The DVSA has collected more than £1.2m in roadside fines from foreign-registered operators for non-payment of the HGV Road User Levy.
Some 4,058 fixed penalty notices (FPNs) were issued to HGVs that had not paid the road user charge, while fines taken at the roadside totalled £1.22m, the DVSA said in its annual report and accounts for 2015/16.
During the period, DVSA enforcement staff also stopped more than 189,000 trucks, both UK- and foreign-registered, at the roadside and carried out more than 3,200 compliance checks at operators’ premises.
More than a quarter (26.1%) of targeted checks resulted in a prohibition being issued, exceeding the DVSA’s target of 23.1%.
DVSA chief executive Gareth Llewellyn said targeted checks helped it remove unsafe vehicles from the roads. “Protecting the public from unsafe vehicles and operators will continue to be a core activity for us,” he said.
It also continued to target non-compliant HGVs with the Metropolitan Police, City of London Police and TfL as part of the Industrial HGV Task Force. Over the past two years it issued 3,871 prohibitions for roadworthiness offences and 881 drivers’ hours prohibitions, and stopped more than 14,800 vehicles.
It is working with the DfT to prepare for the introduction of FPNs for historical drivers’ hours offences. However, it did not indicate when this was likely to begin.
The DVSA also said it had underestimated the demand for vocational driving tests last year and reported a 22% increase in the number of tests requested, as opposed to the 11% it prepared for.
It conducted more tests than in previous years, but the average waiting time increased from 3.4 weeks to 5.7 weeks during the period. As of 6 June, the average waiting time was 4.7 weeks.
Llewellyn said it was working hard to reduce waiting times, and that the agency hoped to reduce the average waiting time to three weeks as soon as possible.
