Dutch freight transport portal Nieuwsblad Transport reported on the odd case, during which the haulier made the data available to the supervision in good faith several times. However, the inspectorate were still dissatisfied with the result.
According to the article, the Dutch inspectorate requested tachograph data for a four-week period from the company in question. The haulier had invested significant money in the appropriate IT infrastructure before the inspection, so the request was fulfilled without any problems (or at least, that was what the haulier thought). The data was automatically downloaded from the tachograph cards and forwarded to the inspector.
The inspector got back to them the same day, saying the data was incomplete.
The company thus invited the supervisor to the site, where they showed him the data on the company’s computer, and then copied it to a USB drive.
After all this, the inspector got back to the company only a few months later, explains Nieuwsblad Transport, stating the company hadn’t provided data for 54 days. As a consequence, the haulier was fined more than €2,000.
The company went to court to clarify the matter, but the judge ruled in favour of the inspectorate. The court ruled that the inspector had carried out a thorough investigation and, according to the analytical software, the data was incomplete, so the fault was on the company’s side.
Solicitor Kevin Vierhout, who wrote the article, did so to draw the attention of carriers. In his opinion, it is not enough for companies to carefully download data from their tachograph cards. If necessary, they should also provide IT assistance to the inspectors in order to avoid high fines.