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With eight new European countries able to exercise their cabotage rights in the UK from 1 May, the need for tighter enforcement measures on foreign operators and their drivers is being called for as a matter of urgency by the trade associations. Roger King, chief executive of the RHA, says: "The key bugbear for our members is that many foreign drivers come across from Europe with poorly maintained and overloaded vehicles, having greatly exceeded their drivers' hours. Yet despite driving through  several different countries, they have not had any enforcement action taken against them."

He adds: "We would like to see EU countries having the power to ban foreign operators who are serious offenders from their roads in the same way as they can disqualify their own truck operators and drivers." Meanwhile, the FTA is urging VOSA to compile and publish a list of foreign lorry operators who most frequently break regulations on roadworthiness, overloading and drivers' hours. It says UK companies hiring foreign operators should know the extent of their compliance or law breaking.

FTA director of external affairs Geoff Dossetter says: "Sadly, the government announced in the Budget that it will not be going ahead with a vignette scheme to charge foreign lorries to use UK roads, and the legislation to introduce the imposition of roadside fines on foreign vehicles has now been delayed until 2009. "It would be helpful to all UK road users if VOSA published details of the  worst-offending foreign vehicle operators on UK roads, thus giving them an incentive to improve their performance or suffer the commercial consequences."

The problem of foreign lorries was highlighted in an ITV1 programme Killer Lorries on Monday night, which claimed the number of accidents on UK roads involving foreign trucks has risen 50% over the past five years. The programme also claimed that foreign drivers are four times more likely to drive tired than UK drivers and three times more likely to be involved in an accident and break the law.

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