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Irish and Romanians top dangerous driver poll
Page 6
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FIGURES REVEALED by The Times newspaper this week show that some of the most dangerous drivers on the UK's roads are those driving trucks from the Irish Republic.
According to Vasa statistics, they are second only to those from Romania in terms of the percentage of drivers breaking EU drivers hours rules. The figures show that more than 35% of Irish-registered trucks stopped in spot checks between April 2005 and March 2006 had drivers over their hours limits. By contrast 40% of Romanian drivers are over their limits, while UK drivers are closer to 7%.
Irish vehicles also score badly for overloading offences, with more than 25% of trucks found to be overweight the highest in Vosa's list.
They also top the list of trailer defects: 55% of are trailers found to be unroadworthy, compared to UK operators at 29%.
Vosa will be launching a new crackdown on foreign trucks next week and plans to make a five-fold increase in the number of foreign trucks checked. • Some of the worst offenders were trucks from Northern Ireland, with high rates of unroadworthiness and driver offences. North-Western TC Beverley Bell recently told operators at a seminar that the UK fleet was leaps and bounds ahead of that in Northern Ireland. because the latter lacks a Traffic Commissioner.