The incident occurred on Easter Monday on the Lower Silesian section of the A4 motorway. During a ban on the movement of trucks with a permissible gross vehicle weight exceeding 12 tonnes, inspectors from the Road Transport Inspectorate in Wrocław stopped a tractor-trailer belonging to a Polish carrier for inspection.
The driver had no documents required for road transport with him other than his driver card. GITP:
Based on scans of the missing documents sent by the company, the inspectors established that the vehicle was transporting household appliances to the United Kingdom. After checking the 36-year-old’s licences in CEPiK, they found that he did not have a category C or C+E driving licence. He held only categories B and B+E. The driver confirmed that he did not have the required qualifications and was driving the vehicle only “a short distance”: to the company’s base in Bolesławiec County. Another driver was supposed to board the vehicle there and continue driving.
However, as the inspectors established, this was not the driver’s first “trip” in a truck. He had driven a lorry not only in Poland, but also in Germany.
GITD: “Administrative proceedings were initiated against the carrier and the person responsible for managing transport at the company. The driver was issued penalty tickets and banned from continuing the journey.”