Road site trucks must use tachos
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by Mike Jewell • Vehicles carrying materials, plant and equipment to road maintenance and construction sites must comply with the tachograph regulations, the High Court has ruled.
The decision came out of two cases, one involving an artic carrying a line-marker; the other a six-wheel tipper with a drawbar trailer carrying a road planer.
In the first case, Ringway Group and driver Eric Moss had been acquitted by Dewsbury magistrates of failing to use a tachograph; in the second case, Bruce Cook Road Planing was acquitted by Lincoln magistrates of several tachograph offences. The High Court allowed appeals against both decisions by the Vehicle Inspectorate.
In the Ringway case Lord Justice Bingham rejected arguments that the exemption was not limited to vehicles which were on site carrying out highway maintenance. He said the European Court had indicated the derogation from the regulations for highway maintenance and control vehicles must be strictly interpreted.
The vehicle concerned was not involved in highway maintenance and control, said Bingham, but was hauling a machine to a site where, after unloading, it would have been used for this purpose.
But that stage had not been reached, he added.
In the Bruce Cook case, Mr Justice Maurice Kay said that at the time the tipper lorry was being driven from one site to another it could not have been driven in connection with highway maintenance.