Drivers clear on ferry hours
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• A Worcestershire international haulier, together with his company and 16 drivers, have been cleared of charges that they breached the drivers hours and tachograph rules on runs to and from the Continent.
The drivers were accused of failing to record time spent on ferries, of driving excessive hours and of taking insufficient breaks and rest. Blessgold, trading as MJM Freight Services, of Redditch, and its director, Roger Marriott, were accused of per mitting the alleged offences.
But Redditch Magistrates heard that the drivers did not need to record time spent on the ferry because the vehicles were driven on and off the ferries by dock staff (CM 7-13 Nov/1218 Dec 1996).
John Backhouse, defending, argued that there
was no EC requirement for a driver to record the whole of his rest. He said it was routine practice to take the chart out of the tachograph at the end of the working day and to put a new chart in at the start of the next working day, pointing out that the tachograph regulations only applied to the carriage of goods on roads open to the public.
Backhouse maintained that the company could not be said to have been negligent, as it had sought advice from an experienced tachograph consultant. There was nothing to suggest the company knew that what the drivers were doing was illegal, he added.
The magistrates found the defendants not guilty, apart from Alcester-based Robert Sabin, who was convicted of one offence of failing to take a weekly rest period. He was given an absolute discharge.