GRINDING TO A START
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h to be like Private Eye's "columnist" Glenda Slagg. After naming some poor hapless individual La Slagg inevitably follows up with the line: "Ain'tcha sick of him..." or alternatively: "Don'tcha just love him..." We can't help feeling the same way about impounding. On one hand, faced with all the procrastination from the Department of Transport, we're becoming heartily sick of writing about the subject. But on the other hand, faced with all the procrastination from the DOT, CM remains firmly committed to it. What we can't understand is why a publicity-conscious Transport Minister like Steven Norris should be dragging his heels over the introduction of a piece of legislation which positively reeks of road safety. What makes the DOT's intransigence even more mystifying is that Norris doesn't have to worry about any opposition from the opposition. Labour has already publicly declared that it would back impounding. So what's keeping him from it? The complete cock-up that looks increasingly like the DOT's survey into unlicensed operation (CM 15-21 February) could be one reason. Having gone on the record saying he would introduce impounding if the survey showed the number of vehicles operated by unlicensed operators was more than 2% of the total, Norris is now shilly-shallying over the results.
Meanwhile, no one, least of all those Vehicle Inspectorate staff members who carried out the survey, can explain how the DOT has come up with its conclusions. What's more, the methodology of the survey itself is looking increasingly suspect, not least as the DOT's guestimate for unlicensed operators doesn't include the vehicles of those who were "naively or ignorantly" unaware of the law concerning Operator Licensing. Funny, we always thought that ignorance of the law was no defence for breaking it. What's come out of the preliminary survey is the kind of meaningless figures that prompted Benjamin Disraeli to mutter about : "Lies, damned lies and statistics..." Certainly no one outside the DOT is any the wiser having seen them. In light of the recent Scott Report, conspiracy theorists might even imagine a situation in which the DOT has "seasonally adjustedIsicl the survey figures so as to avoid having to introduce impounding. But to paraphrase that fictional politician Francis Urquhart: "You might well think that...but we couldn't possibly comment upon it."