French decide on tacho standards
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• The French Minister of Transport and the Minister of Equipment have agreed standards for fitting calibrating tachographs.
French operators have been waiting to hear these details because in France certain public service vehicles registered before Jan 1 1973 must be fitted with tachographs by July 1 this ,year. Articulated vehicles registered before Jan 1 1973 and vehicles of over 6 metric tons gvw carrying dangerous goods must be fitted with tachographs by Jan 1 1974; and tippers of 3.5 metric tons and over and vehicles engaged in road transport of 18.5 metric tons gvw or over by Jan 11975.
Only authorized installers and repairers of their approved agents will be allowed to install and service the instrument which will be subject to calibration and examination at two stages.
The first stage will involve calibration of new instruments and those which have been repaired; this will be done by the manufacturers or their representatives in France. At the second stage, that is calibration after installation and after periodic installation and examination for faults, the former will be carried out by the Service des Miens and the latter by the Service des Instruments de Mesure (the French equivalent to the British weights and measures department). Both these departments may delegate the work to agreed organizations.
The periodic examination by the Service des Miens will take place every two years and will involve confirmation of the efficiency of the apparatus, the accuracy of the scale and the value of the vehicle characteristies recorded.
Then every six years or less, the Service des Instruments de Mesure will examine the errors which the apparatus has made in service.
Those tachographs already in service which do not conform to the French standards laid down may be used till 1980 but they will be subject to the same first calibration after repair and periodic examination as new devices.