Fuel tanker owners have had 18 years to comply with the mandatory ADR requirements for the transport of flammable liquids, including a year since the transport ministry set a deadline for their compliance, a road transport department (TOM) representative told the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday.
The department said the tanker owners did not have a leg to stand on, which was why chairman of the petrol station owners’ association Savvas Prokopiou said on Monday that they were all for the new regulations.
Prokopiou also said it would take time to implement the necessary procedures to comply with the decree, however the TOM representative pointed out they had had all the time in the world and did nothing about it.
“Both the transport ministry and TOM have been saying that it is risky to let a tanker with no ADR on the roads as an accident could happen and people could die. It is a matter of safety,” the representative said.
He added that the association’s position was “weak”.
“For so many years they did nothing. They had a year’s notice and did nothing. And now they are protesting.”
The ADR requirements cover driver training, vehicle safety equipment and hazard marking for the road transport of dangerous goods.
The core rules focus on specific operational areas, namely driver certification, mandatory safety equipment kits and vehicle placarding. Placarding is the display of standardised warning signs, symbols and orange plates on transport units carrying hazardous materials or dangerous goods.
The TOM representative told the Cyprus Mail that the system has been in place for years and “we should have become harmonised in 2008.”
“The previous governments did not address the issue. Last year, the transport minister said they had a year to comply. They could either buy new tankers or change the use of the existing ones at TOM so that they are not registered to carry fuel. They did nothing,” he added.
He explained that there are 420 fuel tankers on the roads, of which only 80 meet the ADR requirements.
“The other 80 per cent are small ones taking heating fuel to houses and businesses,” he said.
If only a few tankers remain on the roads, they consumers will need to plan ahead and not wait till the cold season to order heating fuel, he added.
In the meantime, those who do not meet the ADR requirements and are on the roads “will be stopped by the police”.
Petrol station owners are protesting outside the presidential palace on Tuesday, demanding President Nikos Christodoulides’ intervention over the decree issued by the transport minister that would see up to 90 per cent of fuel tankers immobilised under new ADR requirements.
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