Wrecker records
Page 51
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I operate several recovery vehicles which have a crane, spectacle-lift or a beavertail platform body with winch. Some are taxed at the recovery rate but some, which are occasionally used to carry vehicles that are not broken down, are taxed at the goods rate.
Police keep stopping the drivers and asking for tachograph records. They usually accept that vehicles taxed as recovery vehicles do not need a tachograph, but say the ones taxed as goods vehicles do need one.
What is the law on this ?
A If your vehicles are
constructed and used mainly for dealing with disabled vehicles and accident recovery; they will be exempt from the EC drivers' hours and tachograph law regardless of how they are taxed.
The tachograph law, in EC Regulation 3821/85, states that it does not apply to vehicles that are exempt from the EC hours law and that are listed in Article 4 of EC Regulation 3820/8.5.
One of the exemptions is for "specialised breakdown vehicles". The European Court has ruled, in the case of Hamilton vs Whitelock (1988) RTR 23, that "a specialised breakdown vehicle is a vehicle whose construction, fitments and other permanent characteristics are such that it will be used mainly for removing vehicles that have recently been involved in an accident or have broken down for another reason, Such a vehicle is not subject to the tachograph requirements, whatever use is actually made of it by its owner".
Your description of the vehicles suggests that they will come within the amstruction aspects of this definition. As long as they are used mainly for dealing with broken-down vehicles and accidents, they will be exempt from the EC law, including the times they are used for other purposes.
How the vehicle is licensed under UK vehicle excise law is not relevant to this exemption.
But you should remember that the British law in the Drivers' Hours (Goods Vehicles) (Keeping of Records) Regulations 1987 applies to a driver who is exempt from the BC hours and tachograph law. These regulations require a driver to complete a weekly sheet giving a summary of his hours of work.
However, Regulation 12(1) provides that when a driver does not, in a working day, drive a goods vehicle for more than four hours and outside a radius of 50km of the vehicle's base, he is exempt from the British records sheet requirement for that day.
And where a driver does not, on a working day, drive any vehicle other than one exempt from operator licensing, he is exempt from keeping a British record sheet on that day. Vehicles taxed as recovery vehicles are exempt from operator licensing as long as they are used within the terms of the recovery licence. Therefore, drivers of such vehicles are exempt from both tachograph and British records.