UFO cleared on hours
Page 14
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Dewsbury. based UFO Forwarding and one of the company's drivers were cleared of a series of drivers' hours offences when they appeared before Stroud magistrates.
Driver Adrian Thompson of Huddersfield was charged initially with 16 offences and the company with permitting him to commit them. But most of the offences and permitting allega tions against Thompson were dropped by the prosecution. The alleged offences were committed on the Continent and the court has no jurisdiction to try them.
Thompson pleaded not guilty to two offences of taking insufficient daily rest, one of exceeding the daily driving limit and one of exceeding the fortnightly driving limit. The company denied permitting them.
Questioned by Chris Charlesworth, defending, PC Richard Goddard agreed he had not allowed for rest time to be split when boarding ferries in the first of the alleged daily rest offences He agreed that on both days when daily rest offences were alleged, the chart had been inserted into the tachograph two hours before the traces started. He said the vehicle could have been moved a matter of yards during that time.
Charlesworth argued that there was no evidence of driving in either case for the two hours or so before the traces started.
PC Goddard said Thompson had exceeded the daily driving limit, having driven for 10 hours four minutes. He conceded that Thompson could legitimately have extended his driving period to 10 hours on that day. He also maintained that Thompson had exceeded the fortnightly limit of 90 hours by one hour, seven minutes. He agreed it was impossible to be 100% accurate about where a trace started and stopped.
Charlesworth said EEC tachograph regulations only required a tacho to be accurate to plus or minus two minutes in 24 hours. Thompson allegedly exceeded the fortnightly limit by less than 2%.