Norfolk Police making A47 roadside checks in Commercial Vehicle Week
Police in West Norfolk are supporting a nationwide enforcement campaign focusing on vehicles used for businesses and trades and with the ultimate aim of making roads safer.
Commercial Vehicle Week is led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and began on Monday, ending on Sunday.
As part of the operation officers from the Joint Roads and Armed Policing Team and Road Casualty Reduction Team will carry out extra patrols in both marked and unmarked vehicles concentrating on offences committed by all manner of commercial drivers, including those of lorries, vans, buses, plant vehicles, agricultural machinery and taxis.
Officers will be conducting checks along the strategic road network with enforcement taking place along the A11 and A47.
As always, drivers committing fatal four offences will be targeted (drink/drug-driving; speeding; using a mobile phone; and not wearing a seatbelt), but with commercial vehicles there are a whole raft of other potential offences, including exceeding driver hours, insecure loads, overweight vehicles and dangerous loads.
The operation also provides opportunities to disrupt anyone using the road network for criminal purposes and to reinforce the message that Norfolk is a hostile environment for them to operate in.
Chief Inspector Jon Chapman, head of the Joint Norfolk and Suffolk Roads and Armed Policing Team, said: “The primary focus of this operation is about making our roads safer for all users and ensuring drivers are complying with the law and their vehicles are safe.
“Commercial vehicles account for a large percentage of the traffic on our roads and due to either their size (in the case of HGVs), or in many cases their loads, they have the potential to cause the most damage if they are involved in a collision.
“Whilst we will always seek to engage with and educate drivers in the first instance, those found to be committing offences will be dealt with in a robust manner. It is important that we deliver the key messages of road safety, but it is all about keeping everybody safe on our roads and sometimes we have to take stronger action to deliver that message.
“Every day our officers see first-hand the dangers posed by either poor driving or unroadworthy vehicles and our number one priority is to keep everyone safe and reduce collisions that result in people being seriously injured or killed.”
