Tachos for bakers
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EAD VAN owners could be faced with the need to fit tachographs heir vehicles, following a High Court ruling before Easter.
Aichael Rogers, director of the deration of Bakers, said arwards: "If we cannot get decision reversed by the use of Lords the cost of coming with it will have to be refered by increasing the price Pur products."
le said the price of many ier goods could also rise bese the ruling applied to all ivery vans over 3.5 tons la den, supplying products to shops.
Companies owning such vans had always assumed they were exempt from having to fit tachographs on the ground they were specialised vehicles for "doorto-door selling" and therefore within the 1978 Community Road Transport Rules (Exemptions) Regulations.
The Department of Transport had advised the Federation that member companies were not breaking the law by not having tachographs in the cabs of their vans, he added.
Mr Rogers was speaking after Lord Justice Ackner and Mr Justice Forbes, sitting in the Queens Bench Divisional Court had allowed an appeal by Merseyside's Chief Constable Kenneth Oxford, against a finding by Merseyside magistrates last June that Thomas Scott and Sons Bakery Ltd and its driver, Brian Rimmer, had not broken the law by failing to have a tachograph in Mr Rimmer's cab.
The court ordered the case to be sent back to the magistrates with a direction to convict.
Giving judgment, Lord Justice Ackner said although the court was prepared to accept that the van had been specially adapted for the transport of bread and cakes, it was in no respect specially constructed, or adapted, for the door-to-door selling of those comModities.
On the day of the alleged offence, Mr Rimmer was proposing to make five calls, involving shops and an old people's home. That was not door-todoor selling.
"The driver was not proposing, methodically, to call at one house after another," said the judge.
"He was not proposing to call at any house at all, unless the old people's home could be so described. Again, with the exception he was not proposing to make any sales to the ultimate consumer," The Freight Transport Association is studying the implications of the ruling.