Major vehicle crime operation across West Midlands sees dozens of vehicles checked

A police operation around road safety has helped to take a large number of unsafe vehicles off the road.

The West Midlands Police Commercial Vehicle Unit joined with partners to carry out a major road safety operation with colleagues from across the country.

Officers from the unit were joined by WMP Roads Policing colleagues, as well as police colleagues from forces that work along the M6 corridor, from Cumbria down to Warwickshire.

Together, they worked with partner agencies like the DVSA and National Highways, for a day of action targeting illegal and unsafe commercial vehicles.

During the operation, which took place earlier this week, 47 vehicles were brought onto the DVSA site in Staffordshire.

Of those, 18 were immediately prohibited from the roads due to serious safety issues, while four had no insurance and officers also dealt with 26 load security issues, where goods that vehicles were carrying were not secured properly, 12 weight offences, and 10 abnormal loads with various safety breaches.

Tyre offences, tachograph issues, and seatbelt offences were also all dealt with.

As the operation was coming to a close, a light commercial vehicle was pulled onto the site by officers and found to have three immediate safety prohibitions for load security, tax, and insurance.

Further enquiries found the driver only had a provisional licence and tested positive for drugs.

The vehicle was seized, and the driver will now be dealt with accordingly.

Superintendent Jack Hadley, head of our Roads Policing Unit, said: “This joint approach to working, both with other forces, regulatory organisations, and partners, is vital to our mission of making the roads safer for everyone and reducing the number of fatalities and serious injuries.

“Focusing on commercial vehicles, and making sure they’re complying with the law, is incredibly important given their size and nature of the loads they’re carrying, as we want to minimise the impact of them being involved in a collision.

“We were joined by representatives of the Road Haulage Association and Construction Plant-hire Association to show them what our Commercial Vehicle Unit does, and it was great to see this positive collaboration between policing and private industry to improve road safety.

“Our Commercial Vehicle Unit forms a key part of our Roads Policing team, united by one mission to make our roads safer.

“They carry the latest equipment and technology to carry out proactive checks on all types of commercial vehicles, and they are focused on making sure those that aren’t safe are removed from our roads.”