Rushing safety scheme keeps cleaner trucks off London roads, says FTA

The FTA has said that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is sabotaging his own work to clean up the capital by “trying to rush through an ill-considered road safety scheme”.

The association believes that hundreds of cleaner trucks would be on London’s roads now, if it were “not for uncertainty over Sadiq Khan’s plans for a Direct Vision Standard (DVS), which aims to improve the safety of heavy goods vehicles operating in the capital.”

“The Mayor has scored a spectacular own goal with DVS,” said Natalie Chapman, FTA’s head of urban policy. “FTA, along with everyone living and working in London, wants to see an improvement in the city’s air quality, but this could have happened faster if the new DVS had been better planned.

“FTA’s submission to the latest consultation on the scheme provides evidence that truck owners and operators are delaying procurement of the cleanest Euro VI vehicles, because they have no idea whether they’ll meet the requirements of the DVS.”