Foreign drivers 'treated like criminals'
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• Complaints that foreign lorry drivers are being treated like criminals for minor traffic offences in Britain have been made to the EEC authorities in Brussels.
Britain has been asked to investigate, and the details of one case were where a German driver was alleged to have been handcuffed and locked up have been passed to the Government.
The complaint originated with a West German organisation called the International Association for Humanitarian Aid in the Road Transport Sector.
It has raised the case of driver Reinhard Dech who was stopped by police on the M2 on May 16 last year.
According to the association's letter, his lorry was 1.5 tonnes overweight. This vehicle was impounded and Dech was arrested together with 12 other foreign drivers.
Two hours later he was brought before a magistrate and fined 2580 plus 225 costs with the alternative of 60 days in prison.
The letter claimed that after the case Dech was kept for two hours in a "cellar room" and then led to a prison bus with the other drivers, each handcuffed to the other.
In prison he was kept in a small cell until 4pm when he was taken back to his lorry. Then he had to drive back to Dover where the excess weight was unloaded by employer, the German ha Schenker. "A country wh tolerates such inhuman a tions has no right to be in EEC," the letter states.
Association president La Ferworn added: "Most dri cannot pay the fines.
"They have to stay in pr until the money arrives. are not protesting about fines, but the way the dri• are treated like criminals.
The case has been taket by German MEP Horst feld wh has asked the European Commission to ensure that in future all fore lorry drivers are treated fait in England.