Pritchard & Anor v Crown Prosecution Service

For tachograph legislation, a trailer is not confined to an attachment designed to carry goods. It includes heavy engineering plant designed to be coupled to and towed by a motor vehicle. The maximum permissible weight therefore includes the relevant maximum weight of both the towing vehicle and the trailer. The statutory definitions must be read together and purposively, having regard to the regulation of driving by heavy vehicles and their attachments. A vehicle otherwise within the recording-equipment regime loses the 3.5-tonne exemption where the aggregate weight, including the trailer, exceeds that limit.

The appellants were convicted by magistrates of using a Nissan Cabstar without a tachograph, contrary to section 97 of the Transport Act 1968. The vehicle had a plated weight of 3,400 kg and was towing a single-axle Bocker H16 hoist weighing 950 kg. The magistrates held that the hoist was a trailer for the purposes of article 1(2)(c) of Regulation (EEC) No 3820/85 and that the vehicle therefore exceeded the 3.5-tonne exemption in article 4.

On appeal by way of case stated, the central issue was whether mobile engineering plant, not constructed primarily to carry a load, could constitute a trailer when determining whether recording equipment was required.

1. Appeals dismissed. The question stated by the magistrates was answered affirmatively.
2. The Nissan Cabstar was a vehicle within article 3 of Regulation (EEC) No 3821/85 unless exempted by article 4 of Regulation (EEC) No 3820/85. The exemption depended on whether its maximum permissible weight, including any trailer, exceeded 3.5 tonnes.
3. The statutory scheme required Regulation (EEC) No 3821/85 to be read with the Community Drivers’ Hours and Recording Equipment (Exemptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 1986. Those Regulations imported the definitions in section 108 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
4. Under section 108, where a motor vehicle draws a trailer, the permissible maximum weight is the aggregate of the relevant maximum weights of the motor vehicle and trailer. The Cabstar’s relevant maximum weight was its marked plated weight of 3,400 kg.
5. Although section 108 contained no definition of trailer, the associated weight regulations treated moveable engineering plant as falling within that expression. The Bocker hoist was engineering plant within Schedule 1, Part B of the Goods Vehicles (Ascertainment of Maximum Gross Weights) Regulations 1976. A purposive reading of the legislation also supported including heavy equipment towed behind a vehicle. There was no relevant distinction between a goods-carrying trailer and heavy equipment attached to and towed by a vehicle.
6. The hoist’s relevant weight therefore had to be included. The statutory concepts of permissible maximum weight and relevant maximum weight were determinative, and the alternative question advanced by the appellants did not assist.

• Greater Manchester magistrates: convicted both appellants of offences under section 97 of the Transport Act 1968 and sentenced each to an absolute discharge. Costs were ordered against the second appellant.
• High Court (Administrative Court): appeals by way of case stated dismissed; the hoist was a trailer for the relevant statutory and regulatory purposes.