two drivers with what money to pay them?
100 hours of solo driving in 4 days should be simply classed as 'reckless' and should result in your license being taken away before you kill a bunch of people. Especially when also transporting passengers.
uh... its more than 4 days, right?
> 100 hours at the wheel in a bit more than five days. Is this crazy, suicidal or just business as usual?
It's murderous.
I strongly think that there should be very strict regulations on how much they may drive. He may not have been in an accident but the cars behind his might due to his irresponsible behavior.
And if that doesn't work then too bad for you...
The first time this happened it scared the crap out of me, now I'm more prepared and I will keep a very large truck in front of me on the most risky parts of the passage, they rarely try to overtake that combination, it's just too long.
Defensive driving gets a totally different meaning on those roads.
And how will that be enforced ... how, exactly? Short of proactive electronic monitoring in every single vehicle on the road in Europe as a prerequisite for driving anywhere at all, that is.
The entire premise of this operation is that you throw caution to the wind and save money because it's an extra ~$200 and you're making around $3/hr, if you're lucky enough to be employed.
While I have no idea what that costs, you should be responsible for what you are doing on the road. And if commercial driver think it is a good idea to drive 100h in just 5 days, such reckless behavior has to be stopped. If you want to save money and sacrifice your on health, that's your decision but endangering others is a no-go.
I'd also be reckless (and forbidden) to drive without working breaks even if they have worked well enough for you so far. If you don't sleep enough, your reflexes will be pretty bad and that is just as bad as not having functioning breaks.
And how much would that cost him? Maybe 200€ per trip more. The cost would not only be split among the passengers but also among his legally smuggled goods. And I think he is making enough money if he gives each passenger tobacco that he sells for a lot of money and even has someone's paycheck for half a year with him.
Most freight companies have an existence and operations outside the grey market. They can be subjected to this sort of regulation. An independent guy with a van? Enforcing that will be a whole lot harder. He won't install it. Or he'll install it and disable it, or otherwise thwart its well-functioning. If you set up checkpoints to verify that the device is installed and functioning he'll detour around them, over rural highways.
And if the lawless independent guys with a van can undercut the lawful one, they'll get the business.
I saw this in another one of those countries, basically after the public transportation collapsed, individual drivers would use vans and basically suppliment existing routes. Before regulations those could be very unsafe, and superoptimized for maximum number of people (very few chairs -- more standing room, chairs squeezed togethers, and so on).