/ am a bus driver with a former BET company.
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Recently when 1 arrived to take over my bus I was amazed to see that the speedometer had been removed, and protested that by driving it in this condition I would be committing an offence. However, the garage foreman refused to provide a substitute bus and assured me that it was not illegal for a bus to be used without a speedometer. Not being satisfied with the answer, I contacted the local police station to find out what the law said; their first reaction was that I would certainly be corn
miffing an offence by driving the bus, but after they had consulted the regulations they had to admit that they were not too sure about this, since the regulations appeared to refer only to public service vehicles registered from October 1937 which were "for the time being used as an express carriage". Mine was a stage carriage service bus. What is the true position?
AYour bus certainly requires a working
speedometer in order to comply with the law. The legislation is confusingly worded, but section 13 of the Construction and Use Regulations 1966 states: "To every motor vehicle registered on or after 1st October 1937 and to every public service vehicle which is forthe time being used as an express carriage there shall be fitted an instrument so constructed and in such a position as at all times readily to indicate to the driver of the vehicle the speed thereof within a marginal accuracy of plus or minus 10 per cent if and when he is driving at a speed in excess of 10 miles per hour."
The reference "for the time being used as an express carriage" is really neither here nor there in your case. The first phrase, states quite clearly that every motor vehicle registered from October 1937 must have a speedometer. The reference to "to every public service vehicle" etc. is, you will note, preceded by the word "and".