English truck drivers face ban on in-cab smoking
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English drivers will be banned from smoking in their cabs next year, but owner-drivers may be exempt. David Harris reports.
MOST TRUCK drivers in England will be banned from smoking in cabs fromitily 200.the government confirmed last week. The ban is similar to those already operating in Scotland and the Irish Republic, and to those proposed for Wales and Northern Ireland.
The draft legislation for the English ban has yet to be finalised by Parliament, but one of the few possible exceptions to the ban as it stands affects owner-drivers who are the only users of their trucks.
The draft rules say smoking[is] permitted in vehicles for the sole use of the driver and not used as a workplace by anyone else, either as a driver or passenger".The only other exception is for drivers of convertible vehicles when they are open, which means drivers of convertible company cars may smoke when the top is down, Joan Williams, head of road freight policy and enforcement at the Freight Transport Association, is based in Scotland: she says the existing ban there has not caused much grumbling.
"What we have found is that many Scottish haulage companies already had no-smoking policies in place, so there was no real change.' Williams explains.
However, she adds that the interpretation of the Scottish rules had meant that ownerdrivers were also regarded as being covered by the ban: "If that is not the case in England it underlines the fact that we have four different pieces of legislation 'England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland] applying in different countries."