Truck drivers in Germany are escaping being fined for breaching the new drivers' hours regulations because the government failed to pass legislation allowing fines.
The legislation that allowed the previous fines expired on April 10 and no longer applies. Since then officials from enforcement agency BAG - equivalent to VOSA - have no idea what to do with drivers who breach the rules.
"We are very unhappy about this," says Ernst Vorrath, president of BAG. He now has to get new
legislation through Parliament (Bundesrat), which may take until after the summer. Until then drivers cannot be fined, only forced to take a break.
But drivers still have to be careful when they go abroad. A German driver in Spain was recently fined €4,600 (£3,119) because he did not have replacement paper for manual print-outs from digital tachographs.
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