Speeding and tachos
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TACHOGRAPHS could not be used as "spies in the cab" for speeding prosecutions, a meeting of management and drivers was told last week.
The meeting was one of a series being organised by the Debenham group to familiarise its employees with .E.‘gisladon about the instrument and how it works.
A spokesman for Smiths Industries, which manufactures the instrument on which Debenharn has decided to standardise, told drivers that a policeman asking to see the current tachograph chart and noticing that the driver had been speeding earlier in the day could not initiate a prosecution for speeding. For such a prosecution to succeed, the policeman would have to know the name of the road in which the offence took place.
On the matter of opening the instrument while the vehicle was in motion, it was explained that this would result in the speedometer needle flying round the dial and possibly becoming jammed while, at the same time, the connection inside the head of the drive cable from the gearbox would become out of register and the instrument could not then be closed.
Dehenham has .about 200 vehicles which will need to be fitted with tachographs under the present legislation but group transport manager, Mr Lionel TUSIDTI, be:!ieves this will be extended to smaller vehicles very shortly.