Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-02-Speech-1-072-000"
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"en.20120702.18.1-072-000"2
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"Mr President, tachographs play an important dual role for road transport: a social and a safety role. They make sure that the rules on driving time and rest periods are properly enforced. This is vital since the rules address the fatigue of drivers, which is one of the main causes of accidents involving heavy-duty vehicles. Tachographs also help ensure that the rules cannot be abused, resulting in distortion of competition between road transport operators.
Driving-time rules are now observed better since digital tachographs were introduced in 2006. Operators also have less paperwork than they did with the analogue tachograph, but reports indicate that levels of fraud and the administrative costs of using tachographs are still high. Last year, the Commission proposed ways to tackle these two problems. This would be done by introducing a new ‘smart tachograph’ using satellite navigation and radio communication functions, accompanied by better rules on inspections, workshops, training of enforcement officers and sanctions.
I am very glad that the report from the Committee on Transport and Tourism prepared by Ms Ţicău supports and reinforces the Commission proposal. The Commission welcomes more than half of the 120 amendments adopted by the Transport Committee, as they clarify or strengthen its original proposal. They include, for instance, the amendments to strengthen the sanctions regime, to improve training of enforcers and to clarify the rules on the TACHOnet IT system and on the liability of employers.
The Commission can also accept, in principle, another quarter of the amendments. The most important of these are on the merger of driver cards with the driving licence, asking for a more detailed analysis before the implementation of such a merger; and, secondly, on moving definitions from the current annex into the main body of the legislation. I would, however, caution against applying full codecision to non-essential elements which may need regular updates, and requiring Member States to equip all their control authorities with the devices needed to read the information transmitted by the new radio communication function of the smart tachograph. This is good but costly, and I would recommend a step-by-step approach.
There remain 13 amendments that are of concern to the Commission. The most important are the amendments numbered 116 to 120, which would result in changes to the existing social rules and legislation on driving times – Regulation (EC) No 561/2006. These amendments would create a derogation for craftsmen driving within a radius of 150 km of their base. This is a substantial increase from the 100 km set down in the Commission’s proposal and it would negatively affect road safety. In practice, it would encourage many drivers to drive six hours or more on a daily basis without any control on their driving time."@en1
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