Widespread cabotage inspections in Germany result in fines totalling €59,000

At the end of September, the Federal Office for Goods Transport (BAG) carried out another major cabotage inspection campaign. On this occasion, the officials managed to catch a number of infringements.

On 29th September and 30th September, the German BAG carried out inspections for compliance with cabotage regulations in a total of 41 locations across the country. The officials focused on freight and logistics centres and shipping companies such as DHL, Hermes, Aldi, ports (in Magdeburg and Trier), as well as the vicinity of manufacturing plants such as Mercedes and Bosch.

During the campaign, which was fronted by 138 employees from the BAG, Germany’s traffic control and toll service, nearly 1,000 vehicles were checked, 933 of which were checked for compliance with the regulations governing cabotage, the office reports. Of these vehicles, a total of 225 carried out cabotage operations and 70 of them were found to be in breach of the rules. During the two-day checks, officers collected a total of €59,000 in fine deposits.

This was by no means the first such inspection, as BAG had already organised similar actions before. This time, however, the scale of the checks was bigger when compared with the August campaign, for example. As announced by BAG, further, intensified checks on cabotage will take place in the coming months.