On the road from Athens to Dublin, 2207 trucks controlled in one day. Under the auspices of the European Traffic Police Network, TISPOL, a common European supervisory action called "Truck" is taking place in the week between 10 and 16 March 2008.
On Monday, 10 March 2008, at the initiative of Slovenian traffic policemen, the traffic police of ten European countries performed intensified control of goods transport
Corridor 10 is important both from the point of view of violations of traffic legislation as well as from the point of view of trans-border criminality. We succeeded in attracting police officers from the countries along this road to the idea of a total, systematic and coordinated supervisory action in the area of several countries, thus uniting members and non-members of the European Union on a symbolic level.
During the largest and longest control of vehicular traffic ever, the police officers particularly controlled foreign goods vehicles in transit.
As the initiator, the Slovenian police coordinated the work of the traffic police on the route Athens - Thessaloniki - Skopje - Niš - Belgrade - Zagreb - Ljubljana - Villach - Salzburg - Munich - Stuttgart - Köln - Rotterdam - Ipswich - Wales - Dublin. Control points were organised along the way from Greece through the Balkans and Central Europe till Ireland. In addition to traffic policemen, other competent services (inspection services, customs, criminal police, etc.) supervised the control points. Under the coordination of the Slovenian police, ten countries (Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Ireland) thus participated on the same day and on the same road corridor, performing control at 18 control points. Besides control on the section Obrežje - Karavanke, the Slovenian police also controlled goods transport on other transit routes.
The control point in Slovenia, together with the Austrian police officers
Results of the action
According to the data gathered thus far, 2207 goods vehicles were stopped and controlled in seven participating countries (Greece, Macedonia and the United Kingdom will send data later) during the coordinated action (among them, 1073 vehicles in transit of the country where they were controlled). 965 violations of road traffic regulations were discovered and sanctioned (553 for vehicles in transit).
These were:
- 88 violations related to tachograph functioning
- 160 violations related to the driver's working time (exceeded duration of drive, obligatory rest times, etc.)
- 281 speeding violations
- 113 overloaded goods vehicles
- 70 cases of cargo being irregularly loaded or secured
- 259 vehicles with technical faults
- 67 violations related to the transport of dangerous cargo (documentation, cargo labelling, etc.),
- 38 violation related to the documentation of the vehicle or driver
- 2 drivers under the influence of alcohol
- 14 drivers were forbidden to continue driving
- 68 vehicles were taken out of traffic
In Maribor, a vehicle stolen abroad was discovered.
Croatian police officers during the control action
The control action in Serbia