Dealers beware d tacho confusion
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If you are a dealer in goods vehicles, do the drivers of those vehicles need to use tachographs or comply with EU Drivers Hours Regulations when they are being driven unladen on your business?
Oldham Magistrates recently convicted a driver of using a vehicle without complying with the tachograph regulations. The vehicle was unladen and it was being driven for the purposes of the motor dealer, not for the carriage of goods. It is clear that a vehicle is exempt from the tachograph and drivers' hours regulations if it is a new or re-built vehicle which has not yet been put into service, or if it is undergoing a road test following repair or maintenance.
But many journeys are For other purposes, such as taking the vehicle to or from an auction; demonstrating it to a customer; or moving it from one site to another. In these cases the position under the EU regulations is not at all clear.
The Regulations apply to any "carriage by road", defined as any journey made on roads open to the public of a vehicle, whether laden or not, used for the carriage of passengers or goods".
In 1991 the Divisional Court upheld an acquittal on a tachograph offence on the basis that the vehicle concerned was used solely for winching and lifting work, although it had originally been constructed as a goods vehicle.
This implies that the court will examine the use to which the defendant normally puts the vehicle. The position will normally be that a dealer in goods vehicles will never use the goods vehicle for the carriage of goods; only for demonstration purposes. Some support for this view is found in the approach to the private use of goods vehicles. In a Parliamentary answer in 1981, the then Transport Minister, Kenneth Clark, said: "It is strongly arguable that the regulations do not apply to privately owned and driven vehicles. It is very unlikely that any such vehicle would be prosecuted in this country or that any attempted prosecution would be successful."
In a subsequent letter on 19 August 1981 the Department of Transport commented: "Those responsible (in the European Commission) for directing policy have tended to support the view that a regulation aimed at harmonising competition and improving social conditions for employees is nothing to do with the non-commercial sector." The same argument could be made in support of the view that the regulations do not and were never intended to apply to vehicles used in connection a motor dealer's business..
Until the law is clarified, however, motor dealers would be well advised to instruct their employees to use tachographs, except in the clear exemptions listed above. I by Stephen Kirkbright