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DIGITACHS COULD BE WITH US FROM APRIL
This is the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders’ view after its people were at the recent Digitach meeting called by the UK Department for Transport. ''Overall the Digitach situation is a little clearer, but still very messy,’ said Allan McKenzie, senior technical manager at the SMMT. Another EU meeting, in Brussels, is to look at changes to drivers’ hours rules under the Working Time directive and hopefully will squeeze Digitachs onto its agenda. If the meeting agrees the EU plans as part of its Conciliation process, that decision will be binding. Once it has been translated into lots of different languages it will be published in the EU official journal. Just 20 days later it will be law, right across the EU, applying to ‘in scope’ vehicles; this means virtually everything over 3.5 tonnes gross. ‘So far so good. But the difficulty is that no one knows when the decision will be published and so predicting when Digitachs become a legal requirement on new vehicles is too much of a lottery. In practice the start point could be any time from early April to July. And there will be only 20 days warning,’ said McKenzie. Best estimates at the SMMT are that Digitachs will be a legal reality from the beginning of June, ‘But neither we nor anyone else know the true date yet, confirms McKenzie. This means that people need to be ready for a start date no later than April when they order new trucks or buses. Once the decision is law, you won’t be able to use a new truck with an old style analogue tachograph. We think there will be no concessions and operators or dealers could find themselves paying for very expensive conversions before they can use their new vehicles. So anyone with vehicles due for delivery after mid-March needs to think very carefully, particularly if they have ordered analogue tachos.’ The problem will be bad enough in the UK, but international operators may find even more difficulties, especially if they run into countries like Hungary and Greece which show no signs of being ready with their Digitach support systems.
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