Tacho discs instead of log books
Page 16
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Delay in type approval scheme may mean queues for fitting
• The Department of the Environment has told tachograph manufacturers that it intends to accept tachograph discs as a substitute for drivers' log books, insofar as present legal requirements overlap with the information that the tachograph can provide. And there is now provision for tachograph record sheets — a long-term record compiled from individual discs — in the draft technical specification which the DoE has just issued.
The DoE has also issued a statement of intent concerning the proposed voluntary national type approval scheme for tachographs, and this has been circulated to manufacturers and interested parties.
It is significant that, because Parliamentary time was not available in this session for the Minister for Transport Industries to seek powers for such a type approval scheme, the scheme itself will be unable to start before the middle of 1974. Yet new vehicles, and existing vehicles carrying dangerous goods (the latter estimated to total around 10,000) have to be fitted with tachographs by the end of 1975 to meet the EEC's January 1 1976 deadline. This situation could well lead to a chaotic pile-up of demand for fitting.
To encourage the fitment of tachographs currently sold in this country, in the period before tachographs become obligatory
under EEC rules, Mr Peyton announced las July that he would seek powers t type-approve these instruments. The Dol scheme now announced is based on simpler specification than the full EE( regulations demand, though, like EE( Regulation 1463 /70, it requires th instruments to record time, speed an distance and is in many general respect similar to the Community specification.
Tachographs approved under thi voluntary national scheme will comply wit EEC requirements until January 1 198( when full EEC-type instruments will becom obligatory for the classes of vehicle to whiel the tachograph regulations apply — general, goods vehicles over 3.5 metric ton gvw and passenger vehicles with nine a more seats used on routes exceeding 50km.
Among the requirements set out in th DoE draft are that tachos in vehicles sha be checked every two years, with a muc more detailed check on accuracy an operation every six years from the date c initial installation. These checks will, like th installation and calibration, be the exclusiv preserve of DoE-authorized manufacturer and dealers.
Both Locas-Kienzle and Smiths Industrie told CM this week that their currentl marketed tachographs would comply wit the DoE type-approval specification.