Following the announcement by DfT in March that it will have the support and infrastructure in place for the legal use of digital tachographs in the UK from August 5; two truck manufacturers have come forward confirming the units can be specified in thier products with immediate effect.

Iveco told ROADWAY that for an extra charge of £85 orders placed now, post August 5 delivery, for its Daily van over 3.5 tonnes and its full heavy truck range can be specified with the option of a digital tacho .

DAF says that it had already anticipated the compulsory introduction of the digital tachograph this August and from Feb 20 was fitting the units in all its newly ordered vehicles, for post August 5 delivery, as standard.

DAF's UK marketing director, Tony Pain said: 'DAF made the descision to switch from analogue to digital in anticipation of the Aug 5 implementation date. When the European Parliament Transport Committee announced that there could now be a further delay to compulsory introduction, we switched all orders placed after February 20 back to analogue. But now in view of the UK government's descision to make the use of digital tachographs legal in the UK from August, we will fit digital tachographs to new vehicles for a post August 5 delivery date if customers request them.'

Pain says that despite benefits, in terms of managing working time and drivers hours, the introduction of digital tachographs will bring, he strongly suspects that UK hauliers will be unwilling to use the new tachographs until they have to: 'Until UK operators fully understand the new tachographs many will view them with suspicion, so we don't anticipate being flooded with requests for the new units. Most will wait to see how others get on with them and then decide. The problem with that is they could become compulsory anytime after August 5 this year, if the legal implementation date is not slipped to August 2006. If this is the case they may risk getting caught out,' he added.

'Operators are going to be forced to used digital tachographs in the near future so in my opinion it would be worth investing time preparing for the compulsory introduction sooner rather than later.'

The European Parliament Transport Committee is considering changes to the new drivers hour's regulations, the legislation that is required to make digital tachographs compulsory, until July 18. Following this there will be a vote in the European Parliament to agree any amendments to the directive after which the directive will be published and will  become law. When it is made law compulsory fitting of digital tachographs into new vehicles will be enforced. This may not happen until the Autumn but currently all discussions are based around an August 5 2005 deadline and the European Commision still believes that there is no need to delay further.

A delay until August 2006 has not been confirmed.