I don’t know if anyone has covered this already but the EU Parliament has agreed a review on the new Tacho Rules from 2020 which I found in the latest copy of Les Routiers Magazine (5/7/2012)
This is the literal translation from the magazine
As we had written it last month, the European Parliament outright adopted this week a resolution aiming at reviewing in depth the legislation relating to the tachograph, to avoid fraud, to ameliorate working conditions of the professional drivers and as a result to ensure more security on roads (see dispatch 15684). The Eurodeputies opened the way to an electronic and not manual use of the apparatus, what announces the advent of the “clever” said tachograph by 2020. Other modifications in depth: the obligation to install the apparatus for heavyweights from more than 2,8 t (more than 3,5 t before) and for vehicles transporting more than 9 persons, as well as release of the tachograph for the drivers among whom it is main job within 100 km (no and not of 50 km). Thanks to satellite technologies, controls will be able to become remote and aim only at the suspicious trucks. The clever tachograph should allow to the firms of road transport to economize the equivalent of 515 million administrative expenses per year.