ROADPOL says the results of its latest Truck&Bus Operation show that truck speeding continues to be a chronic problem on Europe’s roads.
During the operation, 187,308 trucks were checked. From that number, the following violations were detected:
- 8,948 speeding offences
- 2,422 technical offences
- 3,187 truckers who didn’t wear a seatbelt or violated other safety rules
- 5,566 drivers’ hours rules offences
- 4,398 tachograph offences, including 359 tachograph manipulations
- 146 drink-driving offences
- 22 drug-driving offences
- 1,319 overweight offences
- 186 dangerous goods offences
Although the number of tachograph offences was lower than many of the other violations on the list above, ROADPOL remains concerned about tachograph crime being on an upward trend. Commenting on the situation, ROAPDOL Operational Group Secretary Henk Jansen said:
Fumbling with the settings of the tachograph or even manipulating those takes on larger forms every year. The reason for this type of fraud might be the continual competitive pressure in this still-growing industry. The financial benefits for transporters may be large, but the risks for road safety are greater.
The overall violation rate was 20,18% for freight transport. According to Jansen, this shows that further action is required:
This shows that freight traffic represents a major risk to road safety and that monitoring is still necessary. European police officers have a very high standard of training in heavy traffic controls, which is reflected in the high complaint rate. Collisions involving goods vehicles usually have particularly serious consequences for the driver, but mostly even more for other road users. The main causes for these serious collisions (speed, insufficient load securing, driver fatigue and technical defects of the vehicles) are to be counteracted by checks on goods traffic.
Jansen adds that the results also show that further inspections are necessary:
The result of the control week shows that inspections in the area of heavy goods traffic and passenger transport are still an important approach to improve traffic safety. In addition to the punishment of violations, the drivers are informed by clarifying discussions on the dangers such as insufficient securing of load, putting on seat belt or fatigue due to exceeding of driving times. But also the constantly increasing problem of distraction at the wheel by e.g. use of mobile phones or other electronic devices should be countered during these checks.
Photo credit: mvr.bg
