HOURS NOT TO REASON
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• "The application of the working time Directive as an additional layer [of Drivers' Hours legislation] would undoubtedly make matters very much more complicated". That, in a nutshell, is what the Freight Transport Association's director of road transport and Parliamentary affairs, David Green, thinks of plans to adopt a draft EC directive on working time. Few will disagree with him.
Since British hauliers became subject to tachographs there have been countless "interpretations" of what the regulations actually mean, and the FTA has plenty of experience when it comes to such interpretations. Remember its battle over "Wipe the Slate Clean"?
"Social Legislation" is all very laudable, but when it comes to road transport there is an existing directive which, driven by safety imperatives, already achieves the objectives of the proposed working time Directive. The last thing the UK transport industry needs is more regulations, open to even more interpretations, that can only be resolved by dragging some poor haulier through a test case in court.
Clearly the UK is in a minority over this matter, as it so often is when faced with illogical legislation from Brussels. But if the Social Affairs Council does back a workingtime Directive next Tuesday then it must not be applied to EC Drivers' Hours law. The message to the Eurocrat contemplating adding more legislation to road transport is perfectly simple: "Leave it out."