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Kill speed
Page 36
Page 37
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With speeding increasingly targeted by new regulations and technology, wise operators will review their procedures to ensure their drivers are not offending. Transport lawyer Christabel Haas reports.
The final phase of European legislation to introduce speed limiters to vehicles over 3.5 tonnes comes into force on 1 January 2008. This phase affects vehicles below 7.5 tonnes first registered from 1 January 2005 and used solely within the UK.
The Road Safety Act 2006 brings in graduated fixed penalties, so the time is right for operators to review their policies and systems for ensuring vehicles operate within the speed limits.
Operators should remember that when they applied for their 0-licences they gave an undertaking that their vehicles would operate within the speed limits. And under Section 26 (1) (f) of the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995, a Traffic Commissioner :an revoke, suspend or curtail alicence for non:ompliance with such undertakings.
Health and safety law applies as much to _hiving trucks as it does to all otherwork activities io the risks must be effectively managed within 1 health and safety management regime. This includes an obligation to carry out an 3ssessment of the risks to the health and safety if employees while they are at work.
The Department for Transport (Da') and the Health and Safety Executive give guidance on his in the booklet Driving atWork—Managing Work Related Road Safety. This states that certain questions should be asked when evaluating the risks to employees: • Are work schedules realistic?
• Is sufficient time allowed to complete journeys safely?
• Are regular checks made to ensure that drivers are not cutting corners and putting others at risk?
Once the risk assessment has been undertaken the company needs to deal with all the obvious hazards and ensure that risks are suitably controlled.
Paper trail For operators whose vehicles are fitted with analogue tachographs, any system will revolve around analysis of the charts. A cursory glance at the charts should immediately show instances of speeding. However the position has become more difficult with the introduction of the digital tachograph where data needs to be downloaded.
In January 2007 the Department for Transport launched a consultation on the required frequency for mandatory downloading of data from digitach cards and vehicle units. The government wants to ensure there is a balance between making sure that a continuous record of data is available to enforcers, and ensuring that any obligations are not over burdensome upon the industry.
It now appears that regulations will require downloads from drivers' cards at least every 28 days, and from vehicle units at least every 56 days. However operators will be free to download more frequently.
Should operators do this, bearing in mind that no speed data is stored on the driver's card? Speed data is downloadable from the vehicle unit; it will include the five most serious speeding events over the previous 365 days. It will also show the niost serious cases of speeding over the previous 10 days.
However speeding is recorded only when the driver exceeds the speed limiter limit continuously for 60 seconds so operators might get only a partial picture of a driver's speeding history from the vehicle unit data.
Remember, under the Road Safety Act 2006 fixed penalties are notifiable and can affect the operator's licence. Also, the undertaking given to the Traffic Commissioner is to ensure that vehicles operate within speed limits, which is far broader than ensuring that vehicles simply operate within their speed limiter limits.
For example, operators who use vehicle unit downloads will have difficulty checking that their drivers of vehicles over 7.5 tonnes have complied with the 40mph speed limit. The DfT's current advice is that there will be no need to download the detailed speed file from the vehicle unit within the prescribed 56 days unless an operator is required to do so by an enforcement officer. After all, this file uses the most memory and takes the longest time to download. But having access to this information only when required to download by an enforcement officer may be too late. Operators need to be aware of potential problems before they become potential prosecutions.
Operators should continue to analyse analogue charts for speeding; those using vehicles fitted with digitachs should consider downloading more frequently than the proposed mandatory level. The difficulties involved with downloading data from digital tachographs have not absolved operators from the undertaking to ensure that vehicles operate within speed limits. • Christabel lianas is a solicitor specialising in all aspect of goods vehicle operator licensing with legal firm Halliwells.
• Contact: christahel.hallas@halliwells.com
CONTACTS
www.tlff.gov.uk www.vosa.gov.uk www.hse,gov.uk