The High Court ruled that a haulage vehicle delivering asphalt to a roadworks site was covered by a road-maintenance exemption from EU driving-time and break requirements. The ruling came on a consultative case stated from the District Court; the High Court answered the question referred to it in the affirmative.
Kieran Kelly Haulage Limited was charged with two offences relating to a driver’s work on 29 August 2012: exceeding the daily driving period and failing to take an uninterrupted 45-minute break after four and a half hours of driving. The charges alleged that the company, as the vehicle’s operator, owner and the driver’s employer, caused or purported to authorise the breaches.
Evidence at the District Court hearing was that the lorry was stopped at a roadside checkpoint on the N18 at Moy Hill, Ennis, at 6.55pm. Its tachograph showed the driver had started at 5.20am and driven for 11 hours and 23 minutes, covering 697 kilometres. The evidence said the only break was 31 minutes, between 7.26am and 5.57pm, while returning after delivering the second of two asphalt loads from Tulla, County Clare, to Annascaul, County Kerry.
The loads were supplied for an N86 road-improvement scheme. The District Court judge accepted that at the work site the lorry joined a queue and was pushed forward by a paver as asphalt was transferred for resurfacing. The question referred to the High Court was whether the vehicle was being used in connection with road maintenance so as to qualify for the exemption.
Mr Justice Noonan considered a European Court of Justice ruling that required the vehicle to be used wholly and exclusively in connection with road maintenance, and discussed the relevance of the journey’s distance and duration. He concluded that the vehicle was being used in connection with road maintenance at all material times. He also said the regulations set no specific extended driving-time limit for exempt vehicles, and that any ambiguity in a criminal provision had to be construed in favour of the accused.
The High Court answered the District Court judge’s question “in the affirmative”. The judgment resolved the legal question referred; it does not state the District Court’s subsequent determination of the charges or any penalty.