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Mr Bingham told the Select Committee that FTA, on behalf of its 12,000 members, believed that road safety and appropriate levels of enforcement were of critical importance and that the freight transport industry was committed to measures designed to improve safety on the UK’s very busy and congested roads network.Industry recognised that targeted enforcement was absolutely necessary to ensure very high standards of safety and to maximise the effectiveness of the limited resources which were available to the police and other enforcement agencies. Mr Bingham said, ‘A safe lorry operator on the roads network is underpinned by the UK’s highly commendable Operator Licensing regime, second to none throughout the world. At the same time all UK road users benefit from the high quality of enforcement actions taken by the Vehicle Operator Service Agency (VOSA), including their work to identify and capture ‘cowboy’ operators who flout the rules, and who similarly monitor the potentially sub-standard foreign vehicles operating in increasing numbers in the UK.’Mr Bingham said that where there were gaps in enforcement resources, technology could play a key role in filling those gaps. He stressed the need for self regulation and told the Committee that every week of the year FTA engineering inspectors carried out over 2,500 vehicle safety inspections and FTA’s tachograph services examined over 80,000 record charts checking for any drivers’ hours regulation infringements.FTA evidence to the Select Committee was given on the same day that the Road Safety Bill received its second reading and FTA expressed its support for the Bill and for the prospect of the issue of immediate fines on foreign vehicles offending traffic regulations.Source: Press Release