A friend off mine was caught not using a tacho from muskahm A1 to bradford, nows hes recieved a date for court and says somewere on the statement he recieved somert about a level 5 fine?
anyone know what that is? or what likely will be the outcome for him?
http://www.cjsonline.gov.uk/offender/community_sentencing/fine/index.html
Yep have a read hope his bank account of the large variety and running bent earnt some extra coffers to pay the fine!
Hi Killer100,
Fines in the UK are set to the “Standard Scale” which are numbered from 1 -5.
For level 5 as according to the criminal justice act 1982 (c.48) a level 5 fine is £5,000 sterling.
However I believe that “Level 5” on its own in English law translates to the maximum penalty available for that offence, so if the offence itself carries a higher penalty then it would be the maximum possible penalty (and endorsements) for the tacho offence…
At least that is how I understand it, I’m not sure sure what the penalties are exactly with relation to running without a tacho.
Alex
Serves him right killer100, He knows the law like the rest of us, maybe he will think twice about doing it again 
Yes you are correct on that one stevie.c, I told him loadsa times to stop it.
Hope that he has got alternative career plans. It does serve him right though he knows or should know the law. At the end of the day he can’t really complain what the sentence will be.
Please remember to let us know how he got on.
I will let you know of the outcome 
Thats a lot of miles to run without a card in, they will proberbly give him a max fine. Is that cos he was out of hours and wanted to get home?
Killer100, from what I can ascertain from “The DSA guide to driving goods vehicles”
and the DFT Compliance website:
- What are the penalties?
There is a maximum fine of £2,500 for breach of the drivers’ hours rules, and a maximum fine of up to 2 years imprisonment/£5,000 for failing to use or install a Tachograph
You’ll have to hope, for his sake, that its only the fine he gets!
However much we might not like our hours being restricted, they are there at the end of the day to keep us, and other road users safe.
Of course I appreciate you don’t approve of your mates actions and were only asking the question
Alex
After conviction, or should I say if he is convicted, there is a fair chance the TC will be relieving him of his LGV licence for a while. That could make earning the money to pay the fine a bit of a problem.
Oh dear killer100, It’s not looking too good for your mate. 
The level five stuff that been put up so far is correct as far as I understand it too.
As pointed out, the possible fine is a maximum of £5,000, but it will depend on what “form” a person has. The Court usually takes a person’s income into account too as well as whose idea it was to commit the offence.
This process is quite complicated, as a lot of different factors are weighed-up, and it’s done on a case by case basis, so might not turn out to be as bad as we first think.
However, that’s nowhere near the end of it I’m afraid.
The stuff that happens to the driver in a court is one thing, but don’t forget that there’s the possibility of a penalty of some kind against the owner of the vehicle AS WELL.
(That depends on what, if anything, the police / VOSA can dig up.)
Then there’s the separate question of what the Traffic Commissioner (TC) might do after the court hearing, since TCs have the power to suspend, revoke or curtail an “O” licence and/or take sanctions (usually a suspension) against the offending driver’s LGV licence.
I fear that the fat lady is just warming-up… 
Coffeeholic:
After conviction, or should I say if he is convicted, there is a fair chance the TC will be relieving him of his LGV licence for a while. That could make earning the money to pay the fine a bit of a problem.
Agree that he’s pushed his luck and will have to pay the result, but isn’t there a law that says you can’t be punished for the same crime twice?
So realistically he’ll get off with a 7 day ban and a £100 fine.
DoYouMeanMe?:
Coffeeholic:
After conviction, or should I say if he is convicted, there is a fair chance the TC will be relieving him of his LGV licence for a while. That could make earning the money to pay the fine a bit of a problem.Agree that he’s pushed his luck and will have to pay the result, but isn’t there a law that says you can’t be punished for the same crime twice?
No, the traffic commissioner can punish you for exceeding the terms of your vocational license, as well as any criminal offence, or some such.
Its been covered on quite a few topics and in the industry press recently.
Alex
He obviously does’nt value his HGV licence much, why would this be ?
DoYouMeanMe?:
Coffeeholic:
After conviction, or should I say if he is convicted, there is a fair chance the TC will be relieving him of his LGV licence for a while. That could make earning the money to pay the fine a bit of a problem.Agree that he’s pushed his luck and will have to pay the result, but isn’t there a law that says you can’t be punished for the same crime twice?
He won’t be getting done for the same crime twice. If guilty he will possibly get a fine coupled with suspension or revocation of his LGV licence. If he is running under his own O Licence then that could be affected as well. All part of the same punishment for the same offence. You can be prosecuted for a traffic offence, be given a fine and lose your licence. It just happens in this case the LGV licence is dealt with by someone else, the TC.
No different to when a truck driver loses his licence for drink driving and he does not automatically get the vocational licence back on completion of his suspension. Holding a vocational licence is not a right and it can be suspended by behaviour which leads the Tc to believe you should not hold that licence. They are pretty much suspending licences for any conviction relating to the driving rules these days, from as little as a few days to a much longer period.
No matter how you wrap it up and try to justify it, it is one offence being dealt with twice. It may be two different authorities, but is still one offence unless you are an O licence holder. But then again, why would drivers expect anything better…
DoYouMeanMe?:
No matter how you wrap it up and try to justify it, it is one offence being dealt with twice. It may be two different authorities, but is still one offence unless you are an O licence holder. But then again, why would drivers expect anything better…
If drivers want to expect better maybe they should meet the authorities half-way and not run without a chart in the first place. Just a thought. 
It has been well publicised in recent months that the TC will be clamping down on drivers who ignore the rules by looking after their licences for a while as a deterrent. If a driver choose to risk running without a chart, knowing it is totally illegal he can hardly complain about the punishment, can he?
There is constant bleating on here, and other trucking forums, about how we should be treated more professionally, treated with more respect, everybody hates us and it’s not fair etc etc. If drivers want treating in a more professional way and with respect then they should expect to have to set a higher standard than the average motorist and receive harsher punishments when transgressions are made, especially such blatant transgressions as this.
It used to be the case that you would only get a fine for tacho offences, except in the most serious cases, which obviously didn’t work as the offences kept happening. I think the loss of the vocational licence is more likely to prevent somebody repeating the offence than a mere fine, drivers on the whole are pretty well paid so a fine isn’t too much of an inconvenience. Losing your licence for a period, and with it the ability to earn, is.
DoYouMeanMe?:
No matter how you wrap it up and try to justify it, it is one offence being dealt with twice. It may be two different authorities, but is still one offence unless you are an O licence holder. But then again, why would drivers expect anything better…
I wouldn’t try to wrap-up or justify anything, because the law doesn’t need to be either wrapped-up or justified.
What some people don’t realise is that Courts have different sanctions available to them than a TC does. For instance, a TC has no power to fine anybody or impose penalty points on a driving licence. Almost invariably, a TC isn’t involved until after guilt or innocence has been decided by a Court, because TCs don’t decide guilt or innocence in a “criminal” sense. On many occasions, a TC sees info passing across his desk and decides to take no action. I merely pointed out a possibility.
The fact that “it is still one offence” is perfectly true, and the system whereby some offences committed by LGV drivers might be looked at twice has been around for many years. IMHO, it comes as a surprise to many drivers when they encounter this for the first time, but it makes it no less of a reality.
IMHO, if you compare the above with what I think you might mean by “dealt with twice” please don’t imagine it’s the same as being tried twice for the same offence. Unless I’ve understood you incorrectly, in which case I’m sorry…
I recall being told by an Hour Guard user from Gateshead, that he had been down in Kent I think it was, and found he had no tacho charts, instead of asking someone for a chart he ran back to Team Valley without a chart in.
Company was Fresh Freight if I think rightly, anyway he was stopped at Doncaster on A1 and police asked to see chart, he told the copper he didn’t have one as he’d run out, but was keeping a record of his driving times etc as required by law.
He showed the copper his hour guard and pointed out he’d had his 45 min break earlier and the total driving time etc on the timer, them pointed out by law he was required to fill out a chart manually if for any reason his tacho was not working.
Copper warned him that next time he should use common sense and ask another driver if they have a spare he could use, but no court case came out of it, because he showed he was keeping a record.
Seems to me that your mate must of admitted to police or Vosa at the time that he was running bent and therefore deserves what he gets?