A DIRE shortage of vehicle inspectors puts the public in rural Wales
at risk from “highly illegal” lorry practices, according to the
official in charge of transport licensing.
And the problem
could be even worse where Welsh is widely spoken, thanks to a lack of
Welsh-medium safety education, said Nick Jones, Traffic Commissioner
for Wales and the West Midlands.
He said lorry safety was better in rural England than rural Wales, where there was a dearth of inspectors to enforce rules.
His
comments follow a public inquiry into Bala haulage firm RR Davies a’i
Feibion, where he found rules on drivers’ working hours had been broken
out of ignorance.
Brothers Geraint and Richard Davies had
taken over their father’s haulage business in 1993, but Mr Jones said
the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) had not visited the
company until 2009.
“Here I am dealing with two brothers who
are honest, hardworking individuals who have been let down by the lack
of Vosa presence in rural Wales,” said Mr Jones, whose job is to
oversee licensing of lorry and bus operators.
“This is
exacerbated by my inability to hold operator seminars in the area as a
result of funding difficulties. I cannot justifiably criticise
operators from parts of Mid and North Wales for failing to attend
seminars in South Wales. The lack of operator seminars in this part of
North Wales has contributed to low levels of compliance.”
He
said he did not criticise Vosa for concentrating resources on the M4
and A55 corridors, but continued: “The number of Vosa enforcement staff
to cover a large geographical area with a difficult terrain is such
that there are operators who don’t see Vosa for a substantial period.
“There’s
evidence that there are pockets where the standard of safety is less
than one would find in equivalent parts of England.
“There are
occasions in parts of Wales when there are operators who may have been
doing something highly illegal for over a decade, say, where in fact
there’s been no contact with Vosa. If that happens there must be
concern for road safety and the public.
“The public should expect to have safety standards which are the same wherever you are in Great Britain.”
He
added: “The fact that, to my knowledge, there have never been any
operator seminars in the Welsh language has contributed to the two-tier
system that appears to exist whereby parts of Wales have lower
standards as a result of lower levels of intervention. The fact that
there has been little or no education for those who speak Welsh as a
first language has exacerbated the problems.”
Everyone at the
RR Davies inquiry, except Mr Jones, spoke Welsh as their first
language, but Vosa had conducted all interviews in English because all
documentation was in English. The brothers, and the drivers they
employed, “were at some disadvantage in having interviews conducted in
English”, said Mr Jones.
There was a “real training need” for
seminars for lorry operators but he had to cover two traffic areas,
Wales and the West Midlands, with the standard budget for one traffic
area.
Alex Fiddes, Vosa’s operations director, said: “A programme exists of enforcement activity in the rural areas of Wales.
“The matter of funding is a reality as operator licence fees have reduced in 2009-10 by 15.7% against 2008-09.”
He added that Vosa had a Welsh language scheme, meeting Welsh Language Board guidelines.
Source: WalesOnline
