BRIEFS Road trucks need tachos
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Buxton magistrates have rejected arguments that vehicles carrying tarmac are exempt from the tachograph regulations because they arc engaged on highway maintenance work.
However, they gave Colin and Julie Howard, trading as Withington Transport, of Manchester, absolute discharges after convicting them of using a vehicle without a tachograph.
The court was told that there was an accident on the A537 in heavy fog involving a car and two LGVs, one of which was being driven by Colin Howard.
When asked by police for his tachograph chart, Howard had said that as he was working under contract to Tarmac Roadstone on roadworks on the M6 he was exempt from the tachograph regulations and was using a driver's logbook.
Howard had said that the firm was solely contracted to Tarmac and that it had been advised by the Ministry that when it was engaged on roadworks it did not need to use tachographs. He had added that when it did other work for Tarmac, such as hauling to building sites, it did use tachographs.
Andrew Woolfall, defending, argued that the vehicle concerned had been exempt on the day in question because it had been carrying a load of tarmac and that the journey was a local one of less than 30 miles. All the Howards' vehicles displayed highway maintenance stickers.
The prosecution referred to the judgement of Judge Simon Grenfall at Bradford Crown Court, when he ruled that vehicles carrying stone to motorway sites were not exempt from the tachograph legislation on highway maintenance grounds. Woolfall pointed out that that case had involved journeys of hundreds of miles, which was totally different.
The magistrates accepted that there had been no intention to deceive or to gain any benefit from not complying with the tachograph rules.