London clamps down on dangerous trucks

London has started a program that will clamp-down on dangerous trucks in an effort to improve the safety of vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists.

A new Transport for London-funded Commercial Vehicle Unit, run by the City of London Police, has launched a crack-down on dangerous vehicles in the City, stopping 136 vehicles and taking 95 dangerous vehicles off the road during its first month of operation. The unit has been set up as part of a far-reaching effort to further improve road safety and take non-compliant and unsafe commercial vehicles off the roads. Trucks are involved in a disproportionate number of collisions, particularly those involving vulnerable road users, and Transport for London (TfL), and its policing partners, are committed to reducing these incidents through education and enforcement activity.

During the unit’s first month of targeted, intelligence-lead operations, it found drivers of the 95 non-compliant vehicles to be committing a number of offences, including: lack of insurance; driving without the appropriate license; driving with unsafe tires; driving a vehicle with an unsafe load; and not accurately recording driver hours.

The new team will complement the already established Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Commercial Vehicle Unit and the Industrial HGV Task Force, which work across London enforcing against dangerous commercial and construction vehicles and their drivers. It will also work to enforce the capital’s forthcoming Safer Lorry Scheme, which gets underway on September 1. TfL has also part funded a new Freight Compliance Unit, which will work closely with and support London's enforcement and regulatory agencies, including the Office of the Traffic Commissioner. The Unit, which includes staff from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and the MPS, will undertake analysis and work with on-street enforcement teams to ensure there is a coordinated, intelligence-led approach to taking non-compliant truck drivers, vehicles and operators off London’s roads. The unit will also make use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to identify any operators who have had their licenses modified or taken away by the Traffic Commissioner, and ensure the on-street enforcement teams are targeting these non-compliant operators.

“The new Commercial Vehicle Unit team will target those operators and vehicles within the commercial sector who do not comply with the regulations in place that are designed for the safety of others,” explained David Aspinall, City of London Police Inspector. “Working with Transport for London and the DVSA, has already shown the benefits of a true partnership approach to dealing with operators who are prepared to take risks with the safety of others. We look forward to developing this partnership further and working more closely with key stakeholders to encourage operators to become compliant or remove them from the road.”

July 1, 2015