UK Offence Report

Installation and use of recording equipment

regulation 2(1) of The Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Recording Equipment) Regulations 1979

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 For section 97 of the Act of 1968 (installation and use of recording equipment) there shall be substituted the following sections— Installation and use of recording equipment 97 1 If a person uses, or causes or permits to be used, a vehicle to which this section applies and— a there is not in the vehicle recording equipment which has been installed in accordance with the Community Recording Equipment Regulation and which complies with the requirements of Annexes I and II to that Regulation; or b recording equipment which has been installed in the vehicle in accordance with that Regulation and which complies with those requirements is not used as provided by Articles 15 to 17 of that Regulation, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Mixed — some elements strict, some not
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

The prosecution must prove the conduct, and - for those elements the provision qualifies - the state of mind it names. The remaining elements carry no fault requirement, so they are strict.

The provision gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

Classifier’s reasoning: no fault word in the offence-creating words, but the surrounding provision uses reasonably practicable - which element it governs was not determined; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised).

The defence, as drafted

liable to be convicted under subsection (1) of this section if he proves to the court that the vehicle in question was proceeding to a place where recording equipment which would comply with the requirements of Annexes I and II of the Community Recording Equipment Regulation was to be installed in the vehicle in accordance with th

What would breach regulation 2(1)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Recording Equipment) Regulations 1979.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£200
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Revoked
Revoked by
The Community Drivers' Hours and Recording Equipment Regulations 1986
Revoked on
29 September 1986
Made
21 December 1979
In force from
14 January 1980
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations apply to passenger and goods vehicles to which Part VI (Drivers' Hours) of the Transport Act 1968 applies. They amend that part of that Act by substituting for section 97 (Installation and operation of recording equipment in vehicles) new sections 97 to 97B. The principal effects of the amendments to Part VI of the Transport Act 1968 are as follows:— (a) In exercise of powers conferred by section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, they implement Council Regulation (EEC) 1463/70 of 20th July 1970 on the introduction of recording equipment (tachographs) in road transport as amended by Council Regulations (EEC) Nos. 1787/73 and 2828/77 and as read with the Community Road Transport Rules (Exemptions) Regulations 1978 (No.1158) (hereinafter called “the Council Regulation”). The new section 97 (Regulation 2(1)) makes it an offence punishable on summary conviction with a fine of up to £200 to use a vehicle within the scope of the Council Regulation (subsection (4) and Article 3 of the Council Regulation) without a tachograph as required by that Regulation being installed (subsection (1)(a)) or where a tachograph has been so installed to fail to use it as provided by Articles 15 to 17 of the Council Regulation (subsection (1)(b)). The new section provides defences for:— (i) vehicles going to have tachographs installed in accordance with the Council Regulation (subsection (2)); (ii) subject to specified conditions, for vehicles with tachographs that are not in working order (subsection (3)); (iii) subject to specified conditions, for vehicles with tachographs on which any seal has been broken (subsection (4)). (b) The new section 97A imposes requirements upon crew members of vehicles to which section 97 applies and their employers, which are supplementary to section 97 and to the requirements of Articles 15 to 17 of the Council Regulation. These requirements cover— (i) the period within which tachograph record sheets must be returned to the employer; and (ii) notification to employers by crew members of the names and addresses of other employers. Failure to comply with these requirements is an offence punishable on summary conviction by a fine of up to £200. Paragraph (2) of Regulation 2 specifies a timetable for the coming into force of the requirement for the installation of tachographs in section 97(1)(a). This is— (i) 14th January 1980 for vehicles being used on international journeys; (ii) 31st December 1981 for vehicles with an operating centre (as defined in the Regulation) on a UK island (as so defined) other than the Isle of Wight; (iii) in other cases a series of dates between 1st April 1980 and 31st December 1981 for different groups of vehicles according to the date of first registration of the vehicles starting with the most recently registered vehicles. Paragraph (3) of Regulation 2 specifies a timetable for the coming into force of the requirement for the tachograph to be used in accordance with Articles 15 to 17 of the Council Regulation (section 97(1)(b)) and of the supplementary requirements of section 97A. In relation to vehicles being used on international journeys this is again 14th January 1980 and in any other case, 31st December 1981. (c) A new section 97B makes provision for the use of tachograph record sheets (and any entries made thereon for the purposes of Articles 17(2) or (3) or 18(2) of the Council Regulation) in evidence in proceedings under Part VI of the Transport Act 1968. (d) Regulation 3 makes consequential adaptations to various enactments:— (i) New subsections are inserted in section 98 (Written records) of the Act of 1968 to disapply the requirements for the keeping of manual records in the case of a vehicle to which section 97 applies and is in force, and also in the case of a vehicle to which that section does not apply or is not in force but which has a tachograph installed and used in accordance with the Council Regulation and section 97A. (ii) A corresponding amendment is made to section 99 (Inspection of records and other documents) of the 1968 Act, and that section is extended to apply to tachograph record sheets and to the inspection of any tachograph installed in a vehicle to which Part VI of the 1968 Act applies. (iii) Schedule 1 of the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972 (Enactments conferring functions on examiners) is similarly extended. Regulation 4 provides for the approval by the Minister of Transport of fitters and workshops for the installation and repair of tachographs in Great Britain. Regulation 5 reduces from seven days to two days the period for which crew members of vehicles registered in Great Britain are required by Article 17 of the Council Regulation to retain record sheets relating to national transport operations. The Regulations revoke the Passenger and Goods Vehicles (Recording Equipment) Regulations 1977 (No. 777) which introduced a voluntary scheme for the installation and use of tachographs for the purposes of the Council Regulation in passenger and goods vehicles registered in any Member State.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.72.

Basis
the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
Confidence
0.72 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source