According to the report of the Federal Office of Road Transport (BAG), in 2016, 418 thousand trucks were inspected in Germany. More than half were from abroad. The results of the inspection could surprise politicians from Brussels.
The BAG report on road traffic inspections and infringements committed in 2016 is available only at the media request. The publication of statistics from 2015 on the official website of the office caused many emotions in the German transport industry. First of all, it raised the question: how 240 BAG controllers were able to check 511 thousand trucks during one year?
The press office has not addressed this issue yet. Meanwhile, only at the media’s request, BAG provides a handful of information on road traffic inspections in 2016.
German trucks at the head of the infamous BAG statistics
According to the statistics, in 2016 the BAG inspectors checked a total of 418 thousand trucks, including 162 thousand trucks from Germany (38.7 percent) and 256 thousand from abroad (61.3 percent). It turns out, however, that Germans – like a year before – commit more offenses related to work and rest time, driver card and tachographs, than their colleagues from other countries.
The activities of BAG officials in terms of compliance with the Regulation (EC) No. 561/2006 determining the drivers’ work and rest periods, the AETR Convention and Regulation (EC) 3820/85 on the harmonization of certain social legislation relating to road transport resulted in the punishment of 25,641 German truck drivers and 20,905 drivers from other EU Member States. The statistics show that Germans broke the rules more often, although they were less frequently controlled. Punished drivers from abroad constituted only 5 percent of the total number of inspected, while Germans – 6.13 percent.
Work time and breaks
7113 drivers from Germany and 6839 trucks from another EU country were caught on work-related offenses. Germans much more often than foreign colleagues do not comply with the provisions concerning breaks. BAG officers caught a total of 7,180 German truckers on a short break or delayed pickup, while foreign drivers committed such offenses 2857 times.
Rest period
As for the pauses – Germany still dominates over the rest, although here the difference is small: 11,388 offenses (11,209 for foreign truckers).
However, German drivers more often than others do not apply to daily work periods (10 574 offenses in case of German drivers, 9591 violations in the case of truckers from other EU countries), and foreign drivers to weekend ones (1618 offenses in case of foreign drivers and 774 from Germany).
Tachographs
The most surprising, however, are the results of inspections in terms of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3821/85 on recording equipment used in road transport and the AETR Convention. In the course of these activities, the BAG inspectors found as many as 55,501 offenses among drivers of German trucks and almost two thirds less (31,909) among truckers from abroad. It turns out that German drivers use two driver cards much more often than foreign drivers.
Inadequate tachograph service caught 5303 drivers from Germany and 4 687 trucks from outside the country.
Editor’s comment
No wonder the German office did not decide to publish the report discussed above. On one hand, the statistics reveal the hypocrisy of the German authorities introducing protectionist laws aimed at excluding East European „unfair” competition from the market. On the other hand, they show that the anti-dumping actions of Brussels are supported by false arguments which claim that primarily companies from Central and Eastern Europe violate the law.
Violating the rules on drivers’ working time and rest period, as well as tachograph regulations, are an element of social dumping and certainly do not adhere to practices of honest carriers. With whom should the Germans fight? Let the above figures be used for the answer.
Photo: Twitter.com/polizISTmensch