Checks on Trucks and Buses This Week

From October 10 to 16, 2022, the “Truck & Bus” campaign returns, organised by the European road police cooperation network Roadpol, with the fourth and last appointment of the year, aimed at raising road safety standards.

In the controls, which will be carried out on both trucks and buses, all EU countries will participate (with the exception of Greece and Slovakia, in addition to Switzerland, Serbia and Turkey and as an observer the Emirate of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates).

In each country, the controls will be carried out by personnel from the agents and the traffic police and from the regional and local police, whose objective will be to verify compliance with the regulations on vehicles with national and foreign licence plates. The controls will focus on compliance with speed limits, the legislation on the transport of dangerous goods and all the requirements of national and community legislation, driving and rest times, and special attention will be paid to the psychophysical state of the drivers; The cargo and accompanying documents of the goods will also be controlled.

During the previous Truck & Bus campaigns during the months of June and July, in nineteen European countries, the agents stopped 427,105 industrial vehicles, in which they detected 102,283 infractions, which represents an average of one out of every four controlled vehicles. Of these, 2,221 were serious offences for which they were immediately prohibited from continuing the trip. “Most of the violations detected in industrial vehicles are related to speed, vehicle condition, driving and rest time regulations and tachograph settings,” explained Roadpol Operations Group Secretary Henk P. Jensen, from the Dutch police.

Specifically, 12,588 drivers did not respect the statutory driving breaks and in 11,662 cases the drivers did not use the tachograph correctly. As a result of the inspections, 545 vehicles between trucks and buses were detected in which the tachograph had been manipulated. For Henk P. Jensen: «Every year, the tachograph settings or even its manipulation take on more sophisticated forms. The reason for this type of fraud could be sustained competitive pressure in this ever-growing industry. The financial benefits to carriers can be great, but the risks to road safety are greater. Especially due to driver fatigue, incidents can occur with serious consequences.