An overview of overloading and fatigue driving regulations in different countries

Overload related regulations in various countries

China

In the 2022 National People's Congress, the National People's Congress, Jiangsu Province, Director of the Department of Transportation, the provincial railroad office director Lu Yongquan suggested: with reference to the provisions of the criminalization of serious overcrowding and serious speeding, the serious overloading of freight vehicles transport behavior as a situation of dangerous driving crime into the "Criminal Law", the driver is held criminally responsible according to law.

Not only that, in the latest version of the "Road Traffic Safety Violation Points Management Measures", the "overloading" points management method has made a number of changes. And the new version of the vehicle overload management more subdivided, but the overall points deduction value has been reduced. Specifically subdivided into three levels, less than 30% recorded 1 point, 30%-50% recorded 3 points, more than 50% recorded 6 points.

United States

The first is to issue fines to overloaded vehicles, with the excess calculated at $1-$4 per pound. The second is to unload the goods of the overloaded vehicle, and the overloaded vehicle is not allowed to continue driving. The driver and the transport company will be put on the bad record file. In addition, serious overloading or repeated violations can result in criminal prosecution, short-term detention or imprisonment for up to one year or more.

Japan

Japan has very strict penalties for overloading. After overloading, cargo owners, transportation companies and drivers are all punished. According to the relevant Japanese laws, large and medium-sized trucks overloaded by less than 50% will be fined 30,000 yen; over 50%-100% will be fined 40,000 yen. Likewise, once an overloaded vehicle is detected, it will be immediately detained and unloaded the overweight portion of the cargo, and will not be allowed to continue driving overloaded.

Germany

The country's Federal Office of Freight Transport has a special agency to control overloaded vehicles, and there are more than 700 checkpoints on its more than 10,000 kilometers of highways.

In terms of punishment for overloaded transport, the first overloaded transport will be registered and verbally warned; the second time it is found again will face 3 months in jail; if there are more than 3 overloaded transports in a year, the driver will not only have his driving license revoked and blacklisted, but will be barred from working in the driving industry for life.

Fatigue driving related regulations in various countries

China

In terms of managing fatigue driving, driving a motor vehicle for more than 4 hours continuously without stopping to rest or stopping to rest for less than 20 minutes is considered fatigue driving.

United States

In the fatigue driving regulation, the U.S. Department of Transportation enforces the requirement for electronic monitoring devices (ELD) to be installed on trucks to view all data at any time through cell phone terminals or computer web pages. Not only that, the U.S. definition of fatigue driving is very strict, such as driving 8 hours must rest 30 minutes, driving 11 hours need to rest 10 hours, that is, the driver must have 10 hours of rest after driving a total of 11 hours.

In addition, the driver from the start of work, regardless of standby or driving status, the driver must be fully rested for 10 hours after 14 hours of continuous duty before driving the vehicle again. The total number of hours a truck driver can drive a vehicle cannot exceed 70 hours in 8 days or 60 hours in 7 days.

Japan

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has also defined the scope of fatigue driving by publishing the "Improvement Standards for Automobile Drivers' Working Hours, etc.". The details include: a month's work hours within 293 hours; a day's work hours within 13 hours, with at least 8 hours of rest after work. Violation of the above will result in a maximum penalty of one year's imprisonment or a fine of 300,000 yen and revocation of license for two years.

Germany

Germany stipulates that if fatigue driving is found to exceed the prescribed time of 2 hours, the driver and the transport enterprise will be punished at the same time as long as it is proved that the transport enterprise is unreasonable in the departure plan arrangement, and the relevant punishment record will be used as the basis for whether the enterprise can continuously obtain the operation qualification.

In addition, it is understood that in 2023 the EU will be mandatory for new production of trucks to install Smart Tacho 2 car recorder, the new generation of car recorder will also implement the driver rest policy, such as driving trucks every 6 hours, the driver must rest for a minimum of 45 minutes; a maximum of 10 hours of driving per day, and there are mandatory rest time on weekends.