Photo: Jose Mesa / Flickr / CC BY 2.0

Hauliers in Canary Islands organise strike to demand tachograph relaxations

Hauliers based in the Canary Islands are to go on strike on Monday in order to secure relaxations and/or exemptions to European Union tachograph rules.

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Details of the strike were published by Fenadismer, Spain’s main haulage association, on Tuesday.

As Canary Islands radio channel and TV station RTCV reports, following protests by hauliers in November, the regional government in the Canary Islands had agreed to talk to the road transport industry about relaxations. However, the talks have not yet materialised.

The reason for the exemption and/or relaxation, argue local hauliers, is the “insular peculiarity” of Canary Islands.

The road transport firms taking part in the action warn that the strike will “foreseeably paralyze the ports on all the islands”

In theory, tachograph rules have applied in the Canary Islands since 2010. However, it is said that EU law does allow for tachograph exemptions on islands with a surface area of ​​less than 2,300 square kilometres. This means that all Spanish islands apart from Mallorca could take advantage of the exemption.

It this possibility that hauliers in the Canary Islands want the regional government to utilise.

Fenadismer has argued that the islands are so small that drivers will almost never be in danger of driving too many hours. It thus argues that the use of tachographs in the Canary Islands merely introduces a bureaucratic burden for local hauliers to deal with, and does not improve road safety.


Photo: Jose Mesa / Flickr / CC BY 2.0