Tachograph delay 'victory for common sense'

FTA chief executive Richard Turner says that the adopted decision of the European Parliament's Transport Committee to delay the compulsory fitment of digital tachographs to new vehicles until August 5, 2007, is a victory for common sense and will benefit unit manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers and lorry operators. The FTA has campaigned for such a delay for the past two years.

Turner said: "If this delay is achieved, it will allow time for each sector of the digital tachograph mix to organise their arrangements in a far more realistic and practical fashion than we are presently faced with.

"FTA has been working hard in Brussels with both the Parliament and the Commission and now feels that they should be congratulated on taking this new line which clearly recognises the problems and amends legislation to deal with them. Due to the legal process we are not yet home and dry. However, this news is a big step in the right direction."

On March 15, the European Parliament Transport Committee voted to postpone the compulsory fitting of new lorries with the digital tachograph by August 2005. The committee voted to put back the key deadline by a year, which would mean that all vehicles manufactured after August 2006 would need to be fitted with a digital tachograph. After August 5, 2007 all vehicles put into service for the first time must be retrofitted with digital tachographs.

The transport committee must now win approval for these amendments from the whole of Parliament at a plenary session to be held between April 11-14 and the European Council of Transport Ministers needs to come to a similar decision in June.

However, the earliest these changes can reach the EU statute book is November, leaving three months during which technically new vehicles need to be fitted with non-existent digital tachographs.

Two weeks ago the FTA wrote to Transport Minister David Jamieson asking for a statement to sort out this legal uncertainty for operators.