In order to know what the current state of play of the national legislations referring to car transporters is, in 2016 ECG decided to assemble the relevant articles from the legislations of the EU Member States, translate them into English and collate them into one single document. It includes a table on the loaded length allowed in each country as a summary of the situation. This is an updated version of the ECG loaded length table that has been in circulation for some years and has proved to be a good tool to highlight the diversity of European laws.
The booklet has been periodically re-edited over the years and at the end of 2020 we published version 4. This updated document contains amendments to several national laws (e.g. since the beginning of 2020 the height of trucks in Denmark is 4.1m instead of 4.0m) and we also include the interpretation of the Slovenian law from October 2020.
Another new element of the booklet is a clear reference to the paragraphs of national laws where the EU rule of a 12m long trailer and 18,75m long truck is transposed. In this way all national legislations referring to the length of trucks is at the same place and the booklet becomes a truly useful tool for LSPs and especially the drivers.
All national laws are subject to change and a new way to interpret the spirit of the law can happen any time (e.g. Ladestütze issue in Germany), therefore we would be grateful if you could let us know if you observe any changes in practices compared to the ones we describe in this manual. With your eventual comments or questions please contact ECG.