Traffic again allows truck repairs on the road

The DGT has agreed that trucks, buses, and vehicles with a GVW of more than 7.5 tonnes can receive roadside mechanical assistance without having to be towed to the nearest garage.

The Directorate General for Traffic, DGT, has issued an Instruction to Traffic Officers establishing an exception to the general rule of mandatory towing of vehicles that have broken down or been involved in an accident on the road in the case of heavy vehicles with a GVW of more than 7.5 tonnes.

Now, these vehicles can be repaired on-site, allowing workshop vehicles, which are generally owned by brands or dealers, to work. whose operators must adopt the necessary measures to carry out the operation with the maximum guarantees of prevention, safety and visibility and must also wear clothing that guarantees maximum possible visibility.

This Instruction amends or improves Royal Decree 159/2021, which regulates for the first time in our country the conditions under which road assistance services must carry out their functions, a historic demand from the transport sector due to the involvement with road safety that this activity has, which is currently provided by more than 2,000 transport companies.

However, the new Decree generated alarm among road safety organisations transporters and industrial vehicle dealers, since among the new features it included was the one referring to the limitation of repair and roadside assistance actions for broken down vehicles, whatever their class, preferentially opting for their towing and transfer to a workshop, so that in the case of transport vehicles this represented an absolutely irrational additional economic cost, since its literal application in practice prevented the action of workshop vehicles.