Tacho problem hits new deliveries

UPDATED: See DVSA statement below

The DVLA has declared a three-week amnesty on tachograph offences on new coaches after calibration engineers were issued with faulty equipment.

The calibration issue surfaced this week as dealerships sought to deliver new vehicles. According to one source, the calibration cards issued to testers will only calibrate new ‘smart’ tachographs – which themselves are mired in a serious problem of under-supply.

Without a calibrated tachograph, it is unlikely that drivers will be able to legally travel into Europe. In the UK, it is believed that drivers will keep a manual, hand-written record of hours driven.

Bus & Coach Buyer is seeking confirmation of the amnesty arrangement and the technical details of the problem.

• FULL details of this story will be in next week’s Bus and Coach Buyer

UPDATE from DVSA: ‘We are aware of an issue with recently issued tachograph workshop cards and have been working with our supplier to resolve this as quickly as possible.

DVSA has issued a special notice to technicians explaining that they can continue to undertake periodic inspections. Repairs to existing tachographs or calibration of new tachographs for the first time however will not be able to be done at present. We are issuing replacement cards and anticipate that these will be with workshops by Monday 8 April.

DVSA has advised that any vehicles that cannot be calibrated because of the issue will not be subject to enforcement action in respect of this requirement until 30 April 2019. Any vehicles not calibrated during this period would need to be taken for calibration before 30 April.’