Rules and Regulations in Belgium

Gert: “Many of the motorways in Belgium were built in the fifties and sixties. In those days building bridges with a traffic bearing capacity of 30 tonnes was the norm. Goods vehicles up to 44 tonnes are already allowed on the motorways these days, but higher weights are not possible at the moment. On some sections of the motorway they sometimes – by way of exception – permit long transports weighing more than 44 tonnes if the distance between the rearmost axle of the tractor and the foremost axle of the towed vehicle is at least 25 metres. New bridges are built to take a total weight of 120 tonnes and an axle weight of 15 tonnes. This shifts the problem to the access roads, which in most cases are not suitable for heavy weights. All abnormal transports with a mass of more than 44 tonnes now take approved secondary roads. This costs time, extra wear, increased fuel consumption and it is less safe. Moreover, it makes the ports of Antwerp, Ostend and Zeebrugge very difficult to reach. Several German manufacturers have already stopped their exports going via Antwerp. If we have too many controls in Antwerp we will find that the heavy transports prefer to go via the port of Rotterdam. In Belgium the transport companies will have to take the secondary roads for years to come. We want to avoid having to suddenly renovate a great number of bridges – as happened in Germany.”

Gert: “At the moment in Belgium an application for an exemption is not directly linked to the technical details of a vehicle. In theory it would be possible to ask for an exemption on the registration of a delivery van. We would really like to have a system like the one in the Netherlands, where all vehicles – even the ones from abroad – are registered. We still come across transports with eastern European vehicle documentation that we can hardly read.”

Gert: “With an application for an incidental permit via local roads it can happen that after weeks of waiting a transport operator gets a negative reply to his application for exemption. The transport operator still has to pay a fee as part of the costs. We do understand that construction machinery cannot stand idle for four weeks on end. But personally I find it important that we uphold the system because it is meant to prevent distortion of competition.”

Gert: “We regularly notice during checks that a driver has slept in a hotel. That often means a second driver card is used. I don’t approve but I do understand.
The driver of a heavy transport drives during the night in Belgium, during the day in France, during the night in Germany and during the day in the Netherlands. And then in Belgium you also have to deal with the curfews. Another problem is the congested parking lots. It’s not easy to respect the driving times and rest periods all the time. The parking problem causes another problem too: if a heavy transport crosses the border into Belgium, the escort is supposed to check the exemption and the vehicle. Should that take place on the hard shoulder then, if there is no place to park? Definitely not, because we want to prevent unsafe situations but at the moment there is no exception in the regulations that would permit the drive to go and find a safe place to park.”

Gert: “All escorted transports must be registered digitally. In theory this is an excellent system. The exemption is valid for 2 or 4 months. During that period the transport operator is free to choose a day or several days on which the transport take place. Some transports are registered with us more than once. If we want to go and check one of them we are sometimes told the transport is delayed or has been carried out the previous day. We hope to be able to follow the transports via track & trace in a few years from now. That would prevent us from travelling to a location to perform checks and have a wasted journey. At the moment it often like looking for a needle in a haystack. On some days dozens of transports are registered to take place but only a few of them are actually carried out. Upholding the system can only succeed if there is a fair chance of catching the offenders.”

Gert: “Anyone with a valid driving licence can go on the road with an abnormal transport. It used to be quite an honour to be the driver of a large combination. That is changing. The driver has to comply with so many regulations in the various countries that he is bound to do something wrong. But we still come across companies who hardly ever do anything wrong. Other companies – very well-known ones too – used to be caught time and time again, but they have cleaned up their act. There is one category we keep tabs on: the companies that systematically evade the rules. These are companies that factor in the fines. For those companies we apply the rules as rigorously as possible. And in practice that means that a combination may be parked up for few weeks waiting for the correct exemption.”

Gert: “Transports of windmill components from and to the Belgian seaports are increasing all the time. In the past we have stopped a transport with a length of nearly 80 metres, travelling from Denmark to Ostend. In Germany and the Netherlands this transport can without problems travel on the motorways, but in Belgium the route leads along secondary roads if the total mass of the transport exceeds 44 tonnes. We invited the transport operator and a representative of the windmill manufacturer to come and have a chat. We would prefer to see these transports shipped over water, but transporting them over the road is more flexible, cheaper and the load needs to be transferred fewer times so there’s less risk of damage.”