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Digital tacho chaos is still on the cards
Page 6
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As the August deadline for smart-card tachos draws near, the situation could fairly be described as a total cock-up. Brian Weatherley reports.
THERE SEEMS TO be no end to the row over digital smart-card tachos as the European Parliament and Commission continue tobicker over the date of their fitment.
Ralf Bosch, director of international relations at tachograph maker Siemens VDO, says: "The conciliation procedure will only take place after the [EC's] summer break, when the council will be under the presidency of the UK."
The EC had planned to push through the mandatory fitment of smart-card tachos across all 29 states by 5 August 2005.This deadline will be missed and Bosch warns that as a result: "Control unit and vehicle manufacturers, transport businesses and anyone else involved will not receive clarity about the new deadline.., before the autumn." The delay over smart-card tachos boils down to a fight between the EC which has consistently called for an August 2005 launch, and the European Parliament, which in April adopted a resolution calling for the devices to be installed in all new vehicles manufactured after 5 August 2006, becoming obligatory on all newly registered trucks a year later.
Despite this the EC, prompted by some EC states, insists its original timetable must stand. This raises thespectre of UK international operators being fined for not having smart-card tachos in their vehicles while operating abroad — chiefly in Ireland, the Netherlands or France. Siemens VDO boss Josef Besting puts the scale of the EU smart-card tachograph project into perspective: "We are talking about more than 10 million truck and bus drivers, more than 400,000 fleet managers, over 30,000 workshop mechanics and 600,000 enforcement officers. And you have to do this in not one or two countries but 29 all at once." The DVLA says that it has been ready to issue smart cards since 1 June; it plans a series of seminars to improve the industry's understanding of this technology.