Illegal behaviour rampant among HGV drivers.

[Brandane]

Question raised within the industry itself. How widespread is the use of GPS Jammers by drivers?

No idea, but where can I buy one? It would mean being able to stop for a p*** without the phone ringing and some "manager" asking why you had stopped for 2 minutes! Is it illegal to block a GPS in any case?

 

[classic33]

No idea, but where can I buy one? It would mean being able to stop for a p*** without the phone ringing and some "manager" asking why you had stopped for 2 minutes! Is it illegal to block a GPS in any case?

Try ebay. Whilst not illegal to own. one, it is illegal to turn it on. A very grey area, legalwise.

 

[theclaud]

That's true, but it skews the figures and presents statistics which are ammunition to the likes of the OP...

By "the likes of the OP", you mean those who object to lorries and their drivers killing people?

 

[Dave 123]

For killing people?

The people who have killed people are responsible.
Those with a clean sheet are responsible to keep it that way.

 

[subaqua]

[QUOTE 2859212, member: 30090"]I'd want to drill further down into the stats of how the law has been broken.[/quote]
so would I . a cracked rear light is a defect and makes the vehicle illegal. doesn't make it unsafe to drive though. a 3mm tear at the end of a wiper is a defect and would be counted . yet this may well not have any detrimental effect on clearing the screen.

that said, any vehicle with a defect that impinges upon safety needs to be off the road ad the driver and Operator prosecuted properly

 

[Brandane]

By "the likes of the OP", you mean those who object to lorries and their drivers killing people?

No, I think all reasonably minded people will object to ANY deaths on our roads, whatever or whoever the cause. What the OP continues to insist on doing though, is target the whole haulage industry with statistics which don't paint a true picture. Beano has covered the reasons for this.

 

[Brandane]

so would I . a cracked rear light is a defect and makes the vehicle illegal. doesn't make it unsafe to drive though. a 3mm tear at the end of a wiper is a defect and would be counted . yet this may well not have any detrimental effect on clearing the screen.

that said, any vehicle with a defect that impinges upon safety needs to be off the road ad the driver and Operator prosecuted properly

True, there are defects and there are DEFECTS.
I would be interested to know if @glenn forger complies with every rule and regulation while out on his bike. Does he have reflectors on his pedals between sunset and sunrise, for example? How many cyclists comply with this? Not me, for starters.
I can see the headline in the Daily Mail... "Illegal behaviour rampant among cyclists".

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

True, there are defects and there are DEFECTS.
I would be interested to know if @glenn forger complies with every rule and regulation while out on his bike. Does he have reflectors on his pedals between sunset and sunrise, for example? How many cyclists comply with this? Not me, for starters.
I can see the headline in the Daily Mail... "Illegal behaviour rampant among cyclists".

If they did, it would be true would it not?

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

The better op title would have been to say that:

2/3's of vehicles stopped by VOSA were defective. It would be less sensational and truer to the facts, would possibly have been put into a better light and not so easily annoyed the safe & responsible large goods vehicle drivers.

 

[Brandane]

If they did, it would be true would it not?

An absolute certainty.

 

[glenn forger]

True, there are defects and there are DEFECTS.
I would be interested to know if @glenn forger complies with every rule and regulation while out on his bike. Does he have reflectors on his pedals between sunset and sunrise, for example? How many cyclists comply with this? Not me, for starters.
I can see the headline in the Daily Mail... "Illegal behaviour rampant among cyclists".

I do.

If badly-maintained or illegal bikes are the cause of a significant number of deaths and serious injuries then they should be targeted. They're not.

If the heavy goods trade is regulated enough and all problems are caused by foreign drivers, how come a white British gentleman working for a London firm got a job driving lorries after being banned from driving twenty times? Fourteen lorries that were stopped were considered so dangerous they couldn't continue. There's nothing that indicates these were all foreign-owned.

 

[Doc333]

I'm a bit confused, some people on here are saying that foreign large goods vehicles are skewing the figures.
Surely the nationality of a dangerous large goods vehicle is irrelevant because they've been stopped on British roads, I.e, where they're dangerous to British road users and breaking British legal requirements.

I think spots checks are a good use of sparse resources, the best option available, just the same as spot checks for drunk drivers.

Iirc from when I took my HGV test in the Army - I as the driver, was responsible for the vehicles condition, and if I was prepared to drive a non road worthy vehicle or go over my hours that was my personal choice, and as such I paid the price if caught driving said vehicle.

HGV drivers (UK) will not take out a truck with a defect as it will effect their livelyhood. FACT. Reputable operators and own fleet owners will not want adverse publicity or prohibition orders on their fleet FACT. If 30% of the trucks in the UK were 'illegal' there would be a public outcry and it would be mentioned in Parlaiment and the Minister of Transport would need to resign FACT.

VOSA are a quango and as such are under severe scrutiny from the treasury. They fear they may get binned because what value do they add in reality. They are a non governmental body who charge the UK tax payer a lot of money and need to justify their existence. So being smart they go to pull every Irish truck, every Eastern European truck, every european truck that's parked up on the outskirts of many of our cities overnight. Fuel is checked because with regard to these trucks they have a high % of red diesel, plenty of defects, overweight loads, duty fraud cargo ....... Easy target and easy to massage those figures to send to the treasury for your monthly cheque.

 

[oldstrath]

It may well be true, and I know that lorries are the cyclists bogey man but how many vehicles (lorries included) are defective and being driven by nobbers who shouldn't have the privilege of a driving licence.

All drivers (me included) should be tested on a regular basis.

Once all the students are back in cambridge I will do a survey on how many cyclists go down the inside of cars, vans, busses, lorries in a lane that you can go straight on AND left in.

Yes, some lorry drivers are eejits, but so are a fair % of every other road user group.

We ALL need to up our game.

No doubt that a proportion of all road user groups are eejits, and the proportion may be smaller among lorry drivers, because of stricter testing. But an eejit on a bike is mainly a danger to himself, whereas an eejit with a lorry is a danger to everyone unlucky enough to be on the road with him. So we should expect better of lorry drivers, and hope that the police are more enthusiastic about banning them.

 

[summerdays]

HGV drivers (UK) will not take out a truck with a defect as it will effect their livelyhood. FACT. Reputable operators and own fleet owners will not want adverse publicity or prohibition orders on their fleet FACT. If 30% of the trucks in the UK were 'illegal' there would be a public outcry and it would be mentioned in Parlaiment and the Minister of Transport would need to resign FACT.

VOSA are a quango and as such are under severe scrutiny from the treasury. They fear they may get binned because what value do they add in reality. They are a non governmental body who charge the UK tax payer a lot of money and need to justify their existence. So being smart they go to pull every Irish truck, every Eastern European truck, every european truck that's parked up on the outskirts of many of our cities overnight. Fuel is checked because with regard to these trucks they have a high % of red diesel, plenty of defects, overweight loads, duty fraud cargo ....... Easy target and easy to massage those figures to send to the treasury for your monthly cheque.

If there is a problem with those particular group of vehicles .... is it a problem targeting them? With limited resources I would rather they stopped the ones they thought would fail than randomly stopping all, though they need to do random checks too. (Obviously if they are twisting the statistics based on that targeted approach, that would be wrong).

 

[Doc333]

Summerdays, I have no problem whatsoever with VOSA going after targeted foreign trucks. These trucks come over here and dont pay road tax like we do, yet these trucks cause more damage to our road network simply because many are overweight and illegal etc. When we visit their country we have to pay tolls ....

My problem is with the OP who thinks he's found some golden information, because it backs up his own personal view. This is a non story being given oxygen