Recovery confusion
Page 7
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VEHICLE recovery operator Anthony Turner of Sedgefield was given an absolute discharge by the Hebburn-on-Tyne Magistrates on May 24 after admitting unlawfully carrying passengers on a recovery vehicle operating under trade plates.
Evidence was given that the vehicle concerned was a specially designed recovery vehicle with a fiat platform on the back and a passenger carrying compartment. The vehicle had been taking the passengers from a disabled vehicle home after recovering the vehicle and dropping it off at a garage.
For Mr Turner, Stephen Kirkbright produced a letter from the Department of Transport addressed to the Association of Vehicle Recovery Operators which said that consideration was being given to the creation of a special taxation class for recovery vehicles which would bring them outside the scope of the Road Vehicle Licensing Regulations 1979.
Mr Kirkbright said that under the current regulations if the passengers had been carried in the disabled vehicle while it was being towed it would have been legal but because they were carried in a specially designed compartment on the vehicle Mr Turner was breaking the law.