Police officers were inspecting HGVs on Saturday, 15th October in the harbour of Malmö, Sweden, when found a transport whose documentation seemed to lack some crucial details, reports Swedish trucking news portal tidningenproffs.se.
First of all, after examining the documents, the officers concluded that the driver of the vehicle was carrying out illegal cabotage and therefore a fine of SEK 60,000 (approx 5480 euros) was issued.
Then came the next issue: the driver didn’t have any posted worker documentation. He maintained he must have left the papers in the other vehicle that he had been driving two weeks ago. However, according to the tachograph print-out, the driver had been driving the current HGV for the last 29 days.
This resulted in another fine of SEK 60,000.
Moreover, as the police officers had already been examining the tachograph data, they soon noticed that the driver must have spent his 45-hour break in the cab and failed to enter border crossings on six occasions. Needless to say, these offences also resulted in further penalties.
All in all, the fines added up to SEK 160,500 (approx 14,660 euros). As the haulier couldn’t pay it on Saturday, further travel was forbidden, reports the news portal.
Five days later, both fines and penalty fees were paid in full and the transport could therefore continue.