News

So what's your definition of a level playing field? It's a phrase that's bandied about all the time in this industry, so much so that perhaps we've lost sight of its meaning. Mind you, if we've got ourselves confused as to what it means, then clearly the government is utterly baffled by the concept. The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) - part of the Department for Transport - wants to introduce £30 fines for drivers if they are unable to produce their Driver CPC card when the new driver training  directive is introduced in 2009.

The same £30 fine will also apply to foreign drivers if they are found without the card in roadside checks. So far, so very level, the difficulty comes when you consider the potential fines if a driver is found to have avoided his 35-hours-over-five-years block of training. A UK driver could face paying a pretty substantial £1,000 fine on the other hand, his foreign counterpart will pay just £30, and that would be for a failure to produce the driver card, not because of the absence of training. There seems to be no mechanism for the UK's enforcement authorities to check-up on a foreign driver.

That particular playing field doesn't sound very level to us, more Alpine in its gradient. It's not a wild leap of logic to suggest that there are numerous foreign firms out there who will chance their arm and send unqualified drivers on UK trips, safe in the knowledge that they will receive little more than a slap on the wrist.  After all, the implementation  of the Working Time Directive hasn't exactly been universal across the 22 EU states, so why should this piece of legislation be any different?

There is much to recommend in the idea of truck driving becoming more of a profession, but on present evidence, this is not the way to achieve that switch.