For years, a 3.5-tonne van could cross borders with a very different paperwork burden from a heavy truck. That gap has narrowed. Light commercial vehicles with a permissible mass above 2.5 tonnes, when used for international carriage for hire or reward or for cabotage, have entered the EU driving-time and tachograph regime.
The practical issue is not only the second-generation smart tachograph. Dispatchers must plan around driving and rest periods, while drivers need the right card and a routine for recording other work. A tight express run that looked possible on a spreadsheet can become unrealistic once legal breaks are included.
Operators should check the registered maximum mass of every van, the type of work it performs and the countries it visits. Domestic use and an international paid transport are not the same case, so one rule should not be applied blindly to the whole fleet.
The sensible next step is a vehicle-by-vehicle audit, followed by realistic journey times in quotations. Otherwise the first warning may arrive at a roadside inspection — or in the margin of a job priced with impossible hours.
Official source: European Labour Authority
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