FIRST THE GOOD NEWS
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• Good news from an annual Licensing Authorities report? Surely not! But yes, the latest statistics from the 1989/90 "Annual Reports of the Licensing Authorities" confirms it: overloading prohibitions have dropped. Only by around 1%, but that represents more than 1,400 fewer prohibitions, and that has to be welcome news.
But don't hold your breath waiting for the tabloid press to pick up the story — the Dip press release accompanying the report goes no further than saying that of the 124,000 HGVs weighed in the traffic areas "over 9,000 were prohibited". Thank you Marsham Street.
Certainly the impression that the Dip has been specifically targeting overloading within its enforcement activities seems to have got out into the real world of haulage, and quite right too. But has the emphasis on vehicle weighing been at the expense of other areas? According to the outspoken Metropolitan LA Ronald Ashford: "We should be chary of over-concentrating on weighing. Hours and records prosecutions, as forecast, were up by a third this year. It is an area which needs more attention."
Perhaps the most worrying piece of information to come out of the latest report, however, does not concern hauliers but the LAs themselves. While enforcement efforts have undoubtedly increased, overall co-ordination between the traffic areas and other agencies, notably the Vehicle Inspectorate, seems patchy. Eastern LA Compton Boyd sums up the problem: "... if the Licensing Authority's enforcement role is to be adequately fulfilled, improved co-ordination of relevant intelligence from all enforcement agencies must be given high priority".
If the enforcement agencies cannot act together to hold unfit operators in check, how can the industry be expected to defend itself against tabloid paranoia that sees a cowboy operator round every corner?
You can install all kinds of new technology in Traffic Area Offices; institute all kinds of studies on how the LAs should operate— but at the end of the day enforcement will stand or fall on effectiveness, not efficiency.