Haulage regulations should be more consistent across Europe, a recent seminar on European road transport law heard. The Joint Seminar on Enforcement of EU Road Transport Legislation, organised by the International Road Transport Union (IRU), was told that more harmonised enforcement was needed.
Michael Nielsen, IRU general delegate to the European Union (EU), says that although the EU has a single legal framework for commercial vehicles, it "is still far from delivering a single enforcement space".
The seminar was also told that there is too much bureacracy in road transport law and that there are severely disproportionate penalties awarded for minor offences.
Theo de Pencier, chief executive of the Freight 
Transport Association,adds: "Our initiatives should be used to shift the burden of enforcement away from the majority of law abiding transport companies towards those who deliberately set out to break the rules, thereby damaging the reputation of the entire industry."