Gareth Evans shares his experiences of joining staff from the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) on an operation checking coaches at London’s Bulleid Way coach station. He also speaks to Graham Owen, Enforcement Area Manager for London, Essex and Hertfordshire, who draws on three decades of experience in enforcement
If you’re a coach driver, and you spot a sea of yellow jackets with the words ‘Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA),’ cusswords almost inevitably spring to mind, fearful of what ‘they’ might find. Even though you know you have correctly carried out your walkround check before you left the depot as you’re a stickler for such things, so-called ‘Murphy’s Law’ dictates that a bulb would just have to blow at a most inopportune moment, and your day just got screwed up.
However, ‘they’ have a job to do – to maintain road safety, protecting drivers and members of the public alike.
It’s a cold, damp morning – perhaps best described as a typical winter’s day. I’ve arrived at London’s Bulleid Way, across Buckingham Palace Road from Victoria Coach Station (VCS) to see for myself the ‘other side of the fence’ about what it’s like to carry out a vehicle check. The objectives for CBW are to provide insight from DVSA’s perspective, with the aim of helping drivers and operators to remain compliant.
A small convoy of white DVSA vehicles is parked up, with a squadron of […]
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