A lorry driver who stopped in a live lane leading to a motorway for a rest has been fined by police. North West Motorway Police revealed details of the driver's potentially dangerous decision on Twitter - and shared an image of the HGV.
The lorry was shown parked up on a live lane of a slip road leading onto the busy M56 motorway in Cheshire, reports Cheshire Live. The driver, police said, had pulled over the take a legally-binding 'tacho break'.
A 'tacho break' is an enforced rest that HGV drivers must take, recorded by the vehicle's tachograph. After 4.5 hours of driving, HGV drivers are legally mandated to take a break of at least 45 minutes.
Police spotted the HGV in the early hours of Wednesday morning leading onto a westbound stretch of the motorway, but no exact location has been revealed. In a tweet, North West Motorway Police said: "Our ME58 came across this HGV on access slip road of M56 stopped in live lane to take a tacho break - ticket issued."
In response, one Twitter user said it was 'clearly stupid' and the driver 'deserved a ticket', but hit out at a lack of rest areas and truck stops for HGV drivers and other. "We rely on trucks for a massive amount of our day to day goods, yet provide so little for them to actually abide by the law on driving hours," they said.
Another called the driver's actions 'unbelievable' and a third claimed services were 'just down the road'.
A driver choosing to stop on Cheshire's motorways is not an unprecedented occurrence. Earlier this month, a driver 'needlessly' put his life at risk by stopping his car on the M6 to adjust his wing mirror and in February, a driver stopped on 'tiger-tails' separating a junction from the M56 motorway in order to check their phone for directions.
In May last year, a woman stopped on lane one of the M6 near Middlewich 'to do her make-up', and later tested positive for cocaine. She was also found to have been driving with a provisional licence and no insurance. No further details of the latest incident have been released by police.
