London Bound Road Haulage Operators Should Respond to Vision Consultation NOW!

UK – Road freight operators who work in London have very little time left to respond to a Transport for London (TfL) consultation which considers making extra vision panels in truck doors a mandatory requirement. If imposed it could mean a requirement to retrofit lorries or risk prosecution and the Road Haulage Association (RHA), amongst others, is appealing for as many truckers to respond to the consultation.

The Safer Lorry Scheme began in September 2015 and covers every road in Greater London, except motorways, and operates 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. The scheme bans trucks over 3.5 tonnes from the capital unless they are fitted with required safety equipment, including mirrors and side guards. TfL says that it wants to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the capital's roads partly by ensuring that only the safest trucks operate on London's streets and so the new vision panel proposals are seen as part of this ambition. A comprehensive outline of Tfl’s ambitions can be seen here.

There are two options as far as the proposals go, they are:

Option A - Differential road charging to encourage higher vision lorries The central London Congestion Charge zone or the London-wide Low Emission Zone (LEZ) schemes would be changed so that a substantially higher charge is applied to lorries without the vision panels fitted to the passenger door, unless the panels are not capable of being fitted.

Option B - Restricting non-compliant vehicles TfL could seek to place restrictions on lorries without passenger door vision panels, unless it is not possible to fit them.

The consultation closes on Friday 4 March and, according to the RHA, there have been a large number of replies submitted by the cycling lobby, but very few, so far, from road hauliers. The consultation does not take long to complete and you can find it here.