Spot-checks on Ml
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OVER 100 lorries and their drivers were subjected to a spotcheck of records on Wednesday last week at Scratchwood service area on the Ml.
Traffic examiners from the Metropolitan Traffic Area's north-west sector based at Stanmore spent three hours at Scratchwood in what they describe as a "routine exercise", concentrating on records and hours offences by examining tachograph charts.
Drivers were asked to produce their current chart, and, as required by law, their previous two days' charts.
The traffic examiners were looking for signs of falsification, hours offences and the incorrect use of tachographs. They also checked operator's licence discs, tax discs and trailer test certificates.
The worst case encountered was a fruit and vegetable merchant's lorry. Its driver had merely been inserting a chart into the tachograph but not operating the mode switch or completing the centre field.
The examiners confisticated the charts and made out a report that would be followed up by the examiners in the operator's traffic area.
The driver had drawn attention to himself by attempting to make a U-turn when he saw the spot-check in the Scratchwood lorry park.
Two cases of lorries failing to display 0-licence discs were also noted. Records would be checked to see if the operators had 0-licences.
The examiners made the point that it is often difficult to check the 0-licence discs because the typing on them fades so quickly; on one X-registered lorry the disc was totally blank.
One trailer had no test certificate while another had one that did not agree with the trailer's plate. British Telecom vehicles are exempt from tachographs and their drivers use log books and comply with the more generous domestic hours regula tions.
A BT trunker driver stopped was found to have filled in his log-book in advance.
Few Continental lorries pulled into Scratchwood but those that did were subjected to the same check and had their CMR international consignment note inspected.
The roadside checks have an educational and preventive role too, said the examiners. Minor offences such as forgetting to operate the mode switch or using the wrong pattern of charts were pointed out but no action was taken.