News

North Western traffic commissioner Beverley Bell begins her comments on the past year on a downbeat note: "In some respects 2005/06 has not been a happy year for traffic commissioner and staff alike." She's not alone in this view either several of her colleaggues share her less than positive outlook in the long overdue Traffic Comissioners' Reports for 2005/2006.

Operator licenses

Operator licences across all goods vehicle categories have dropped, say the TCs, by  nearly 2%, to 99,889 in the year to March 2006 from 101,857 the previous year. There is scant speculation as to why. Eastern TC Geoffrey Simms offers "rationalisation" as a plausible reason, "in response to the commercial pressures on businesses to spread burdensome overheads over evermore individual assets". He states operator numbers in the Eastern traffic area have dropped by almost 20% "over the past ten years".

North Eastern commissioner Tom Macartney says new applications have dropped by 13% in 2005/06, while Bell notes an 11.4% reduction in the North-west.

The point of interest is the "significant" drop in the number of specified vehicles on a licence, according to the TCs. Simms says in the Eastern area this is of around 4%, but "when expressed nationally amounts to a 7% reduction". Macartney notes a drop of almost 10% in the number of specified vehicles on licences, while Bell reports a 7% fall. Wales and West Midlands TC David Dixon says the  reduction may reflect increasing use of short-term hire and more efficient use of vehicles.

Public inquiries

Public inquiries for goods operators showed a modest increase in 2005/06, to 1,103 from 1,038. But individual reports are more alarming, with South-eastern and Metropolitan TC Heaps reporting a 40% increase in public inquiries to 163 in his traffic area. Almost one third of these (30%) saw a licence revocation, while 16 were disqualified from being involved with a licence. Macartney saw a 12% rise in revocations, while disqualifications grew by 54%. Increasingly, transport managers being called to public inquiry - 107 called to inquiry in 2005/06 in the North-east, soaring from the 56 called in the previous year. In the North-west, 79 transport managers were called to inquiry.

Bell notes the increasing length and complexity of public inquiries, she says while the numbers of PIs as a result of non-compliant goods vehicle operators have dropped in the North-west, by 22% to 179 in 2005/06, this is not decreasing the workload. Scottish TC Joan Aitken says a common theme in drivers' hours cases is the paucity of driver training and a lack of understanding of the details. Simms says breaches of drivers' hours rules "appeared to present at least as great, if not greater threat to road safety as poorly maintained vehicles". He 'names and shames' "prominent hauliers pulled up for drivers' hour and tachograph breaches, including, Dukes Transport, Olivers and Fieldings."

Regional Intelligence Units

For senior and Western TC Philip Brown and Bell, the jury is out on the effectiveness of regional intelligence units (RIUs), set up in for each traffic area by March 2006. Simms however has seen a "marked decrease" in the number of case referrals. Macartney also states: "A lack of funding and a paucity in staff have resulted in a marked reduction in the number of cases referred to the traffic commissioner," - a 54% drop.

Licensing centralisation

Brown, Bell and Macartney report their concerns about the new processes, with Brown noting issues of support staff quality. Others have clearly used the report to air specific grievances, going as far as to question TCs' independence and influence on perhaps the most basic tool to promote road safety granting or refusing licences. Heaps' commentary under the ominous heading: 'the future of traffic commissioners' is nothing short of damning. It begins with the emphatic statement that the future of the TCs is "in doubt".

"It is particularly ironic, and indeed sad that steps are being taken by or on behalf of the government that may diminish, if not destroy, traffic commissioners' ability to properly control the grant of new licences," he says, adding that "not one" TC has approved the proposals. Dixon brands the proposals as akin to those that "would have not been out of place in Alice in Wonderland". He says: "VOSA often talks about how it grants licences whereas it is the traffic commissioners who are required by Parliament to do so," he emphasises. Simms adds: that the TC's influence "has been in decline for a number of years". But Brown looks to 2006/07 to assess the impact upon TCs statutory independence of dealing "remotely with [licence] applications".