Sir, – You report that Irish-registered lorries are among the worst offenders for mechanical and trailer defects, overloading and breaches of rules on driving time limits of all foreign trucks checked on roads in Britain (“Irish lorries among worst offenders for defects in British road checks”, News, November 15th). Of course the lorries are innocent and the offenders are their human drivers and owners. But that is a mere quibble.
The figures show that Irish trucks are routinely driven on British roads (and presumably on Irish roads) without sufficient regard for the safety of their drivers and of other road users. One-fifth of Irish HGVs tested had mechanical issues, one-third of trailers had defects and more than half of Irish lorries weighed were overloaded.
The response from the two industry representatives quoted rather misses the point.
One said that the figures were a wake-up call for Irish HGVs driven in a country with a regime of high enforcement: “there is always a high risk of getting stopped and checked”.
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Should owners and drivers of Irish trucks operating on British roads up their game not because it is the right thing to do but because of the risk of detection?
The second makes a similar point. The high rate of defects found on Irish trucks is because Irish drivers are travelling into Britain on the same ferries at the same times every day and “are fish in a barrel coming out of the port”. Irish trucks, it is suggested, would fare better in the international league table of offenders if they were tested less frequently.
I’m sure they would. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.