Abu Dhabi freight trade licences may be linked to lorry safety

Inspectors from the Department of Transport and Traffic police department staff inspecting a truck near Park Rotana hotel in Abu Dhabi. Ravindranath K / The National

ABU DHABI // Roadside inspections of 500 lorries found four out of five had defects that would have led to failure at the annual test.

Now Abu Dhabi is looking at linking trade licences to companies’ lorry safety systems in a bid to improve road safety.

Planned safety inspection and maintenance will improve lorry operating standards, reduce lorry accidents, and improve road safety, said Dr Osama Adnan Tomeh, a freight planning consultant at the Department of Transport.

"The top three defects were vehicle lights, brakes and tyres," Dr Tomeh said. "That's bad news, but the good news is that most of these defects can be repaired quickly by the drivers themselves if they have a safety maintenance plan."

The Department of Transport is working with Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development on a system of standards the department wants operators to provide before it issues a certificate of no objection to a trade licence.

“If an operator can’t demonstrate it has a good maintenance system, a way to manage its drivers and somewhere to park its vehicles, then the DoT will ask them to go away and give them guidance to develop that plan before the company gets the permission to get a new licence or renew its licence,” said Jonathan James, section head of freight policies at the department. No time frame for this has been set, he said.

“I’m happy to hear about the plans to link standards to trade licences,” said Bassam Al Kassar, chief executive of Fleet Management Systems, an American company.

"The Government should make sure companies are following safety policies and procedures. Unfortunately, last month, there was a tragic accident in the Northern Emirates and it was caused by a fatigued lorry driver."

He called for police enforcement through the use of electronic vehicle monitoring systems and checkpoints.

“Police can stop the lorry and read the number of driving hours and rest period of that specific driver,” Mr Al Kassar said. “It would greatly help reduce road accidents. But without enforcement by government, I don’t see this happening.”

Windscreen wipers, which can also be repaired by the driver and reduce the number of defects and offences, were another problem.

“An effective maintenance system will actually solve these issues, reduce the number of violations trucks receive, and save the company money through fines,” Dr Tomeh said.

The DoT is recommending that each vehicle should keep records on when it had its last annual road worthiness test, details of what maintenance was carried out, all regular safety inspection forms, driver defect forms and details of when defects were rectified, and total number of maintenance hours worked on each vehicle.

"The Government should ensure that companies implement proper safety policies by checking their records on journey management, drivers' working hours, and inspection and maintenance systems," said Mr Al Kassar.