No this is not a derogatory post but a phenomenon I encountered yesterday.
Usual story, multi drop looking for a customer on a trading estate, in the dark, come to a T-junction and took a left instead of a right. Faff about come back go the other way, stop and ask and find out it’s right the other end of the road.
Now at the outset I would have 7-8 minutes before the 4h 30m ■■■■■■■■■■ time was up. By the time I arrived in the yard it was down to 3 minutes.
Yet again it appears I pulled in the wrong side of a fence but the guys were helpful and just told us to back up and come around the other side. Space involved about 100 foot reverse and 60 foot drive forward. Now a back up was about a minute or so max and pull in about the same. As I was braking the yellow T symbol lit up on the MAN dash. I stopped hit the break button and the steering wheel icon said 4h 30m. Phew!
But… two minutes later the sodding thing had gone to 4h 31m and I was stopped!
It got me thinking if I had been caught by the tacho rounding mechanism. A reverse of one minute had rounded to two and a forward drive had somehow rounded to two as well. I have noticed something similar before on other trucks but was mighty peed off with that one. Next time I’ll eject the bloody card.
What age is the truck? The newer tachos can record more effectively I think if it’s fitted after 2012 is when the latest software update was.
To summarise though…
OLD: ANY minute with ANY driving is counted as a full minute if driving. It will also round up the minute before and the minute after (the sandwich effect) which is where your time creeps along.
NEW: ANY minute where driving is the longest activity will be counted as driving so if you drive for 29 seconds but are stationary for 31 seconds as other work it will count as a minute of other work.
Modern day technology for you. In the old days we had two or three logbooks. [emoji12]
But seriously that is the big problem, you were trying to do your best but are then caught out with obsolete equipment.
I came across an issue with a new tacho (late 2013 reg vehicle) where it was jumping the driving time forward in 2 minute increments… say you’re in fairly slow moving traffic and moving for 10-20-30 seconds, then stopped for 30-40 seconds… rinse and repeat a few times… when the next minute ticked over it wasn’t adding a minute to driving time, but it wasn’t adding it to other work either… it’s like it was saving it up and when the tacho ticked over a second minute, it was increasing the driving time by 2 minutes
It’s as if multiple short shunts breaks the ‘longest activity in that minute’ rule, and it just decided to allocate it all to driving time. I remember this happened recently where i was stuck in crappy city centre traffic, i had about 25 minutes left to get about 5-6 miles. I must have driven for a total of about 4-5 minutes over a 10 minute period about a mile or 2, sat stationary the rest of the time… but it added 10 minutes driving on - in 2 minute increments! Still don’t fully understand how/why it’s doing that, but im wary of it now when tight on time to get to next destination, and stuck in stop-start traffic.
You should be shot at dawn! If you work for a huge logistics provider you’d find yourself with an infringement for getting to 4:30 never mind a minute later…VOSA won’t be bothered or at least in the past the wouldn’t have bothered because they couldn’t ticket you unless it happened that day. They can go back in time now…
Every morning, pull out of my parking space by about 5 feet to get to the back of the lorry. Must be rolling no more than 10 seconds.
The tacho counts this as a minutes driving.
I don’t care what people say about it must be the longest activity, I’ve checked the tacho head after pulling forward and it says 1 min drive time. I then pull forward another 20 foot or so out of the gate and stop to lock it behind, me… another minute of driving…
Pull forward from the gate to the road junction, no more than 5 foot… another minutes driving.
I’ve done 5 minutes before I’ve even left the yard.
I must loose an hour drive time or more everyday by this stupid system.
TiredAndEmotional:
You should be shot at dawn! If you work for a huge logistics provider you’d find yourself with an infringement for getting to 4:30 never mind a minute later…VOSA won’t be bothered or at least in the past the wouldn’t have bothered because they couldn’t ticket you unless it happened that day. They can go back in time now…
No I don’t. But having spoken to VOSA about something else a few months ago they are not that bothered if it is a few minutes…and you are not doing so repeatedly.
No it was a crap day, late leaving (couldn’t get on loading bay), loads of drops, couldn’t get them all off and was getting to last effective drop. Had I turned right not left there would have been no problem. It is not as if I had had no break. Just needed a 30.
A while ago the first gen tachograph recorded more driving time than I had been on the road in stop start traffic, new truck latest tacho head the stop start driving is now recorded as other work, and is possible to actually record it as break if ya press the button every time you stop, managed to record 15 mins break.
One minute or so over “Don’t Panic”!
And if you try ejecting the card to hide a minor little glitch, someone may well suspect you’re trying to hide summat major.
Show everything and don’t sweat it.
What a story about nothing its sad people take a monment from there job and can make it look so serious
Why would you give it a second thought come back when you have something to say that’s worth talking about
109LWB:
Shhh, don’t tell anyone but I went 10 mins over 4.30 today.
Amateur, i drove for 10hrs and 6 minutes last friday
There will be guys on here disgusted and at the same time amazed at how you dared to commit such heinous crimes.
They would be shear nervous wrecks if they had done these themselves.
I myself am personally shocked at your cavalier attitudes to all this.
Do you both realise the enormity of all this ■■
May God have mercy on you both.