MPs quiz DVSA on non-compliance in London

A recent evidence session of the House of Commons transport select committee saw MPs question the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) on a high rate of vehicle non-compliance in the capital.

The committee was hearing oral evidence as part of an inquiry into cycling safety. Chair Louise Ellman MP asked DVSA chief operating officer Alex Fiddes whether he was shocked by enforcement figures showing that 622 of 821 vehicles stopped in London recently – over 75 per cent – were non-compliant.

“The main problem we found with those vehicles was that they were badly maintained; there were defects such that they required immediate prohibition and that in some cases were so serious that the vehicles were immobilised,” Fiddes told MPs.

“We also discovered that people driving those vehicles had exceeded the drivers’ hours requirements, so generally those vehicles were posing a significant risk to road users, cyclists and pedestrians in London.”

He added: “Yes, it is shocking… I am extremely disappointed that, of those vehicles we stopped, we found them to be so non compliant, when there are people operating in exactly the same industry sector who choose to be compliant.”

However, he pointed out that the stops in London, carried out by the industrial vehicle task force, were targeted “deliberately… at a sector that was involved in lots of accidents” – and that non-compliance figures needed to be taken in the context of much lower figures more generally.

“If you were to do a random survey across Great Britain, generally you would find around 11 per cent of those vehicles are non-compliant. To do so, clearly we have stopped a number of vehicles that are compliant, and it is only right and proper that my organisation stops vehicles that we know are at greater risk of non-compliance. The evidence shows that we are very successful in doing that, and that is what we will continue to do.”