London: The Department of Transport has set out its opinion as to whether refuse collection vehicles (RCVs)should be subject to new tachograph regulations or not.
Most drivers of large commercial vehicles are subject to the EU drivers' hours rules. The rules limit continuous driving time and require drivers to take minimum breaks and rest periods.
This is an important health and safety requirement as it improves road safety by helping to reduce the risks of drivers becoming involved in fatigue-related accidents.
Vehicles subject to the EU drivers' hours rules have to be fitted with a tachograph, to record drivers' activities.
Jim Fitzpatrick, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, said in a written answer to the House of Commons:
“Vehicles used in connection with door-to-door household refuse collection and disposal are exempt from the EU drivers' hours and tachograph rules provided they are operated by, or under contract to, a public authority.”
The difficulty here is that the exemption refers to household refuse collection specifically and, on the face of it, not to the commercial collections that many Councils also make as part of their collection rounds.
Expressing the Department of Transport’s opinion, the Minister said that such household refuse collection operations primarily involve door to door collection of waste from households or commercial premises and the collection of street cleansing waste. Effectively the transport activity is subsidiary to the collection of refuse.
Mr Fitzpatrick continued saying that the waste collected from commercial premises as part of this activity (for the exemption to apply), must be similar to or of the same kind as that collected from households and must also be collected on a door to door basis. The commercial waste element must also not be subject to any “special collection regime or special rules” and must be collected in the same vehicles.
Mr Fitzpatrick concluded:
“Such operations might involve longer aggregate journeys where there are a number of stops, particularly in rural areas, but such journeys should not normally exceed a radius of 50 kilometres from the place where a vehicle is normally based.”
The written answer was in response to a question from Mr Eric Pickles, Conservative MP for Brentwood and Ongar who is Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary.
Further information
There is a specific national derogation from the EU driving time rules for door to door household refuse collection and disposal which is implemented by Regulation 2(1)(a) and paragraph 8 of Part 1 of the Schedule of the 2007 Regulations. Regulation 4(1) of the 2007 Regulations exempts these vehicles from the requirement to have a tachograph.
A copy of The Community Drivers' Hours and Recording Equipment Regulations 2007 (2007 No. 1819) can be found on the OPSI web site.
[Source: This article is adapted from an entry in Commons Hansard – Written Answers, 7 January, 2008, Column 9W/10W]