Neil drives home the truth about EU regulations

Date: 21/01/1999

The EU is often accused of interfering unnecessarily in people's lives, but are local bus routes really being disrupted by Euro-legislation?

It seemed so when the UK tabloid newspaper The Sun revealed that the 484 bus service in West Yorkshire had been split in two by a “potty new EU regulation” restricting the length of bus routes.

Enter Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock, whose inquiries on behalf of the man on the Yorkshire omnibus revealed a darker truth. The Sun had correctly reported that Union rules limit bus-drivers to no more than nine hours per day at the wheel, with ten hours allowed for routes of less than 48 kilometres.

But the split in the service was not laid down in the rule book. It was ordered by the canny operator of the 484 route, Arriva Yorkshire, which created two routes of less than 48 kilometres.

“The real reason for the service being split is Arriva's efforts to stretch its drivers' working hours,” said Inspector Kinnock in a letter to The Sun, putting to rest yet another great Euro-myth.