Document

The European Shippers Council wishes to bring to your attention the concerns and views held in connection to the revision of the Drivers Hours Regulation 3820/85. European industry depends upon the unparalleled flexibility and cost efficiency of the road transport sector. Our members are firmly of the opinion that the currently proposed amendments will seriously damage that flexibility and efficiency. This will therefore impact upon the transport costs and overall competitiveness of shippers. We would therefore recommend that the Council considers whether industry's interests would not be better served by maintaining the existing regulations as they stand. ESC believes that they would.

ESC is particularly concerned by the following aspects of the planned revision:

Link with working time directive

ESC firmly believes that 3820/85 should not in any respect attempt to regulate working time since this is adequately covered by a separate and independent Directive. The Working Time Directive is health and safety legislation aimed at employers therefore ESC considers that the references to Directive 2002/15 should be deleted.

The definition of “other work” in the revised Commission proposal of Regulation 3820/85 has been linked to the definition of work in the sectoral working time Directive 2002/15/EC. This definition would present problems for double-manned journeys. Currently the second man may take and record a break from driving while required to be on board the vehicle. The proposed definition would not permit this.

Consignee Liability

The European Parliament's proposal to introduce contractual liability for consignors and freight forwarders assumes that individual shippers have in depth knowledge of transport legislation and logistics. The logistics expertise and responsibility for operating within the law should be the sole responsibility of the transport operator. There could be no expectation of due diligence imposed on the consignor as this would not be practicably possible. The value of this proposal is therefore questionable. Again we believe that the Commission's aim to make the regulations easier to enforce, would be compromised.

Scope of regulations

ESC believes that there is no evidence to suggest that vehicles over 2.8 tonnes on international point to point deliveries need to be included. The proposal is both impractical and unenforceable since drivers would cease to be in scope when they have delivered their initial load and could undertake 'cabotage', without the need to comply with 3820/85. Additionally, the concept of international point to point deliveries is unclear, which could lead to further enforcement problems.

Exemptions/derogations

We are deeply disappointed that in its revised proposal the Commission has failed to take account of Parliament and industry's views on the need for exemptions. ESC continues to press for essential services such as gas and electricity, together with certain sensitive products such as milk from farm to dairy, to be exempt. While these services are delivered by the private sector they remain essential public services. ESC believes that the exemptions must be retained and that it would be possible to address concerns expressed by enforcement authorities by amending the current regulation to restrict the exemption to operations within 100 kilometres. Furthermore, ESC regrets that the Commission has not accepted to exclude other driving activities undertaken on excluded vehicles from the calculation of daily driving time. Those vehicles have been exempted for good reasons (eg emergency assistance vehicles) and obliging their rivers to manually register these driving times will amount to a disproportionate administrative burden without contributing to road safety.

Daily driving time

ESC would like to point out that the tachograph can only register driving time when a vehicle is in motion. Therefore it does not make sense to include interruptions in the motion of the vehicle when the driver is still behind the steering wheel.

Daily rest

The proposed increase in daily rest to 12 hours was intended to balance out the removal of compensation for both daily and weekly rest reductions. This argument can no longer be justified since the Commission's revised proposal requires compensation for reductions in weekly rest by the end of the following week. We believe that there is no evidence in road safety terms to support an increase in daily rest requirements, therefore the 11-hour daily rest should be retained.

Weekly driving limit

ESC accepts that imposing a 56 hour weekly driving limit would reflect current daily driving limits over six days. However, the proposal to impose a weekly driving limit is not necessary since the Road Transport Working Time Directive imposes a maximum weekly working limit of 60 hours in any given week. The current 90 hour fortnightly driving limit combined with this 60 hour working limit should be more than adequate to control weekly driving time.

Members inform us that at present alternative transport modes do not offer the flexibility, quality of service or the cost efficiency necessary to support their core transport needs. Until such a time as they do European industry will depend upon the road sector for its economic wellbeing. Moves that damage the ability of that sector to meet industry's requirements - especially in the current European economic climate should be considered seriously ill advised.

I would like to thank you for the consideration that you may give to our views.

Yours sincerely

Ewout Sandker
Policy Manager

For further information contact: Nicolette van der Jagt, Secretary General of the ESC - Brussels 00 322 230 2113