Your European correspondent's comment (CM February 19) on the European
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Court of Justice's so-called "judgment" on Great Britain's refusal to fit tachographs is naive to say the least.
I have seen no indication that "employers now seem more ready to accept tachographs than they were a few years ago.Fleet operators recognised some years ago when the idea was first mooted that the cost to industry of installing, and far more important, maintaining at all times a
sealed calibrated tachograph would be prohibitive and far outweigh any small economic or safety benefits which the compulsory installation of the instrument might bring.
In any case, in this age of electronics, the cumbersome mechanically-operated tachograph is as outdated as the clockwork clock.
If it is so terribly important to have this sort of record, why not wait the very short time which will elapse before the aircraft type of "black box" becomes available cheaply and in quantity?
L. G. REED, Shipham, Somerset.
Like so many others involved in this discussion Mr Reed uses words like "prohibitive" with abandon. We wonder how he knows that the aircraft black box will be cheaper hand more available than the equipment which we undertook to fit when we signed the Treaty of Rome? We can't simply choose which laws we will obey. — Ed.