isleading hours guide
Page 20
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• A Norbert Dentressangle Continental driver was given an
absolute discharge for failing to take sufficient daily rest after Macclesfield magistrates accepted that he had been misled by
a handbook produced by a tachograph analysis agency.
The driver, John Withers, of Winsford, had denied the charge but was subsequently convicted by the magistrates.
DOT traffic examiner Duncan Pimblott said that 45 minutes driving in the middle of the night on 15 April had interrupted what would otherwise have been a valid daily rest period.
He agreed there was about 6.5 hours driving on the chart, but said there was no period of either nine or 11 consecutive hours of rest. If split rest was taken the eight-hour break had to be taken last and the other periods had to be a minimum of at least an hour each, said Pimblott, and that obligation had not been complied with.
Withers said that he had relied on the Tachograph Operating Handbook as his "bible". He claimed that he had taken his break on 15 April in accordance with what was set out in that handbook and had never set out to break the rules.
His employer, Norbert Dentressangle Continental, was also emphatic that the drivers' hours regulations had to be complied with.
Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, John Heaton said that the example in the booklet, which was published in 1991 and was likely to be out-of-date, did not use the important word "consecutive".
The magistrates accepted that Withers had not deliberately committed the offence and had been misled by the publication which did not accurately interpret the regulations.