Tachograph manipulation and overweight offences spotted at C.A.S.H. Joint Exercise in Haparanda-Tornio

The third C.A.S.H. Joint Exercise of the year 2012 was held in Haparanda and Tornio on 23-25 April. This was the first time in the history of the C.A.S.H. Project as two countries organized together a Joint Exercise. The exercise joined together over 40 police officers from Germany, Estonia, Norway, Finland and Sweden.

The Joint Exercise was conducted in two check points, one in the Finnish side in Tornio and the other in the Swedish side in Haparanda, only couple of hundred of meters from the Finnish border. During the day, altogether over 71 heavy goods vehicles (31 in Finland and 40 in Sweden) were inspected. The check included e.g. cargo securing, dangerous goods and technical inspection of the vehicle as well as driving and resting times and driving authorization document checks.

Altogether, the police officers spotted over 37 offences, most of them tachograph manipulation, overweight offences and technical defaults. According to the Finnish police officers, every third HGV inspection leads to fines only due to driving and resting times offences. These offences are increasingly considered to be in the responsibility of the transport operator because they are planning the driving schedules to be too tight, and in the past years they are quite often also sentenced. 

The participants were very pleased with the overall organization and execution of the Haparanda-Tornio Exercise. It was stated that in many cases there are no big differences in the concrete inspection work. The Exercise also got a lot of coverage in the Finnish and Swedish both national and local media.