Exemption made within 50 miles
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The Crown Prosecution Service has dropped a series of charges
alleging tachograph offences against Pontardawe delivery driver Michael Murphy after accepting he was exempt from using a tachograph when driving within 50 miles of his base.
Murphy had been willing to plead guilty to the charges but Llanelli magistrates refused to accept his pleas after he told them that fellow drivers continued to insist that he did not need a tachograph when working within 50 miles of his base.
After a fortnight's adjournment for the CPS to clarify the position, Creighton Harvey, prosecuting. initially insisted the case should proceed. He said there were exemptions for peo pie such as milkmen who made regular stops, but the regulations did not intend to allow a driver to drive long hours and long distances just because he never got away from home.
However fallowing discussions with John Donoghue, defending, Harvey admitted he had misinterpreted the regulations.
Donoghue said the legislation
was so complicated that it had taken two qualified lawyers considerable time to make sense of it. How "Joe Public" was expected to make sense out of it he did not know.
Murphy pleaded guilty to using a vehicle without an 0licence and with a defective tyre. He was fined £400 and ordered to pay 135 prosecution costs.