Row brews over EU smart tacho rules
Page 9
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The Government's hopes of reducing the amount of fraud from the new generation of digital tachographs look set to be dashed.
After months of argument within the European Union over whether drivers should be allowed to manually input data to the planned digital tachographs and individual smart cards, it appears that the wording of the relevant EU regulation bans most, if not all, manual inputting.
Commercial vehicle enforcement authorities throughout the EU's 15 member states have warned that tachograph abuse could become commonplace if drivers are prevented from noting down some of their work periods, or if they are banned from inputting their names if they lose their personalised smart cards.
But most EU government officials are known to be keen to proceed with the scheme, even though it may be imperfect. "If the Rolls Royce solution means calling it all off until we get another I don't think there will be enough support for that." says one source.
European Commission lawyers are checking the regulation's wording; the question of manual inputting will be discussed this week in Brussels at a meeting of the committee responsible for agreeing the technical specification of the new systems.
The UK Department of Transport will be pushing hard for an amendment to the regulations allowing all types of manual inputting— this could mean delaying the new equipment until at least 2003.
Operators will not be forced to replace conventional tachographs with digital models; instead they will be built into new trucks built after an agreed date.