The European Labour Authority coordinated a week of joint inspections held in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. A total of 564 freight and passenger vehicles were checked, resulting in the detection of 774 infringements. About one third of the vehicles and drivers ended up with a “clean” check, i.e. no infringement identified.
Infringements related mostly to driving and resting time, tachograph offences (tachograph manipulation, driving without a driver card, tachograph calibration, etc.), missing documents (e.g. a community license), undeclared or underdeclared work. The uncovered infringements against road transport regulations resulted in total fines of more than EUR 210,000. Some cases may require further investigations.
During one of the joint inspections, Austrian authorities, supported by colleagues from Croatia, Germany and Slovenia, checked 47 buses engaged in cross-border passenger transport. Some of these coaches were carrying children on school trips. The enforcement officers discovered serious violations of driving and resting times as drivers were driving a lot longer than allowed. Nine of the bus drivers were involved in tachograph manipulation. Thirteen buses were in such a technically bad condition that they were not allowed to continue, and the license plates were confiscated.
The ELA week of action in road transport in numbers:
- 564 vehicles checked;
- 774 infringements identified[1];
- over EUR 210,000 fines in total;
- 194 “clean” checks[2];
- 263 local enforcement officers involved;
- 21 different Member States involved in total;
- 66 visiting inspectors from other Member States as well as 15 ELA staff participated.
A total of 263 inspectors from transport, police, labour and other national authorities joined forces with visiting inspectors from 10 Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, France, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal and Slovenia. ELA will continue to support and coordinate joint road transport inspections, with the aim of strengthening efforts to promote fair working conditions and road safety in this highly transnational economic sector.
[1] There could be one to more infringements related to a particular vehicle.
[2] Number of “clean” checks provided by 8 Member States; the methodology of “clean” checks may differ among Member States.
