No need to carry charts
Page 17
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• A Crown Court Judge has ruled that drivers are not required to carry the tachograph chart for the last day of the last week in which they drove with them if it was more than 21 days ago.
Padiham, Lancashire-based owner-driver Kevin McKenna, trading as Calder Valley Services, had appealed to Wolverhampton Crown Court against convictions for failing to produce a tachograph chart and using a vehicle without an operator's licence.
McKenna had been fined £200 on each offence, and ordered to pay .C50 prosecution costs by the magistrates.
For the prosecution, Simon Jones said they did not resist the appeal against the conviction for unauthorised use.
Police Constable David Brindley said that when he had asked McKenna if he had any more charts, he had said no as he had not been driving. He was unable to produce the chart for the last day of the week in which he had last driven. Though the vehicle was not specified on McKenna's licence, he did have a margin on his licence and when the vehicle was stopped, he had not had it in his possession for a month. For McKenna, John Backhouse argued that the phrase "previous week" in the regulations meant the week before.
If a driver had not driven in that week, he could not produce any charts.
Second, he argued that a driver was required to hand charts in to his employer within 21 days. Consequently, McKenna could not be required to carry the chart for the last day of the last week in which he had driven, which had been four weeks previously. Allowing the appeals, the judge, Mr Recorder Robert Onion said he took the view that the phrase "the previous week in which he drove" meant the last week in which he had driven. However, the requirement was that tachograph charts had to be kept centrally after 21 days. The evidence was that McKenna had last driven some four weeks prior to the date of the check.