The Dutch are beginning to enforce the ban on spending the weekly rest in the truck cabin. The Dutch services will not however conduct controls on private car parks. The local inspection denies the rumours on this subject.
Right after the Court of Justice of the European Union announced the sentence confirming that the fines for sleeping in a truck’s cabin are legal, the Dutch Inspectorate of Natural Environment and Transport (JLT) informed that it started controls over that matter.
However, by the end of January the Dutch will have been leading the information campaign, because many drivers – also from abroad – are not aware of the consequences of violating the ban. In the Netherlands spending the 45-hour break in the cabin can be fined with 1.500 EUR fine.
Controls even on private car parks?
Last Tuesday Rijnmond, the Dutch TV station, informed about the alleged ILT controls on private car parks. However, the Inspection denies this information, as reported by the portal TTM.nl.
We never gave such information. We have no intention of conducting controls of the said ban on private car parks. The ban on spending the mandatory weekly rest in the cabin applies to spending it in the vehicle itself. Therefore, in general it does not matter where the vehicle is located. However, ILT is not going to control private car parks. We will be glad that drivers are resting. The only thing is that they must do it outside their vehicles – said the spokesman of the inspection.
– In terms of controls, we will focus on the car parks on which trucks can cause inconvenience to other users or can cause harm due to a large number of them – said the representative of ILT.
Usefull apps
TransParking is a free app which shows you nearest parkings for trucks. The app shows vacant spots and allows for reporting their occupancy. You can plan your route finding truck parking on the route or at a given distance from a selected location. In the app you have an access to parkings in Europe with descriptions of available facilities (such as shower, toilet, wifi) and securities (security service, CCTV).
The TransParking community creates the app database on an ongoing basis, using new car parks, commenting on the existing ones and rating them. For each actions the users receive points and compete in the driver ranking.
