4V2 hour ruling in June
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• A Crown Court judge has reserved until the end of next week his long awaited interpretation of the European Court's ruling on the 4V2-hour driving rule.
When Judge Simon Fawcus makes his judgement, drivers will know if they can count any break as "rest" which they take in the middle of the day before starting to drive again.
Manchester Crown Court originally referred appeals to the European Court in a drivers' hours test case involving Kevin Charlton, transport manager of Lovers Lane Transport; Lancashire haulier Ray Wilson; and lorry driver James Huyton.
In December, the European Court ruled:
0 That the calculation should begin again where a driver had taken 45 minutes' break; either as a single break, or as several breaks of at least 15 minutes during or at the end of a 4'/hour period; o In this case no account of the driving time and breaks previously completed by the driver would be taken into account; 0 The driving period begins at the moment the driver sets the tachograph in motion and begins driving.
When the hearing of the appeals started on Friday, Judge Fawcus said that the European Ruling "sounded like common sense to me".