By the end of the year in the USA the provisions on the obligation to install tachographs in trucks will come into force. The ideas seem to be right but drivers do not hide dissatisfaction and organise a protest.
This year 3.5 million truckers in the USA will have to get used to the presence of the tachographs (ELD – Electronic Logging Device) in their trucks. The new rules enter into force on 18th of December this year.
Meanwhile, as we can read on the startribune.com website, many driver-entrepreneurs do not even want to fulfil this obligation.
Operation Black and Blue is an initiative in which from 3th until the 8th of October, the ELD opponents will be protesting in Washington. It is possible that in the course of the protest the roads will be blocked and carriers will refuse to carry out some of the transports.
The main postulates of the tachograph opponents can be found >>> HERE.
ELD is an excessive control over the citizen for the carriers and a threat. They opt for simple reasonable regulations as, according to them, the industry is affected with a major problem of overregulation. To fight against it and get the attention of the authorities, the USA carriers, and especially independent driver-entrepreneurs, get together, among others, via the Internet and conduct joint operations.
ELD and its advantages
FMCSA, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Organisation, stresses the importance of tachographs for all road users. According to the FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne, LED will „each year save an average of 26 lives and protect 562 people from injury in accidents involving heavy commercial vehicles”.
The devices will also allow drivers to save some time on paperwork (even up to 20 hours a year). It seems, however, that these arguments do not convince many of them.
The USA authorities decided on the introduction of tachographs in December 2015. Carriers and drivers have had two years to adapt to the new provisions. For almost 80 years paper books, in which working time and rest periods were recorded, were used in the industry. The ratio of work to rest will not change, providing up to 11 hours of driving and then 10 hours of break.
Do Americans rightly rebel against the new obligation? Would you like the tachograph or the paper books?
Photo: wikimedia.org