As part of the association's campaign to ensure that foreign registered trucks are not allowed to travel within the UK without being liable to compliance checks Suffolk Police invited me to join an operation they held with VOSA.

The targets were mainly foreign registered vehicles travelling east on the A14 near Bury St Edmunds one evening in early in November. The operation began at 4.00pm and was scheduled to go through till midnight, but at 10.15pm the police were called to a traffic fatality. The check was carried out by three VOSA traffic examiners, two police motorcyclists and a police patrol car driver who randomly pulled in vehicles showing non-UK registration plates to the rear. As well as checking the vehicles and their drivers the data collected was transferred to the VOSA database of for future use.

Among those stopped was an English registered truck whose driver who was not displaying the appropriate vehicle number plate on the continental semitrailer he was pulling. The driver only received a verbal warning for this error even though I was told that this was a common problem on the A14.

The first vehicle to be brought in was Dutch registered, although the driver admitted that it was based in Suffolk and he lived in the area. The VOSA representatives assured me they were already investigating this operation. Both the truck and the driver were found to be fully compliant with drivers' hours and weight regulations.

The next vehicle to come in was Italian and the driver was found to be exceeding his daily driving limit when stopped. He was prohibited from continuing for 11 hours.

During the next six hours 26 foreign vehicles were checked, along with five UK registered trucks when the traffic flow of foreigners heading back to Felixstowe or Harwich was low. Out of this, six were found to be non-compliant. Five were operating outside of drivers' hours and one Dutch vehicle was found to have a defective front nearside tyre. All six received prohibitions.

As well as those already mentioned there were two drivers of Republic of Ireland vehicles that received drivers' hours prohibitions, although their nationalities were Welsh and Czech. A German driver received a prohibition after being found to have driven for 11 days without a weekly rest. He said his bosses encourage employees to get the deliveries carried out ‘at all costs'. The VOSA traffic examiners were already checking on the company. The sixth noncompliant driver, a Dutch vehicle, was found to have failed to take a sufficient daily rest.

There were six prohibitions issued on a check of 26 foreign goods vehicles, 23% of those checked. Clearly this figure is unacceptable but I was told that it is well down on checks made earlier in the year, when up to 66% of foreign registered vehicles randomly checked were found to be non-compliant.