Court rejects GTW argument
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by Jim Duckworth • A Mercedes-Benz 208 van with a plated gross weight of 2,600kg did not require a tachograph when towing a 900kg trailer, the High Court ruled last week.
The court rejected the police argument that the van had a plated train weight of 4,600kg and therefore did not come within the exemption for vehicles not over 3,500kg permissible maximum weight. It allowed the operator's appeal and ordered the police to pay costs.
Peter Small, trading as Ascane Imports of Newcastle upon Tyne, had been convicted of using the outfit without a tachograph on police evidence of the van's plated GTW of 4,600kg.
The High Court was told that a vehicle, including a trailer, with a permissible maximum weight not exceeding 3,500kg was exempt from EC tachograph law. The definition of permissible maximum weight to be used was that in Section 108 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and meant the total of the plated gross weight of the van and the trailer in the case of a drawbar combination.
Allowing the appeal, Mr Justice Wright ruled that Section 108 determined the matter and because the total of the plated gross weights of the van and trailer did not exceed 3,500kg, a tachograph was not required and no offence had been committed. Train weight applied only to articulated vehicles, he said.