Confusion is set to reign this weekend for lorry drivers with the arrival of British Summer Time, the Freight Transport Association has claimed.

It points to the fact that from May, lorry drivers will be obliged to work on UTC, or Universal Time Co-ordinated, when the new EU digital tachograph regulations come into force.

UTC equates to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), so when UK drivers sign on for work at 7am they will have to enter 6am and compute records of rest periods and daily breaks on a different time than the one stated by Big Ben or their wristwatch.

The FTA, presently engaged in training programmes on the operation of digital tachographs for thousands of lorry drivers, managers and back-office staff, forecasts considerable confusion.

UTC is the standard time used worldwide by the air and shipping industries. It has been adopted by the EU as the appropriate set reference time for the collection and computation of lorry drivers' hours records for the digital tachograph. Every new lorry above 3.5 tonnes put into operation in the EU after 1 May will be fitted with the unit and any driver of that vehicle will therefore be obliged to work on UTC.

Robin Sharp, FTA general manager - development, said: “I have absolutely no doubt that we are going to see enormous confusion by lorry drivers across Europe as to what the devil the time is!

“However we will have an advantage over our European colleagues as we will be working on the right time for at least half of the year - they will be at least one or maybe two hours different all the time.”