Western Cape calls for trucker self-regulation

Western Cape MEC for transport, Robin Carlisle, has called on the road freight industry to engage with his office in an attempt to implement a system of self-regulation in the province that will see fewer trucks being stopped, weighed and inspected. “I don’t want to be weighing 600 000 trucks every year. It is unnecessary,” Carlisle told FTW. “Why are we burdening law-abiding citizens with processes that are slowing down their operations for a select few who do break the law?” He said more than 600 000 trucks were annually stopped at weighbridges in the province alone. “The majority of them are not breaking the law. I think we can free up major resources and utilise our traffic officials much better than having them stop and weigh trucks that in some cases can’t be overloaded and are clearly not breaking the law.” He said coming up with a system for the Western Province where operators found to be legal no longer had to stop at each and every weighbridge was imperative for his department. “We need to implement some kind of merit system that says this company has gone through the process and is no longer required to be weighed at every weighbridge and have a sticker in the window or something like that,” he said. “Ultimately we have to find a way of reducing the number of trucks that we pull over.” Carlisle said trucks were being weighed repeatedly across South Africa on journeys only to be found weighing the exact same as at the previous weighbridge. “We are very keen to sit down with the industry and come up with some system that will allow this to happen. We are open to suggestions and I call on the road freight industry to come and talk to us.” CAPTION Robin Carlisle ... ‘We need to implement some kind of merit system.’