At the end of March, the French police detained a driver who, although driving a truck, had a digital tachograph in his vehicle registering a rest period. Media report that this is the first fraud of this type recorded by the French services.
The French and Belgians began to detect manipulations at the operating system of digital tachographs. Employees of the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Urban Planning and Housing (DREAL) in the Center-Val de Loi region in central France, during a simple inspection, noticed the difference between the vehicle mileage and the distance traveled. This allowed them to find out irregularities in the functioning of the device. The truck continued to drive while recording the rest period and it was possible due to the modification of the tachograph operating system.
The DREAL officers consulted on this matter with inspectors in Belgium. It turned out that the local controls caught two such manipulations, involving the modification of the internal software of the tachograph and the odometer.
High fines for tachograph manipulation
It is worth knowing that the consequences of this type of dishonest actions are very strict both for the carrier and for the driver. The truck, which aroused the suspicions of the French services, was detained for five days. The driver got a fine of 4.5 thousand euro. In addition, he had to pay a bill for restoring to the state of conformity of the vehicle in the amount of 3,320 euros. In total, applying this „innovation” to the digital tachograph has depleted the pocket of the culprit by 7,820 euro.
Photo: Trans.INFO