Are truckers being victimised ?

[grumpy52]

VOSA or DVSA, or whatever the hell they are called these days, only seem to pull commercial transport for checks , the sites they use are specifically set up for commercial vehicles .
I have never seen private cars at any of these sites .
Are we just an easy target ?

[grumpy52]

I see far more trucks pulled than I ever see cars , at Dartford they seem to have set up a permanent check site complete with full size weight scale .
In 43 years of driving I have never been pulled for a car check but it must be nearly a dozen times in a truck , never recieved any tickets or warnings except for the new mirrors in London .
But see faulty cars , vans and motorbikes on a daily basis .
Every summer we see grossly overloaded people carriers getting away with offences , how many cars with bike carriers loaded are actually legal ?
Down here in Kent seeing police on the motorway apart from op stack or attending accidents is rare but there are spots where I can guarantee seeing DVSA , they even have a site in Dover docks .

[grumpy52]

It does seem that trucks are monitored far more than any other road users , given the damage they can do if it all goes wrong things do need to be up to standard .
We do seem to receive a lot of attention , every motorway every day has patrols just looking at trucks , even the counties without motorways will target more trucks than cars .
I feel it seems to reinforce the attitude amongst the motoring public that any incident involving trucks must be the trucks fault .Yet most truckers will tell you of constantly having to aviod wayward car, van, motorcycle and bike riders or drivers .
I am told that we are suffering a shortage of drivers in the industry which will only get drastically worse over the next 5 to 10 years as my generation retire or loose our entitlement to drive because of medical reasons .

[grumpy52]

When I was pulled last January (2014) at Ferrybridge on suspicion of being without O 9licence and being over weight they were very pissed off when no offences were found .
Five times they ran me over the scales !
Total lack of humour, the only comment on completion of my examination of my card "you don't take any chances do you"

I'm paid to drive not break the law .

[grumpy52]

I told one that if I was carrying high value goods I would not stop until it was confirmed by the police that they were legitimate. That went down like a turd in a pool.Most impersonated officials in hijacks are vehicle inspectors .
Had the same conversation with a traffic cop and he said it's not a problem and he totally understood , just a downside of running unmarked trucks , DVSA don't know if the company are on their hit list without sign writing.