PO not exempt
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THE ROAD Haulage Association's campaign to end the Post Office's exemption from tachograph rules for parcels work may be extended after a test court case last week.
A Birmingham stipendiary magistrate convicted the Post Office on two charges of using a vehicle without a tachograph, and prompted the RHA to consider stepping up its campaign to the Government to bring PO vehicles into line with those run by hauliers.
Peter Wiseman, prosecuting for the West Midland Traffic Area, said the Post Office relied on the exemption from the tachograph regulations.
Traffic examiner John Green said he had twice stopped a Post Office artic and a van; the artic was empty and the driver told him that he was going to collect pallets, while the van driver said he had been carrying ladder racks.
The van driver, Bernard Bourne, told the court that the van had not carried mail that day but goods essential in the provision of postal services.
Peter McVicar, the artic driver, said he had carried mail — parcels — earlier that day.
Peter Smith, chief motor transport officer, said the Post Office had never had any instructions from the Government to fit tachographs.
Mr Vaughan argued it was making a nonsense of the law to say that if a vehicle was not at a given moment carrying mail, it needed a tachograph. The 1953 Post Office Act defined "mail" as including every conveyance used in the carriage of mail, and any person so employed. The artic was plainly a mail carrying vehicle and the driver himself was "mail" for the purpose of the law.
The vehicles exempted from the tachograph regulations were vehicles used as arms or semiarms of government and it was for individual governments to regulate them and not the EEC.
Mr Wiseman argued that the exemption placed a positive limitation on the Post Office and it was clear that the vehicles concerned fell outside the scope of the exemption.
Giving the Post Office an absolute discharge from each offence, Mr Probert said that the wording of the exemption had to be taken literally.
MERSEY TUNNEL tolls are to be discussed by Merseyside County Council's Transport Committee next month.