Court rules on hours law
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IN A court has ruled that a Freight Transport Association and Department of Transport "wipe the slate clean" interpretation of the 4.5 driving hours rule is wrong. It says that hauliers must follow the police's "rolling" definition of the law instead.
Rawtenstall magistrates ordered Mayfield Chicks, which had denied causing and permitting three drivers to exceed 4.5 hours without taking proper breaks, to pay a 2300 fine with 2135 costs. This was despite being told that the company had followed advice on the interpretation of the law from the FTA and DTp.
For the prosecution, Peter Tidey said that the FTA's and the Ministry's interpretation of Article 7 of EEC Regulation 3820/85 differed from that of police forces throughout the country.
Article 7 laid down that after 4.5 hours' driving a driver should have a break of at least 45 minutes, and that that break could be broken down into periods of at least 15 minutes distributed over the driving period or immediately after it. If the "wipe the slate clean" interpretation was right, it meant that a driver who had taken a 30-minute break after one minute's driving could drive for nine hours, all but a minute, with a break of only 15 minutes.
Tidey argued that Article 7 referred to a "rolling period" of 4.5 hours. For example, a driver who drove for five minutes, took a 30-minute break, drove for four hours 25 minutes, and then took a 15-minute break, could only drive for five minutes before he had to take a 30-minute break to ensure that he had had 45 minutes break in 4.5 hours of driving.
PC Robert Adamson of the Lancashire poice said one of the drivers had driven for five hours 39 minutes, another for six hours 15 minutes, and the third for seven hours 19 minutes, with breaks of only 15 and 17 minutes.
He conceded that on the "wipe the slate clean" interpretation no offences would have been committed.
Evidence was given by the Northern Regonal Secretary of the FTA, Roger Bird, that the association worked in close conjunction with the Department of Transport.
Defending, Micheal Mackey argued that it was not the court's job to say what was safe and what was not, but to say that the law was. Article 7 meant what it said. After 4.5 hours driving a driver had to have a break of 45 minutes, which could be split up. Once he had done that he started again, with the next period of 4.5 hours' driving. If a company could not follow what the Government had told it to do, it was a sad and sorry state.