mickyblue:
We are talking about stopping on a Motorway not an A road.
Exactly. And as I said, being stopped on the top of the slip road, in the service vehicles layby etc., altough technically on Motorway, is safer than being stopped in the shallow lay-by on the A-road, 10 cm from the trucks steaming at full spead. Altough the latter is legal, and the first one isn’t.
Carryfast:
Which part of you can’t stop on a motorway because you’ve run out of driving time don’t you understand.
When police arrives, you are already stopped. And then it’s as I described
Carryfast:
Which part of you can’t stop on a motorway because you’ve run out of driving time don’t you understand.
When police arrives, you are already stopped. And then it’s as I described
In which case it’s then as I’ve described the driver ‘should be’ arrested and charged with dangerous driving and the truck is towed away with a wrecker and stored at the operator’s expense with the wagon held until payment is recieved.
orys:
That depends. I can’t see what risk can cause for example when someone stopps at the very beginning of the hard shoulder right at the top of entry slip road. Police does that, incident support vehicles do that, gritters do that… I do that sometimes when I need to answer mobile and there is nowhere to stop. ?
I did this many many years ago, when the cab phone still had a twirly cord attaching it the dash board, and we were still pointing guns at you accross the newly reunified Germany. M4 at Swindon either gate 15 or 16 I cant remember the exact location, it was around 10pm stopped at the top off slip road, giving direction to a mate who wanted to park outside a job I knew well, bang on the door Old Bill, I got a rollicking, no points or anything like that, but he wanted me gone and gone straight away. Their veiw your call can wait til you get to a properly suitable place to answer, such as the next services.
I dont think they’d give you a rollicking now, when a ticket will get them a nice little earner
Do the trucks that park on UK hard shoulders also park on French, Belgian, Dutch or German etc hard shoulders?
After all the same circumstances would arise, they also have traffic, the Police will not differentiate between a driving time offence on a British Motorway or a foreign road.
I don’t think you’ll find many trucks parked on foreign hard shoulders, which brings me back to my original view, they do it because they can get away with it.
newmercman:
Do the trucks that park on UK hard shoulders also park on French hard shoulders?
They don’t because they don’t need to. Every 10 Kilometres there are rest areas with plenty of parking. If anything they come here and are surprised and caught out when they find that things are not the same in the UK.
Good point, but in my hypothetical situation where they hit traffic when they’re short of time, they don’t just abandon it on the hard shoulder, they can’t all have the time to make a rest area legally.
It’s a load of ■■■■■■■■ to say that the driver run out of time and had to stop on the hard shoulder. Any one driving in Europe has to abide by the laws of the taco and country that they are operating in.
You can’t say that you can drive south in France on a Sunday just because your from Britain, the French law says you can’t and that’s that end of, you’er going to get booked if you do.
It’s no surprise when your driving time is over and anyone with a brain big enough to drive a truck will know 12 hours before hand when their time is going to run out, so you allow for that and park up safely before it happens.
Many drivers from many countries have had to pay massive fines or gone to jail for things they have done wrong. If you’re caught in Italy and can’t pay you stand until you do. I’ve seen Iranian trucks parked up in northern Italy and Germany for days and I don’t think they had the kind of money on hand to pay for stuff like that. If the company thinks the driver is responsible then he has to pay. Nothing to do with personal circumstances at all. Park the truck up and jail the driver if you have to.
You don’t get them taking the ■■■■ on mainland Europe, and I’m sure interpreters could easily be found if the police could be bothered.
We used to get pulled in the old Eastern block and if there was any kind of misunderstanding the cop would get his mates and they would all pull out their guns and shout at you. If it went bad from there it was of to jail until someone from the British embassy arrived. ( soon, maybe tomorrow, may next week )The word soon went down the line so most folk did what was expected.
British justice is to touchy feely on that kind of thing, you just have to watch programs like Customs to see whats going on.
As far as I remember one of the big corner stones in the British justice system it that Ignorance is No Excuse !!!
( It would be interesting to see a British cop at knocking of time with 60 packets of Marlboro in the back of his car )
newmercman:
Good point, but in my hypothetical situation where they hit traffic when they’re short of time, they don’t just abandon it on the hard shoulder, they can’t all have the time to make a rest area legally.
If the parkings are every few kms, they can drag it over that 10-15 minutes that will take them to the nearest parking lot even in very heavy traffic jam.
But I would say that if they have nowhere to park: yes, they do. Go to Holland next to the German border when there is truck ban in Germany… Or try to find a parking space at night on A2 or A4 in Germany… When there is not enough parking space, people park on the slip roads, coach parks, car parks, disabled parking spaces, on the grass - everywhere. If you have to stop, you stop.
Having just come around part of the rocade at Bordeaux I’ve seen three trucks parked up on the hard shoulder, with apparently no worries from M Le Gendarme. Interestingly I’m sat 20 minutes away in the Aire des Landes and it’s virtually deserted (bank holiday tomorrow of course) so clearly there’s no legitimate reason to be stopped on the side of one of France’s busiest ring roads, they simply know they can get away with it, and it’s not only a UK related problem.
Tuesday morning on the M180 twixt Killingholme and Donny services I saw 3 trucks stopped on the hard shoulder at various intervals, 2 Brits and 1 Cloggy.
In each case North Lincolnshire’s finest were all over them like a rash with flashing blues.
Do the trucks that park on UK hard shoulders also park on French, Belgian, Dutch or German etc hard shoulders?
After all the same circumstances would arise, they also have traffic, the Police will not differentiate between a driving time offence on a British Motorway or a foreign road.
I don’t think you’ll find many trucks parked on foreign hard shoulders, which brings me back to my original view, they do it because they can get away with it.
But they do, it happens less then in the Uk, but they do.
Like Heraultais said, because on the continent there are more ( free) parkings available, but like on Brussels ring road, where congestion is heavy and parking is less available, you see them parked up taking a 30 or 45 minute break, similar on the A 86 around Paris.
If you travel the A 10 between poitiers and Bordeaux, you see Spanish and Portugese drivers take a break or even a rest period in the emergency lay by’s.
Its simply a case of drivers being forced in to a position of being between a rock and a hard place by the law which in many cases does not allow for deviation from robotic perfection. If you’re out of time because of chronic delays on the M25 or Brussels etc and you know that an infringement will result and a zealot in one European country or another will have absolutely no hesitation to issue you with an astronomical fine / deposit then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why they choose an option where there is every chance of getting away with it. We’d all consider the same thing if we were in their boat and I’ve seen plenty of British trucks doing similar things for the same reason. As always its the law thats an ■■■ and how that law is being enforced in some countries thats causing this terror and panic amongst the driving work force thats making them put the tacho before all common sense and reason.
newmercman:
They are between a rock and a hard place alright, but not because of driving hour’s law, it’s the way they interpret the laws that causes the problem!
They have up to 15hrs to plan their day from when they start, they obviously don’t!
I guess your day always goes like planned? Good for you, can you share with us on which planet you are involved with transport?
It doesn’t take a higher than normal IQ to work out that you will have to stop driving at some point. During the day’s driving it can fail to escape even the stupidest person’s attention that parking spots are hard to come by, so a little bit of thought may be required before 8/9hrs 59minutes driving time.
I may have a log book now, but 20yrs of tachographs preceeded that and I sat in more than my fair share of traffic, got held up at delivery/collections etc, yet I still managed to avoid ‘having’ to park on the hard shoulder
Maybe that does, in your eyes, make me a bit special, but then I look for reasons not to behave badly, rather than for excuses for my bad behaviour
Unless you pre-plan each and every time you’re due to go around or through a major city to stop driving 2 or more hours short of your time, which in my opinion is not economically viable, especially on long haul trips where such cutting short of hours could lose you almost a day a week then you cannot plan for accidents on the M25 that see you stuck there for hours while the clock ticks. If they really were idiots like you’re insinuating and were all driving up until 8.59 then we’d have hundreds and thousands of them doing it in the UK every night, but we don’t, we have a dozen or so and it just so happens that folk on here happen upon them many hours after the event when the road is free flowing and can’t fathom why they’re there. Besides, where the hell are they supposed to park ex Dover within even 4 hours of getting off the ferry that doesn’t cost more than a days wages? Its all well and good preaching down on them when you work for a UK firm that pays parking or drive in North America where 99% of truckstops are free and plentiful but if every Flying J, TA and all other truckstops started charging $30 per night, every industrial estate for 20 miles around was a tow away zone and companies refused to pay for parking, we’d all be in the same boat, especially with elogs. The drivers are not the problem, the situation they’re in is the real issue.
