atego in June 2002," he explains. "The vehicle will be redundant in 2003, where a company running a 10-year-old ex-bread van can carry on probably until 2010."
Pargeter is also questioning the DSA's assertion that in the main companies tend to use second-hand vehicles for training purposes.
He is writing to all the training organisations along with the Road Haulage Association and Freight Transport Association in an attempt to air the industry's grievances.
Neil Wallis, director of Wails School of Transport, is not impressed by the DSA's moves. "It did not tell anybody about the new rules," he says.
A spokeswoman for the DSA says that at the time decisions were being made about European changes to the driving test, Britain argued for much longer implementation periods.
She adds that the DSA held local focus group meetings with the industry, including trainers and hauliers, where the Directive was discussed.
"It was at such meetings that the view was given of industry using second-hand vehicles," she says. "Vehicles in use prior to the Directive coming into force in October 2000 must be of a legal standard: they must have a valid MoT certificate to confirm this."