“We have seen rejections after 41 minutes”: Truck drivers battle an appeals system on autopilot

Thousands of truck drivers have attempted to appeal fines related to the mileage tax, but the vast majority are rejected. Lawyers and industry professionals criticize that the burden of proof is misplaced and that the system is inflexible.

Nine out of ten.

That is how many appeals against the mileage tax end in rejection – and for truck drivers, the appeals process is both cumbersome and expensive.

Since the mileage tax came into force, the Danish Road Safety and Transport Agency has issued 42,737 fines. Of the nearly 16,700 objections received, only 17 percent have been upheld.

The figures show that the appeals process for truck drivers is long, time-consuming, and in practice often fruitless. According to lawyers and industry organizations, the process is so inflexible that it undermines both legal certainty and the industry’s confidence in the system.

39 fines in a row

For some truck drivers, this has had completely absurd consequences.

Lawyer Anders Stig Vestergaard represents several foreign transport companies that have been caught up in the restrictive rules of the appeals system.

“The system is very rigid and difficult to deal with, especially for foreign truck drivers. They cannot manage without legal assistance,” he says.

He mentions a case involving a German truck driver who mistakenly continued paying through the old vignette system instead of the new kilometer-based one. By the time the mistake was discovered, the company had been fined 39 times – each fine amounting to DKK 4,500.

“The company had actually paid, just under the wrong system. When they became aware of the mistake, they corrected it immediately. But the Danish Road Safety and Transport Agency upheld all 39 fines. From a reasonableness perspective, perhaps one or two fines could be upheld. But insisting on all 39 is contrary to common legal practice, says Anders Stig Vestergaard.

And then came the next blow: because the appeals system is based on the principle of individual cases, the company could not submit a single collective objection. Thirty-nine complaints had to be made—one for each fine. That meant piles of paperwork, weeks of wasted time, and lawyers’ fees.

“It’s unnecessary. If the system had been just a little bit flexible, the cases could have been dealt with collectively,” he says.

A system on autopilot

The Danish Road Safety and Transport Agency maintains that the single case principle is non-negotiable: each fine is a separate matter.

“If the carrier has several fines, these must be dealt with individually. However, it is possible to state in the objections that several fines have been issued for the same reason,” the agency states.

In practice, that means thousands of almost identical complaints – and piles of rejections. According to ITD, the organization has submitted around 3,100 appeals on behalf of members, most of which have been rejected.

“We have seen rejections come back after just 41 minutes. This does not suggest that there is any real case processing going on. It looks like a system on autopilot,” says ITD’s chief lawyer Maria Feldberg.

Impossible documentation

Another major issue is documentation.

Who has the burden of proof when a truck driver claims that the box has malfunctioned?

“If the authorities claim that a box has not been active, it should be up to them to document it. You cannot demand that a truck driver prove how a lamp was blinking two weeks ago. Then you would need to have a camera on the device 24/7 – and that is completely unrealistic,” says Maria Feldberg.

Lawyer Anders Stig Vestergaard points out that, in theory, the burden of proof lies with the authorities, but in practice, this shifts along the way. The result is that truck drivers are in the weakest position throughout the process.

Only 17 percent are upheld

The Danish Road Safety and Transport Agency rejects the claim that complaints are treated with a presumption of fraud. The Authority refers to the Minister of Transport’s statement that discretion should be exercised in cases of obvious human error – for example, typing errors in the license plate number.

Nevertheless, the figures show that 83% of complaints are rejected. And even the truck drivers who have done everything they can to pay correctly are hit hard.

“If the truck drivers had been properly informed from the outset, many of the cases would not have arisen at all. When the system is so inflexible, all that remains is hope that the European Court of Justice will put a stop to it,” says Anders Stig Vestergaard.

Hope lies with the courts

ITD expects many of the disputed cases to end up in court.

“We hope that there will be a few judgments that can set a precedent. Otherwise, truck drivers, prosecutors, and courts will be inundated with thousands of individual cases,” says Maria Feldberg.

But if no changes are made, both ITD and lawyers believe that the legal rights of truck drivers will continue to be under pressure.

“I think that nine times out of ten, Danish courts will rule in favor of the authorities. But if the European Court of Justice rejects the practice, we can reverse the trend. It just requires someone willing to fight the case all the way,” says Anders Stig Vestergaard.

Written by journalist Mark Bøje, Nordiske Medier