Traffic Commissioner thanks our Commercial Vehicle Unit

A Traffic Commissioner thanks our Commercial Vehicle Unit for their investigative diligence that led to a transport manager being banned for life after he admitted breaching a “movement order”.

Our Commercial Vehicle Unit is a small team of officers that deal with this specialist area of roads policing and focuses on enforcement and education of heavy commercial vehicles and operators.

Last year the Force Abnormal Load Officer and Commercial Vehicle Unit worked with a company’s transport manager to plan the movement of an abnormal load.

A dispensation was granted for the company to move 40-50 metre steel tubes under self-escort, subject to additional safety measures being undertaken by the company, designed to keep Essex roads and users safe as well as providing the haulier maximum flexibility and a significant cost saving by not having to pay for police escorts.

In December 2022, just a few days later, an abnormal load was witnessed by two Roads Policing officers travelling along the M25, without any of the extra safeguards in place.

Enquiries showed that the company had undertaken six movements in the preceding days, all of which breached the carefully planned dispensation.

A Commercial Vehicle Investigator-led prosecution against the transport manager resulted in him admitting the breaches at magistrates’ court and was fined £5,800 for permitting overweight vehicles using the road network on all those occasions.

This case was then passed to the Traffic Commissioners Office in Leeds where on Wednesday 6 December, the transport manager was banned for life from holding a similar position for any other haulage company and dismissed from his company role.

Sergeant Jason Dearsley, who heads the Commercial Vehicle Unit, said:

My unit’s role is to educate HGV drivers and operators to ensure road safety, respond to incidents on the strategic road network and keep unsafe vehicles off the road.

We work with partners such DVSA and the Traffic Commissioner’s Office to uphold those high standards and enforce breaches of road safety legislation.

Checks are used to keep unsafe vehicles off the road and that vehicles are not breaking any rules and regulations: this includes checking authorised load weights and type of load permitted, checking vehicles for roadworthiness and mechanical faults.

The underlying principle of everything that we do is safety - to keep all road users safe.

Where there is a blatant disregard for the law that puts people at risk, we won’t hesitate to enforce the law.

Essex Police’s Commercial Vehicle Unit are committed to engaging positively with hauliers and drivers to help keep their businesses running, but it’s unacceptable to simply ignore a dispensation set up together to support a company as well as protect the road users of our county.

 

If you know or have information about unsafe or illegal practices, then please get in contact with us.

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