Manual entries on tacho discs
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A defect in the tachograph of one of my trucks meant that distance was not being recorded. When police examined the record sheets they said the driver should have been entering the distance manually on the sheets.
I have since received three summonses for days when the defect was present. The charges are under Article 16 of EC Regulation 3820/85. I do not know how a driver can enter distance on a tachograph record when he does not know how far he has driven.
What do you advise?
We advise you to defend the charges because Article 16 of the EC Regulation is not enforceable in a court.
The EC tachograph law is applied in Great Britain by Section 97 of the Transport Act 1968. The part which requires tachograph records to be kept is subsection (1)(a)(iii) but it refers only to compliance with Articles 13 to 15 of the EC Regulation.
Because Article 16 is not enforceable under Section 97 it is not an offence not to keep manual records when the tachograph is broken. The only place Article 16 is referred to is in Section 97(3) which provides a defence to a charge of using a vehicle when the tachograph is not in working order.
It states that a person will not be convicted of an offence relating to the installation of a tachograph by reason of it not being in working order if he proves to the court that it had not become reasonably practicable for the equipment to be repaired and Article 16(2) — which deals with manual entries on records sheets — was being complied with.
Consequently, the only occasion a written record has to be kept is if a person wishes to rely on the defence in Section 97(3).
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