New Zealand implemented law to establish framework for managing commercial driver fatigue
A truck driver from South Canterbury has been fined $200 after he forgot to take a mandatory break following a long drive.
The Timaru District Court imposed the fine to Zane Alvin Keen on Tuesday for violating the Land Transport Rule, Work Time and Logbooks 2007, The Timaru Herald reported.
Under the rule, drivers of heavy motor vehicles are required to take a 30-minute rest time after driving for five and a half hours.
This rest time should ensure that the driver is not spent in a moving vehicle associated with work, according to the rule.
Trucker's violation
In Keen's case, the police found that he failed to take the half-hour break that was originally due at 1:30PM. According to the police, Keen did not make an entry in his logbook and stayed at a fuel stop on State Highway 1 at Pareora for 15 minutes before driving away.
By 1:50PM, Keen was stopped by police in Timaru as part of a commercial vehicle inspection.
"When the defendant's logbook was examined, he admitted to police that he had exceeded 5½ hours of continuous work time without taking a 30-minute break," the police summary of facts said as quoted by The Timaru Herald.
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"Therefore, he had worked for a period of five hours and 50 minutes."
Keen accepted that he exceeded in working hours, but previously defended to the police that "it slipped his mind that he needed to take a break."
Judge Campbell Savage imposed the $200 fine, noting that Keen wasn't "that much over."
New Zealand's Land Transport Rule: Work Time and Logbooks 2007 was implemented to establish a framework for managing commercial driver fatigue, among other goals.