The truck driver allegedly alternated the use of two cards to record the road routes taken, in order to be able to drive exceeding the maximum times set by law and evade checks regarding compliance with rest periods. The driver of an articulated lorry with Turkish license plates was fined by officers of the Bari Local Police, following a check carried out along the main roads of the Apulian capital. The checks on the vehicles in transit were carried out jointly with technicians from the Bari Civil Motorization Department.
The driver of the articulated lorry allegedly showed both Turkish and Bulgarian identity documents. The officers were said to have been suspicious of the strange circumstance, and the documented traffic report was also said to be unusual.
The driver, moreover, would have appeared to the officers “very nervous and restless“: this would have prompted the Local Police personnel to further investigate the check. Through the joint analysis of the documentary evidence of the transport and the data recorded by the digital tachograph, it would have emerged that the driver was in possession of a second tachograph card, issued by another state, on an earlier date and still valid.
The comparison between the data recorded by the vehicle’s digital tachograph and the data reported by the two driver cards (from different countries) revealed some inconsistencies: the two documents, held by the driver, were used on different vehicles, registered to different companies with offices in different countries.
The officers were able to reconstruct all the driver’s activity during the period provided for by the current legislation and found that he would alternate the use of the two cards, of which he was the owner, in order to be able to drive excessively (exceeding the maximum driving times) and evade the subsequent control, regarding compliance with driving and rest times. On some days the driver would have driven for almost 17 hours.
The driver was fined for the violations found and ascertained for a total of 14,554 euros, with the consequent withdrawal of the driving license for suspension purposes as well as with the withdrawal of one of the two tachograph cards unduly obtained.
