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There are special regulations for drivers and passengers of trucks with a maximum permissible weight of more than 3.5 tons (3.5 t HM) and buses for their protection and in the interest of road safety. These apply uniformly throughout the European Union. They regulate, among other things, the permitted daily and weekly driving times, the minimum breaks to be taken and the daily and weekly rest periods for drivers.
There are also national regulations on the recording of driving times, including breaks and rest periods (recording equipment or handwritten records for vehicles over 2.8 t and no more than 3.5 t HM).
Furthermore, drivers may not be paid according to the distance traveled or the quantity of goods transported.
On the road, checks are carried out by the police and the Federal Office for Logistics and Mobility (BALM). Here, an individual vehicle is checked, among other things, for current compliance (current day and previous 28 calendar days) with the driving and rest period regulations.
In the companies, systematic checks are carried out by the trade supervisory offices at the governments with regard to compliance with social regulations in road traffic. As a rule, the entire fleet or larger parts of the fleet are checked over a longer period of time. In particular, these checks are intended to verify the proper disposition of the vehicles and drivers used by the company, transport manager and dispatcher.
Violations of social regulations in road traffic generally constitute administrative offenses for the driver as well as for the company and persons commissioned by the company (e.g. dispatcher), which can be punished with fines.
The amount of the fines is based on the nationally standardized "Catalogues of fines and warnings for driving personnel law" (publication of the State Committee for Occupational Safety and Safety Technology (LASI) - LV 48). In addition, when determining and punishing the most serious infringements (Regulation (EC) No. 1071/2009 Annex IV) against the transport manager or the transport company, an official examination procedure is carried out with regard to the withdrawal of reliability.
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Companies can send digital data from tachographs, driver cards and mass storage data as well as other documents to the responsible trade supervisory office.