Skip to main content

European police take action on truck and bus safety

Two recent operations handled by pan-European police body TISPOL have helped tackle truck and bus safety. The action taken against rogue trucking firms led to more than 4,000 immediate vehicle prohibitions. This followed checks on nearly 184,908 trucks across 29 countries and resulted in police handing out charges for a total of 48,386 separate offences. Those included 187 drivers being charged for alcohol and drug offences, 4,691 offences of exceeding the speed limit, 10,306 instances of drivers exceeding
April 14, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Two recent operations handled by pan-European police body 4753 TISPOL have helped tackle truck and bus safety. The action taken against rogue trucking firms led to more than 4,000 immediate vehicle prohibitions. This followed checks on nearly 184,908 trucks across 29 countries and resulted in police handing out charges for a total of 48,386 separate offences. Those included 187 drivers being charged for alcohol and drug offences, 4,691 offences of exceeding the speed limit, 10,306 instances of drivers exceeding their maximum permitted time at the wheel. They also included 1,204 overweight trucks and 1,112 insecure loads and 4,122 immediate prohibitions on trucks, most of which were due to technical defects

Stopping truck drivers to conduct safety checks offences also provided police officers with the opportunity to make other appropriate security enquiries. For example, officers also detected and dealt with offences connected with irregular immigration and human trafficking (6), wanted persons (26), possession of drugs (22), firearms (5), stolen goods (15) and other crimes (628).

Tackling bus safety, officers across 29 European countries conducted safety checks on long-distance coaches during a seven-day TISPOL operation. The checks resulted in the detection of 4,461 traffic offences and a further 44 crimes.

The offences included 697 cases of exceeding the speed limit, 25 drink-drive detections, 822 seatbelt offences and 299 contraventions of tachograph regulations. Included in the total of 115 crimes were 40 illegal immigration and human trafficking offences, 15 drug detections and 44 other crimes.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Pan-European police actions tackles road safety
    September 18, 2014
    TISPOL operations focusing on truck and bus safety across Europe have yielded major safety benefits, as well as tackling criminal offences. The police work targeting trucks led to the discovery of nearly 1,200 illegal immigration and human trafficking offences. The action followed checks on nearly 140,000 trucks across 27 countries. A total of 44,859 offences were detected, including 421 drivers charged with alcohol and drug offences, 5,054 offences of exceeding the speed limit and 5,074 instances of driver
  • European Police enforcement actions target offenders
    April 8, 2014
    Police enforcement actions in Europe against trucks and buses have helped boost road safety and arrest criminals. One week long operation resulted in 4,400 trucks being removed from the road network due to dangerous defects. The action followed checks of more than 137,000 trucks across 26 countries and was co-ordinated by TISPOL, the European Traffic Police Network. The operation saw police carrying out a wide range of safety inspections that focused on speeding, alcohol, drugs, seatbelt use, tachograph inf
  • Roadside checks in Europe target drink drivers
    January 21, 2014
    Action across Europe has seen police crackdown heavily on drink driving offences during December 2013. Information from the Pan-European police body TISPOL shows that 1,141,058 roadside breath tests were carried out to check for alcohol use, with 15,305 showing positive. Police also checked drivers for drugs in the operation, and 2,133 offences were detected. The operation was organised by TISPOL in 31 European countries. TISPOL president Koen Ricour said, “These results show that too many people are still
  • Pan-European seatbelt enforcement yields results
    May 7, 2013
    Europe’s cross-border police body TISPOL reports positive results from the recent pan-European seatbelt enforcement drive. The data shows that over 100,000 drivers and passengers were detected for not wearing seatbelts. A total of 24 countries took part in the operation, which was co-ordinated by TISPOL. Of the final total of 104,838 offences, 3,245 related to children not wearing seatbelts or other safety restraints. The remaining 101,593 offences related to adult vehicle occupants. Commenting on the resul