The common position of the Council incorporates the five amendments adopted by the European
Parliament at its first reading and accepted by the Commission in its amended proposal. These
amendments concern:
- a restatement of environmental and road safety concerns;
- a change of definition of what constitutes a 'conditioned vehicle';
- a longer maximum length of 18.75 m for road trains, but only to permit simpler coupling
mechanisms.
It must be noted that the common position adopted in the Council has a more limited scope than
the initial proposal: harmonization of the maximum length and width of all freight vehicle
combinations, and only international harmonization of the height of freight vehicles.
In addition, the Council introduced the following substantive changes to the Commission
proposal:
- the possibility for Member States to require that conditioned vehicles be accompanied by a
document or ATP certification plate as evidence of the vehicle's quality of insulation;
- to allow for particular situations in certain regions or industrial sectors, a Member State may
permit vehicles used for goods transport to deviate from the dimensions laid down in the
directive where such transport does not significantly affect international competition in the
transport sector;
- Member States which have to adapt their road infrastructure in order to be able to permit the
modular concept may prohibit until 31 December 2003 at the latest the circulation in its territory,
in national goods transport operations, of vehicles which exceed current national standards on
dimensions provided that national legislation continues to apply to all Community carriers in a
non-discriminatory manner;
- vehicles used for goods transport and registered before the implementation of this directive may
continue to be used nationally until 31 December 2006;
-buses and coaches are exempt from all aspects of national harmonization, thus double deck
buses and 15 m coaches can continue as at present. The maximum width of passenger vehicles
on international journeys will be increased to 2.55 m, but from 1 January 1999.
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