A note issued by the European Union undermines the law for the ban on cabin rest adopted by France, Germany, Belgium and Spain.
This note stipulates that land inspectors may only apply a fine in case of flagrante delicto and no longer under the control of expense reports. Following many conflicts with drivers and transport companies, the controllers do not want to wake them to see the flagrante delicto.
Here is the detail of the note:
« Respect of the prohibition to spend rest time 15/04/2019 EC
As regards the checks carried out by the national authorities to ensure that drivers are forbidden to spend their usual weekly rest period in the cab of their vehicle, the Commission would like to confirm that the national supervisory authorities can not require drivers to they provide documents certifying that they have not spent their usual weekly rest period, prior to the roadside inspection, in their vehicle. This is in accordance with Article 36 of Regulation (EU) No. 165/2014, which provides an exhaustive list of the recordings that the driver must have and that he must submit at the request of an authorized screening officer.
Consequently, drivers can not be fined for non-compliance with this prohibition only if they are caught in the act of weekly rest inside the vehicle at the time of the check. Therefore, if operators have been affected by inappropriate control practices, they must call on the competent national authorities to recover the fines imposed. »