Carrying livestock

[Angus]

I was told today that if you are stationary on a motorway for over 30 minutes and carrying livestock (horses in my case), you can contact the police and ask/demand to be escorted from the motorway.

Can anyone here confirm this?

[ROG]

VOSA have a 30 minute window in which they should deal with livestock vehicles at a check point IF THERE IS NOTHING AMISS

Not heard of the 30 min motorway thing though - what if you were stationary for 2 hours in an incident where nothing could move?

[Kevin]

I've had a search through the web pages of Defra and several other official bodies and organisations, but can't find any such rule regarding delays on motorways.

I did find, however, Council Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 of 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport and related operations and amending Directives 64/432/EEC an d93/119/EC and Regulation (EC) No 1255/97 - (pauses for breath!)

Article 23 thereof covers emergency measures where the transporter cannot comply with the Regulation and these include inter alia:

Where there is no other means of safeguarding the welfare of the animals, they shall be humanely killed or euthanised So be careful what you wish for!

I'm sure that would be a last resort. If it was at all possible to allow the passage of a vehicle transporting livestock, and where not doing so would cause undue suffering, then hopefully that would be the course of action, however, what if, like ROG says, nothing could move? Where the carriageway is divided by a barrier that is capable of having a section removed I suppose it might be an option to allow the vehicle carrying livestock to join the opposite carriageway if one side is completely blocked.