Wrong time tad()
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• Badly made tachograph charts can give time readings which are out by as much as 30 minutes, traffic examiners in the Eastern Region revealed this week.
Faulty production processes mean that the holes in the centre of the charts are not always punched accurately and when the charts are fitted to tachographs the readings do not align properly. Faulty trace lines are recording incorrect start and finish times.
The most common discrepancy is about five to 10 minutes, says the Eastern Traffic Area office, which warns that inaccurate tacho charts are now a common problem and inspectors are on the look out for charts which are made by two principal manufacturers.
Although such discrepancies can put a driver outside the law, traffic examiners say that they can easily spot the fault. One examiner says: "To be accurate is critical for drivers when they take their daily rest periods. This is a common problem, and our inspectors know how to double-check the charts before we go to the prosecution stage. Millions of charts are used every day and operators themselves cannot spot the problem. If a driver does overlay his charts and find that there is a recording discrepancy, there is nothing he can do."
Around 100 million tacho charts are used every year by Britain's hauliers and leading manufacturer Lucas Kienzle says that it has heard of time recording problems. According to Dino Mercurio at Lucas Kienzle: "Any manufacturer with such a problem should have its quality-control process seriously questioned."
Lucas Kienzle charts have not been found to be faulty so far by the traffic examiners.
Not everyone agrees that there is a problem, however. The Freight Transport Association, which sells 15 million and checks one million charts ever: year through its Freightcheck service, says it does not believ that the fault lies with the mam facturers.
Communications director Richard Turner says: "We always come across problems when dealing with tachos, but