MAIN FEATURE
Tankers, Drainage
and Vac Ex Vehicles - driver safety and the rules they must follow
Written by Ian Clarke
ian@nodigmedia.co.uk
To paraphrase the immortal bard, HGV or NOT HGV that is the question? Place a line up of tankers, jet vac trucks, vac Ex or any other large tanked vehicle that may be used in the buried utilities sector in front of any layman and ask what do they see they will probably come back with a line-up of HGV vehicles. Little do they know just how wrong they are.
This article probably does not allow the space that is really required to cover all the complexities of the truck market, but here we will try to simplify some of it at least (if only to get it straight in my own mind having had the various conversations I have looking into this).
WHAT ISHGV (OR NOT)
In some quarters there seems to be the understanding that for a tanker to be an HGV it has to be a transporter, that is it moves product from one place to
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another, picking up product at one end of the route and delivering to the other, whilst not doing anything with or for the cargo during the transport run. In this case the truck will have a driver and be owned by a transport company which because of the type of operation being carried out requires an operator’s licence. The driver then becomes subject to the current tachograph regulations in terms of driving times, rest periods etc, etc. In the UK there are two sets of Tachograph regulations, EUTR and Domestic, with each having slightly different restrictions.
Where this changes for other vehicles types that are designed to carry out specific operations, whilst they may be of the same road size etc as an HGV, they can become designated as plant. When this occurs, whilst the companies owning the vehicles may require drivers to utilise tachographs to monitor work times and
| February 2022 |
www.draintraderltd.com
driving times, they are not necessarily subject to the same tachograph regulations as the HGV described above, other than they cannot drive for more than nine hours per shift. As a ‘working’ vehicle, the time one the road is limited to a working day of 13 hours, which in extenuating circumstances it appears can be extended to 15 hours, but only so many times in a working week and then other rules apply to ensure that the total driving hours on one driver do not exceed finite limits. The tachograph supplies the information that is need to ensure that these limits are adhered to, supposedly.
Some operators despite having the modern digital tachographs fitted still log their working days manually, so whilst the technology is there to use it can be bypassed, so there is a question mark with some in the sector over whether the relevant agencies can
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