Got fined in France!, 2385 euros!

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS EURO DRIVING FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
121

surely if you have a longer break than required,daily or weekly i,e if a daily rest was 11hrs and you took 12 hrs could you be prosecuted? if your weekly rest was 24hrs away from base and you took 48hrs because you couldnt drive because of truck bans, as we all know the french and the germans like a weekend ban aswell as the italians and the swiss.again could you be prosecuted for taking more rest daily or weekly than reqd? i dont think so…the only time i,ve heard of somebody getting nicked for hours regs was when you hav,nt taken enough rest over a week, otherwise how would people like the taff who live in there truck for there own reasons get on with nosey people like gendarmes.b a g, vosa, etc.as the old saying goes…it aint right and it aint fair!!

as far as i know the only time anybodys ended up in court is for taking too little rest , not to much

122

sunboy:
surely if you have a longer break than required,daily or weekly i,e if a daily rest was 11hrs and you took 12 hrs could you be prosecuted? if your weekly rest was 24hrs away from base and you took 48hrs because you couldnt drive because of truck bans, as we all know the french and the germans like a weekend ban aswell as the italians and the swiss.again could you be prosecuted for taking more rest daily or weekly than reqd? i dont think so…the only time i,ve heard of somebody getting nicked for hours regs was when you hav,nt taken enough rest over a week, otherwise how would people like the taff who live in there truck for there own reasons get on with nosey people like gendarmes.b a g, vosa, etc.as the old saying goes…it aint right and it aint fair!!

as far as i know the only time anybodys ended up in court is for taking too little rest , not to much

Thats whats been said here. The law as its written is what it is, but its not being enforced to the letter, not yet anyway. I suppose that would be one way of sending the Eastern Europeans back home once in a while instead of them doing months on end of inter-western European work, make them take a 45 hour break at their home base, but in reality its never going to happen, probably for that very reason.

123

robinhood_1984:
I suppose that would be one way of sending the Eastern Europeans back home once in a while instead of them doing months on end of inter-western European work, make them take a 45 hour break at their home base,

Of course there are a large amount of British drivers who cannot get all their work done in 2 weeks over the water as well. What about anyone on long haul work, tramping etc I very rarely got back to the UK in less than 20 days when on the removals and there was no way I would leave my truck to spend my 45 hour break in a hotel, we got rid of digs back in the 70’s and not a bad thing IMHO.

I would love to see a court case where a driver was prosecuted for taking his break of 45 hours, I would bet it would fail because the fact is there is no written regulation saying you “CANNOT” take the break, and on that point the lawyer would win. “your honour, could you please show me the law that says you must take your break away from your truck” I understand you may take “reduced” breaks and pay back owed hours in the truck, including for example a 24 hour plus owed 21 hours totaling 45 hour, but you say I can’t take a normal 45 hours… Please explain why it would be ok as a reduced plus paid back break yet not just a normal 45 hours!!! Itwould be thrown out of court by now I bet.

124

I know its madness but isn’t it the case, in countries like France they adopt an approach of making everything illegal and then saying what is allowed, rather than making everything legal, and then saying what is not allowed. I dont think we’d ever see a case in the UK but with places like France or Belgium, nothing would suprise me.

125

jimti:
I would love to see a court case where a driver was prosecuted for taking his break of 45 hours, I would bet it would fail because the fact is there is no written regulation saying you “CANNOT” take the break, and on that point the lawyer would win.

Once again there is. By defining exactly which breaks can be taken in a vehicle it follows that any not mentioned cannot. That’s the way of laws and regulations, they don’t have to mention everything you cannot do if they define what you can.

I posted this earlier in an attempt to make it easier to understand that not everything has to be mentioned.

On Sunday you go to a carvery for lunch and you have a choice of pork, lamb or beef. There is a sign on the wall saying, ‘If you chose to you may take the pork or lamb free of charge.’ There is no sign saying the beef is not free. Can you legally take the beef free of charge?

That is the same as Article 8 saying daily (pork) and reduced weekly (lamb) rest periods can be taken in the vehicle but not including a paragraph saying that full weekly (beef) cannot, that paragraph is not needed. :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:

jimti:
“your honour, could you please show me the law that says you must take your break away from your truck”

Artilce 8 (8) tells you the rest periods you can take in the vehicle and full weekly isn’t one of them.

jimti:
I understand you may take “reduced” breaks and pay back owed hours in the truck, including for example a 24 hour plus owed 21 hours totaling 45 hour, but you say I can’t take a normal 45 hours… Please explain why it would be ok as a reduced plus paid back break yet not just a normal 45 hours!!!

Because reduced weekly rest periods are allowed to be taken in the vehicle, as per Article 8 (8), and adding compensation to a reduced rest does not turn it into a full rest. Makes no sense but that is the way the regulation was written, for whatever reason. If you take 45 hours this week and part of those 45 hours is compensation then it is a reduced weekly rest and you will require a full rest next week, despite actually having 45 hours rest this week.

126

Maybe there’s a solution to be had here for the eurozone countries,
step 1 publicise it widely that taking a 45 hour rest in a truck is illegal
step 2 start pulling all trucks and asking for their tachos and if they’ve had a weekend rest away from base they have 3 options,

option 1 make all trucks return to base for their 45 hours, the flipflops go home more often and the haulage rates go up for the western european hauliers

option 2 make them stay in hotels and the hotel industry starts to thrive

option 3 start fines at a certain level and increase rapidly for repeat offenders the fines help out the country where the offence ocurred

if you leave your base knowing you won’t be back inside of 2 weeks get the boss to pay for a hotel or the fine :bulb:

127

solution for the eurozone countries? you might have a tough time understanding this but everyone else except the people employed by the haulage industry in the western parts of europe and the people whose livelihood depends on them, eg the reastaurants etc, are all for the crap they buy in their local lidl, tesco, auchan or eroski being a couple of cents cheaper thanks to it being delivered by a cheaper truck with a cheaper driver. the markets were opened for eastern trucks well knowing what would happen.

128

Nothing to stop you sleeping in the trailer :laughing:

Lilo Lill and another bag

129

milodon:
solution for the eurozone countries? you might have a tough time understanding this but everyone else except the people employed by the haulage industry in the western parts of europe and the people whose livelihood depends on them, eg the reastaurants etc, are all for the crap they buy in their local lidl, tesco, auchan or eroski being a couple of cents cheaper thanks to it being delivered by a cheaper truck with a cheaper driver. the markets were opened for eastern trucks well knowing what would happen.

I would happily pay slightly more for my shopping if it meant the plastic russians went back home every now and again instead of robbing the hauliers from western europe of a decent livelihood. I understand the economics of it I just don’t understand why it’s acceptable for poles or slovaks to constantly run for example from spain to the UK and back and never going home.
we’ve had this discussion before so it seems pointless to do it all again as I have bigotted views and you are one of the eastern europeans who see no problem with the system

130

welshboyinspain:
[
I would happily pay slightly more for my shopping if it meant the plastic russians went back home every now and again instead of robbing the hauliers from western europe of a decent livelihood.

as I said, nobody but the western haulers care. so the next time you feel like bringing this up here, go boicott a supermarket or a factory instead.

131

So, what happens if I have a nice long break at home Friday to Monday, pay back everything I owe for the previouse weeks and do 5 days driving and get to where I have to deliver on the next Monday first thing, Can I have a nice relaxing weekend break in my truck without breaking the law or would I be better to have 36 hours off, move the truck 10 feet and then take the rest of the week end off to stay within the law, in other words you can’t have a full break every weekend, and the regulations don’t do as they say in this section

(17) This Regulation aims to improve social conditions for
employees who are covered by it, as well as to improve
general road safety.

As the reason I enjoyed the continental work was because of the social side of the job, new places new people new experiences etc etc, this regulation as you read it does exactly the opposite. And on top of that I would argue the roads would be far safer if all drivers had to take their full weekly rest every week, so it fails on both counts. As someone said Nick Frome would walk all over this as it is so full of holes

132

milodon:

welshboyinspain:
[
I would happily pay slightly more for my shopping if it meant the plastic russians went back home every now and again instead of robbing the hauliers from western europe of a decent livelihood.

as I said, nobody but the western haulers care. so the next time you feel like bringing this up here, go boicott a supermarket or a factory instead.

nobody but the western hauleirs? :unamused: try telling that to the thousands of bar, restaurant and hotel workers now unemployed in spain because of cheaper workers from romania or the construction workers in the UK suffering cheaper competition from the east.
I would go on but I’m sure others are bored of my whinging about the cheap EE’s and the way they affect the livelihoods of the western europeans.
as for bringing this up on here, as long as its within the rules I’ll keep on, unless of course you’re a mod and feel like deleting it milodon, no? thought not

133

milodon:
the markets were opened for eastern trucks well knowing what would happen.

and nearly every normal person on the street was completely against it, but the modern day politburo in Brussels decided to go ahead anyway.
Wait till the EU expands again and those in Poland and CZ can´t get a job because the country has been flooded with cheap Russians and Ukranians

134

Vascoingles:
You can appeal and the fine will be refunded, you do not need a covering letter for weekend breaks they are trying to pull a fast one knowing that most foreigners do not appeal for a refund.

This quote should put paid to any more nonsense from the French about the Attestation Form

Member States are not obliged to require the use of the form in the cases of lack of records, but if a form is required, this standardised form must be recognised valid. However, no form of any type shall be requested concerning ordinary daily or weekly rest periods.

135

Wheel Nut:
This quote should put paid to any more nonsense from the French about the Attestation Form

Member States are not obliged to require the use of the form in the cases of lack of records, but if a form is required, this standardised form must be recognised valid. However, no form of any type shall be requested concerning ordinary daily or weekly rest periods.

The issue is obviously what your friendly gendarme (or ‘inspecteur de travail’ as seems to be more often the case in checks over here) considers to be “ordinary daily or weekly rest”. At our place (TFE) we mostly work four out of seven, and so we get the standard issue Attestation Form for any of our rest days during the week, but nothing for the weekend. This week for example I’m doing Tuesday - Friday so when I picked up my papers/keys I got the attestation for Monday . . . I think it’s just to show the authorities that you’ve not been doing any other work during that time, and that the fact that you’ve countersigned it (required by law) means you’re certifying that this is the case.

That’s just what happens with our firm. I guess that with 1000-plus drivers they know the legal requirements for their home country of operation?

~ Craig

136

I think if anyone carries a copy of this document in France and marks it with a marker pen around this section, it may save them €2385 in future.

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex … 013:FR:PDF
French Version

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex … 013:EN:PDF
English Version

Highlight this section:

Les États membres ne sont pas tenus d’exiger l’utilisation du formulaire en cas d’absence d’enregistrements, mais si un formulaire est exigé, le présent formulaire normalisé doit être reconnu comme valide. Cependant, aucun formulaire d’aucun type que ce soit ne doit être exigé en cas de période ordinaire de repos quotidien ou hebdomadaire.

137

Wheel Nut:
I think if anyone carries a copy of this document in France and marks it with a marker pen around this section, it may save them €2385 in future.

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex … 013:FR:PDF
French Version

eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex … 013:EN:PDF
English Version

Highlight this section:

Les États membres ne sont pas tenus d’exiger l’utilisation du formulaire en cas d’absence d’enregistrements, mais si un formulaire est exigé, le présent formulaire normalisé doit être reconnu comme valide. Cependant, aucun formulaire d’aucun type que ce soit ne doit être exigé en cas de période ordinaire de repos quotidien ou hebdomadaire.

U are absolutely,spot on!!!

Finally,a good and usefull replay!

God bless you!!

138

Could I chip in here. Without checking first ! I’m sure the hrs rules state that a 45 hr break ( or full break ) may be taken at the drivers normal place of work ( home ) if the driver requests such. Surely meaning that if he doesn’t request it he can take the break away from home.
The whole argument to say you can’t take a 45 hr break in a truck is in my opinion flimsy to say the least. Not to mention wholly impracticable in a number of cases.

139

turnip:
Without checking first ! I’m sure the hrs rules state that a 45 hr break ( or full break ) may be taken at the drivers normal place of work ( home ) if the driver requests such.

The regulations don’t say that.

140

I had to ring the enforcement section at VOSA the other day, I got the information I required and at the end of the conversation I remembered this thread. I asked him ‘Can you take a full weekly rest(45 hours) in a truck?’, quick as a flash without thinking he said ‘No you cannot!’. He then went on to say about reduce rests blah blah blah. Simples, it against the law, whether this law is enforced is a different thing.