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No tack, for PO

9th February 1985
Page 16
Page 16, 9th February 1985 — No tack, for PO
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Keywords : Horse Driving, Carriage

THE WEST Midland Traffic Area has lost its battle to get the Post Office to fit tachographs to vehicles carrying goods other than mail.

A Birmingham Crown Court judge has ruled that they are not necessary, in allowing appeals by the PO against its conviction by the Birmingham stipendiary magistrate on two charges of using a vehicle without a tachograph. (CM January 26).

The first conviction related to a PO articulated lorry which was empty and on its way to collect pallets from a store after delivering mail.

The second related to an engineering van returning to base empty after delivering ladder racks. The prosecution argued that the words "for the carriage of mail" in the exemption had been inserted deliberately to prevent postal authorities competing with road hauliers.

They claim that mail was the carriage of letters and despatches.

The PO maintains that any item entrusted to it for conveyance from one location to another was "mail". The primary function of the artic was the carriage of mail.

The engineering van had been carrying goods ancillary to the carriage of mail.

Giving judgment to the PO with costs, Judge Wilson Mellor QC said that he did not regard the carriage of pallets out of a PO store as being in competition with road hauliers.

He considered that the engineering department was part of the provision of postal services.

In his view, in both instances, the vehicles concerned had fallen within the exemption. The Department of Transport is not expected to pursue this case any further.


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