Law Lords rule on tipper tacho
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The exemption from tachograph regulations for trucks removing material from working sites does not extend to those carrying plant over long distances to highway maintenance sites.
Last week the House of Lords clarified the law on this point after agreeing with the High Court that that Lincoln magistrates were wrong to acquit Bruce Cook Road Planing of a number of tachograph offences.
The company and a driver had been prosecuted after failing to install a tachograph in a tipper hauling a drawbar trailer carrying a road planer to a highway maintenance site.
For the company, it was argued that the planer was only used for highway maintenance and that the tipper was only used to transport the planer and to remove the material it lifted. Article 4(61 of EC regulation 3820/85 exempts vehicles from the tachograph rules if they are used solely in connection with certain specified jobs, including highway maintenance and control.
However, Lord Slynn of Hadley said the evidence was that the tipper was travelling
from Hemel Hempstead. Hurts to Bardley, Lincs. The prosecution had contended that if it were exempt its operator would gain an unfair competitive advantage against a haulier who was simply contracted to move a planer.
A significant objective of the tachograph legislation was to prevent drivers from driving for too long and becoming fatigued, he added.
Lord Hope of Craighead said some limit had to be set to define "in connection with-.
He highlighted a clear and obvious difference between the movement of vehicles to and from a site in the course of a day's work and the use of vehicles for transporting highway maintenance equipment from one site to another before the work started,