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Does off-road driving count?

18th march 1993, Page 48
18th march 1993
Page 48
Page 48, 18th march 1993 — Does off-road driving count?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

I have a Department of Transport booklet which implies that offroad driving does not count as driving because it can be marked on the tachograph sheet as other work. Our trucks are used both off and on the road and police recently said that off-road driving would soon count as road driving. What are your views on off-road driving and the hours' law?

A I consider that the driving of a truck by a person on site, who does not also drive on the road, is outside the EC drivers' hours rules. But where a driver drives both on site and on a road, I believe that a court would be likely to add the site driving to road driving to form a total and not regard site driving as not being driving at all. If a person drives on a road after having driven on site he should take the site driving into account.

The hours law in EC Regulation 3820/85 applies to carriage byroad, and that is defined as any journey made on roads open to the public by a vehicle, whether laden or not, used for the carriage of goods or passengers. The regulation places limits on driving time and imposes requirements for rest periods to be taken.

One of the driving limits is that after 4 hours driving a driver must take a rest break of at least 45 minutes (or have had equivalent shorter breaks) or be starting a daily rest period. The others are that the daily driving period does not exceed nine hours (or 10 hours twice a week) and that the total driving in any fortnight does not exceed 90 hours. The regulation does not refer to 4 hours driving on a road but it applies to a driver when on a road after 4 hours driving - which is not the same thing. Neither do the daily and fortnightly limits refer to driving on a road.

Because some of the declared objects of the EC law are improvements in working conditions as well as road safety, we consider that a court would not disregard the time spent driving on-site when deciding whether a person had spent 4, 9, 10 or 90 hours at the wheel.

Section 103(3) of the Transport Act 1968 states that, for the purposes of that part of that act, references to a person driving a vehicle are references to his being at the driving controls of the vehicle for the purpose of controlling its movement, whether it is in motion or is stationary with the engine running. There is no reference to the vehicle being on a road.

Because Section 96(9) excludes off-road driving for agricultural and forestry purposes from the act's daily driving limit, the implication is that such off-road driving would be within the scope of the act but for the exclusion.

Similar exclusions for offroad driving for civil engineering and other work are contained in the Drivers' Hours (Goods Vehicles) (Modifications) Order 1970. Though Section 103(2) does not apply directly to the interpretation of the EC regulation, a court would be likely to follow it, particularly as the EC Regulation is enforced by Section 96(11A) which is in that part of the Transport Act.

A court might also be guided by the House of Lords judgement in the case of Fox vs Lawson in which it was ruled that, in deciding whether a driver had committed an offence in Great Britain, a court could take into account the work, driving and rest periods he had performed or taken outside Great Britain. That ruling might be taken as authority for the proposition that off-road driving can be taken into account when calculating total driving.


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