Parking difficulties result in £645 fine A DRIVER who said
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he -defied anybody to understand tachograph legislation" must pay £645 in fines and costs after he falsified tachograph charts when he could find nowhere to park.
John Ervine of Exeter Road, Wallasey, admitted three offences of falsification when he appeared before the Wirral Magistrates Prosecuting for VOSA, John Heaton said in December a traffic examiner had observed an artic belonging to NLC Transport, and driven by Ervine. enter the gatehouse at 12 Quays, Birkenhead. Analysis of the tachograph charts produced by Ervine and subsequently by NEC Transport revealed discrepancies of 4.7km, 6km and 16km between the odometer readings and the distance traces. In one of the instances the traffic examiner suspected that Ervine had "tipped off the card" at TNT at Corby. Ervine said the other two instances related to driving in the docks without a card in the tachograph and that as far as he knew it was legal to do that on private property.
Ervine said as a lorry driver it was his job to get from A to B, but he had to contend with the police, the Ministry, the lorry and traffic. There was nowhere to park at TNT, he had been unable to stay and he had pulled out to the first lay-by. He knew the basics of the drivers' hours rules, but he defied anybody to really understand the tachograph legislation. A handbook stated the law on one page and then contradicted itself on the next page.
"You needed to be a solicitor and then a lorry driver to understand the rules," he said.