From 2 February, all truck drivers will have to stop at or just after the border to manually indicate in the tachograph that they are crossing a land border. This may lead to chaos at border crossings, unnecessary extra CO2 emissions and higher costs for hauliers, warns Transport en Logistiek Nederland (TLN).
The obligation is part of the Mobility Package, a package of European laws and regulations for freight and passenger transport. From next month, the tachograph will also be used to check when a driver is driving abroad. Drivers will then be required to enter the country code at the border or the first possible stop after the border. That entry, along with driving up and down, takes about five minutes.
Chaos
TLN warns of chaos and road safety at borders. Some 96,000 trucks would pass the Dutch border every day. At the A67 near Venlo alone, it is already about 14,000 trucks a day. "If they soon start stopping en masse at the border or the same rest area or petrol station just after the border, the small number of parking spaces will be full in no time," the industry association argues.
This has major risks for road safety. Indeed, TLN expects that many drivers will use this stop to stop a little longer, for example to take their mandatory break. "Then the few rest areas will fill up even faster. If all drivers actually comply with the new rules, they may also start to stop on an emergency lane, or entry or exit lane."
Risk of penalties
If drivers do not comply with the new rules, they can be fined in the Netherlands or other EU member states and the entrepreneur risks losing his licence. This is because these fines count in the ERRU register, a penalty points register for road haulage. At the moment, it is unclear how strict enforcers will be on drivers who pass a full car park for safety reasons and enter the country code at a later date.
CO2 emissions
Besides the delay at borders, the mandatory stop leads to additional CO2 emissions. A truck consumes about one litre of diesel to reach 80 km/h speed from standstill, emitting 3.2 kg of CO2. In total, 96,000 trucks would unnecessarily emit an extra 307,000 kg of CO2 every day. As much as the annual emissions of 15 households. TLN stresses that this is at odds with the sustainability goals of the transport sector, but also of the European Union itself....
Better alternative
To avoid all this, industry association calls on the European Commission to change the provision, which would allow drivers to enter the country code at first planned or actual stop, instead of immediately at or after the border. TLN further points out that this obligation ends at the end of 2025. Indeed, by then all trucks driving internationally will be equipped with a new tachograph: the smart tacho 2. This uses GPS to automatically record the country in which the driver is driving.
