This comes down to what is called prima facie evidence so the police have to prove that you will in fact intend to drive at the time but they can’t as the tachograph rules state you can’t drive for a 24 or 45 hour period for a weekly rest.
This is similar to a car driver that has too much booze and sleeps it off in the back seat as does not want to wake up the household after a session at the pub, with the keys in the ignition on public land it could be a problem, but gone are the days of the friendly local Bobby who could use discretion and turn a blind eye.
To prove that you may be over the limit at the end of the weekly rest period the police will need to use a scientific expert or a laboratory to calculate how much alcohol will be in the system when they assume you will be driving, these cases are difficult to prove then there is the hip flask defence which means at the time of the alleged offence the alcohol limit was below the prescribed limit but after crashing the car and you get home and later on you have a drink and are now over the prescribed limit.
Body mass, age and ■■■ all affect how everyone is different in how the body and the liver gets rid of alcohol.
An important fact is if the truck stop is private land there is no case to answer in the eyes of the law, on public property and roads is a different matter and they can prosecute.
There are no generators to power up devices and equipment in the lorry, if the truck battery is going flat you will need to run the engine on idle to power them up again.
Sleeping in the cab in the winter the night heater runs independently from the engine and costs pennies per night in diesel to run it,I have heard of unscrupulous bosses tell drivers not to use them to save money.
To get back on the subject the two offences in discussion are being over the prescribed limit for driving while being in charge of a vehicle, you are not driving and it’s private land so no problem, the second offence of being drunk in charge of a vehicle, they can’t prove you will be but the CPS would still argue over the key issue and try it on and ignore the fact that the truck and driver is not going anywhere for 24 or 45 hours later but could only do this if it was public land.
In Europe you can no longer live in the cab on a 45 hour weekly rest period, the employer must book you in to accommodation, if you are caught later and can’t provide evidence that you stayed in a hotel they will fine the driver and the employer, a receipt will suffice as evidence or they will carry out random checks on stationary vehicles and bang hard on the door to check if anyone is inside the cab.
A television documentary about the police showed them trying to prove a foreign driver was over the limit while he was disembarking a cross channel ferry to Portsmouth, the driver came off the ship to start his weekly or daily rest in the port in the days when you could park there but no more, and inside the cab was a half full bottle of Cognac or whiskey, they could not prove he was over the limit when driving off the ship but he was when they found him in the cab, resulting in no charges.
I was in Rugby truck stop over night and there was almighty raucous situation going on, an extremely drunk Polish driver who couldn’t speak or walk tried to drive his truck out of the barrier where you exit, the security man grabbed his keys and the police arrived, he was told to sleep it off and no further action, not even breathalysed but they did call his employer who no doubt gave him grief for giving the company a bad name.
If you collect goods from the gas,fuel or oil refineries in France the office staff test every driver for booze and if over the limit they are told to park up for 9 hours, the Gendarmerie are not called.
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‘Moving on/Nolans’…I see what you did there.