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Road to more haulage regulation
April 2007
Phil Hastings, International Trade Today
UK exporters and importers employing road transport to move their goods across Europe should note that further changes to EU rules covering the hours that commercial vehicle drivers are allowed to be at the wheel are due to take effect this month.
In particular, they should be aware that, under the latest legislation, all parties in the transport chain, including consignors and freight forwarders as well as hauliers, will be required to take responsibility for ensuring the laws governing maximum working hours, required rest breaks, etc, are adhered to in full.
However, in a related development, the UK government has now backtracked on an apparent earlier threat to subject all companies actually operating commercial vehicles to automatic liability and prosecution for any offences committed by their drivers under the new regulations.
The latest EU legislation covering truck drivers’ hours, Regulation 561/2006, is said to be primarily designed to tidy up the previous rules and make them easier to understand and apply. However, the UK Freight Transport Association (FTA) warned that the new legislation, in fact, includes ‘the most significant and substantial changes in the rules which regulate lorry drivers’ time at the wheel, breaks and rest for many years’.
The new EU regulation also makes minor changes to the rules covering the rest periods for multi-manning operations, ie, where a vehicle has two or more drivers, and for rest periods that are interrupted by ferry crossings.
In addition to the specific rules changes, according to the UK Road Haulage Association, the latest EU legislation also highlights the responsibilities of the whole transport chain when it comes to European trucking operations and drivers’ hours/rest periods.
The new regulation recognises that operators can often be put under undue pressure, particularly by consignors and freight forwarders, to agree to impossible schedules that cause them to infringe the rules and this introduces a responsibility of consignors to ensure the regulations are adhered to,’ it said.
Until very recently, it appeared the UK government was set on making truck operators absolutely liable for all offences committed by their drivers under the new EU driving time/rest period rules and, therefore, automatically subject to prosecution.
However, the FTA reported that following strong transport industry complaints, UK Transport Minister Dr Stephen Ladyman had recently confirmed that any such prosecution of a vehicle operator would be subject to an assessment by VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency) of its chances of success.
‘This has removed the threat of automatic prosecution for generally compliant operators, who already have in place systems of control and briefing for drivers,’ claimed the FTA.
Expanding on that point, FTA deputy chief executive James Hookham said VOSA traffic examiners would now have to be certain that the company involved was unlikely to have good control systems in place and had no valid defence before a prosecution went ahead.
‘In other words, the burden of proof has shifted from the operator to the enforcer. That means reputable companies that invest in proper briefing and control system for drivers’ hours should be left alone. They will, of course, need to follow up and challenge drivers over the original infringements but the very act of doing so proves that they are on top of the problem.’
In a separate development, the FTA has also warned UK exporters who take advantage of cheap rates offered by foreign hauliers to transport their goods by road to Continental Europe and beyond to be aware of a potential downside to using such capacity.
‘Transport buyers in the UK are undoubtedly benefiting from the cheap rates offered by these foreign carriers – for both export backloads to Europe and domestic movements in the UK where foreign hauliers have the added benefit of cheap foreign diesel,’ stated the FTA. ‘However, the influx of foreign haulage capacity has introduced a transitory element into the market, which UK transport buyers must avoid being beguiled by.’
DISRUPTION WARNING
UK importers, exporters and freight forwarders could suffer major disruption to their international trading activities when the country’s HM Revenue and Customs (HMR&C) switches over to a new Customs entry system on July 1.
That is the view of Peter MacSwiney, chairman of Agency Sector Management (UK), speaking during a recent conference held at the freight industry software organisation’s London Heathrow headquarters.
He warned that current plans to implement new regulations based on the EU’s harmonised SAD (Single Administrative Document) could ‘lead to a disaster’ as forwarders and their staff grappled with completely unfamiliar Customs declarations and largely untested software.
In the light of that possible scenario, MacSwiney urged HMR&C to adopt a phased approach, ‘migrating communities to the new system when they were satisfied the new software was working properly and that staff had been properly trained and familiarised with the new procedures’.
MacSwiney added that forwarders might have to demand much more precise information from shippers, possibly at an earlier stage of the shipping process, than was currently the case.
ASM explained that the new harmonised SAD (SADH) was a precursor to allowing declaration data to be passed between the computer systems of EU member states. ‘It includes numerous new data elements and codes and item-level manifest information, all of which could involve more manpower to input the required information.’
ASM added that the UK was, in fact, somewhat behind the rest of the EU in implementing SADH, ironically because it already had the most sophisticated Customs IT systems. ‘This has made the task of integrating the new requirements much more complex than in countries where such systems were rudimentary or nonexistent.’
