Hi coop,
This is when it is actually easier just to be driving a truck all the time.
For the purposes of getting stopped, the DVSA would be looking to make sure your daily and weekly rests are adequate (amongst other things). This means that they need to know about the days you worked when there is no record on the driver card.
For the sake of keeping yourself right, a small diary which you can get on Ebay for £1.50 or something would suffice (that’s what I do). Record at the very least your start and finish times. The DVSA would not go as far as checking your breaks if you haven’t driven an in scope vehicle on the particular day. Technically I think the records should be on the back of tacho paper or on an analogue chart, but a diary is adequate as far as I know.
If you go down the making manual entries shenanigans route, then you would have to start putting in breaks because the computer would pick up on that when you download your card.
The ? symbol is selectable just like rest, other work, poa, when doing manual entries. This indicates that you are not committing to this time being anything other than what is in your diary. It is unknown time as far as the driver card is concerned.
If a company does insist on manual entries, to be honest it is easier to get the keys for a vehicle and go and do it at the end of the shift so you don’t have a backlog to do. Just like fueling up, getting debriefed etc, you are getting paid for it at the end of the day.
If you ever do a half day driving, I would always complete the manual entries to complete the full day.