Safety of commercial vehicles in Essex has been slammed by traffic police.

A day-long stop check on the A12 revealed almost half of haulage vehicles inspected should not have been on the road due to vehicle defects or drivers exceeding safe working hours.

Road traffic police carrying out the inspection at the Boreham Interchange said one driver had worked for 11 days without a rest day.

Chief Insp Tom Diment , of the mobile support division, said: "This check revealed an utterly unacceptable level of offences.

"Essex Police will continue to pro-actively seek out and deal with drivers and companies as the high proportion of offenders shows this is not a matter to be ignored.

"Put simply, such activity puts people's lives at risk. Such people bring the haulage industry into disrepute and we will continue to be robust in dealing with these matters."

Of the 90 vehicles checked this week, 48 were in order and 42 were uncovered as having problems with the driver or vehicle.

Published Friday January 23, 2004

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