With so many trucks entering the UK from the Continent, it is hardly surprising that Vosa feels the need to ensure they meet not only driving standards but also all the other legal requirements. To this end, Vosa - working in partnership with the Highways Agency and other international agencies - has spent more than a year on the South-East Pilot scheme, which has now become the Vehicles on International Journeys Initiative. The idea behind the initiative is to stop illegal or dangerous vehicles before they cause congestion by having an accident or damaging the roads. One Vosa stopper says that on average there is one accident a day in the region involving a foreign truck.
Unsurprisingly, the initiative is something Vosa is keen to talk about. The spokeswoman says: "With so many lorries entering the country at Dover and Ashford then causing accidents on roads in the South-East, it's something we feel has been very valuable." All the vehicles that Vosa checks are stopped because of intelligence 
or because the team is focusing on one particular sector. When CM was with Vosa at its Area 13 base near Junction 9 of the M25 at Leatherhead, Surrey last week, the inspectors were focusing on Hazchem checks. Three Hazchem vehicles were checked and no infringements were found.
However, other vehicles with obvious infringements were not ignored. Vosa stopped one truck with a diesel leak, two vehicles that were overloaded (one by 22% and another by one tonne), and one driver who was on the phone (who was then given a fixed penalty by the police). The spokeswoman says at present the inspectors and stoppers do not have as much intelligence as they would like, but as the initiative continues more data will be collected. This is fed into the central database via handheld computers. "The more intelligence we have, the better we can target those that persistently offend."
Vosa is also hopeful that the Measures for Road Safety Act will come into force soon because it will allow its staff to collect 
on-the-spot fines from foreign drivers. The spokeswoman says that at present foreign drivers can only be given a fixed penalty notice, but "more often than not that's the last we hear of them". "Under the new Act, which we hope will be in place early next year, we'll be able to collect a deposit covering the cost of the fine - which will create a level playing field for British and foreign drivers. We'll also be able to immobilise vehicles if we discover hours or safety offences."
She adds that currently it is unfair that English drivers are being prosecuted while foreign drivers do not even receive a monetary fine or any penalty against their O-licence. "We send all the information to the drivers' country of origin, but they don't necessarily act on it." In comparison, any UK driver found committing an offence will have it logged on his O-licence.
Under the Vehicles on International Journeys Initiative, Vosa examiners at Dover are on site 24/7 checking vehicles as they come into the country - and new technology lets examiners at other Vosa sites know which vehicles have been checked. "This means that either there's no need to stop them, or if we do stop them, we know to check things like driver's hours rather than repeating the checks done at Dover." The site CM visited used to be open two or three days a week, but now operates six days a week and staff told us that there would be enough work to occupy them 24/7.
To help with the increasing workload - as well as the number of vehicles that have to be held on site while loads are redistributed, repairs are carried out and drivers take rest - Vosa has been granted planning permission to extend the site and create a parking area. The spokeswoman says: "This will enable us to park up more 'offence' vehicles, which means we can work here more and use the facilities more effectively. "If we have drivers with weekly rest offences they can be here for up to 24 hours - and sometimes when we have vehicles with mechanical faults it can take up to three days for them to be fixed."
Vosa staff need to communicate with drivers from a wide variety of nationalities, and to help them with this they have access to a translation service. "There's a number we can call and they will find us someone to speak to the drivers. On one occasion I was put through to someone in Australia who spoke Latvian. We couldn't do our job so well without it," she says. Vosa also sends staff on exchange to other enforcement agencies around Europe. "Our aim is to work in partnership and understand each other," the spokeswoman says.
The organisation is in the process of installing weigh-in-motion (WIM) sensors on the M25 in Surrey which will enable the officers to pull in trucks with excessive loads. The system will show every vehicle on the road, even those in lane three, and will measure their speed as well as weight at the same time, cameras will monitor their registration numbers.
Vosa has gone into partnership with Surrey Police to purchase the system. The police have bought the cameras and Vosa has bought the remaining equipment. These developments suggest that Vosa is determined to use all the technology available to make the stoppers' and examiners' lives easier - and crack down on offenders whatever their country of origin.
For 2006/07, Vosa checked 4,335 Hazchem vehicles nationally, issuing 103 prohibitions for overloading, 151 for drivers' hours offences and 443 on specific Hazchem items. In Area 13 ('Southern Central'), the figures were 243 vehicles checked and 19 overloaded there were 18 drivers' hours offences and 13 Hazchem prohibitions.