Any Vosa/Dvsa on here?

The company I work for does a double manned trunk run which is pretty standard fare with drivers starting and finishing together, and splitting the driving into 4 equal 2:20 hr stints.

No breaks are taken as the 1st 45 mins of POA resets the clock for the passenger. Stops are taken for toilet and fuel and leg stretches so its not 12 hours of being sat down.

One of the drivers went for an interview with another parcel company, and he didn’t get any further than the digicard download desk. The interviewer said his card contained a week of infringements for when he was doing the double manned run. Both for working time and driving time.

I have emailed the DVSA roadside enforcement officers mailbox, but have yet to receive a reply. What I wanted really was something on paper to say what we are doing is correct and legal to show my colleagues and manager (who is doubting himself now). As for the other parcel company, I wonder of they would be bothered to look deeper into this or just keep to their policy spiel. The same company had posters around their depot advising drivers to ensure they had a 30 minute break at 6 hours, which we all know should be 15 mins. Company policy getting confused with the law. My jokey suggestion was to accidentally lose your digicard.

I presume that the enforcement officers do look at the activity log, and can see the wheels were moving when the card in slot 2 was on POA, and this would be enough to explain the lack of break on the card.

Thanks for any insight.

I can’t speak for the DVSA but assuming the drivers are having the correct daily rest periods it sounds like they’re doing it legally, it’s probably the other companies software not being set up for multi-manning properly.

The multi-manning rules are shown under 1.4.Daily Rest Periods then scroll down to Multi-manning in this link.

I can confirm…

Tachographs opinion. At Continental Express, we had exactly the same problem of a list of infringements as long as your arm. The company said to us that the software was at fault and we didn’t have to sign for any of the alleged contraventions.

like id have signed them anyway lol

Judging from what I regularly see on the road with parcel company drivers, I’d expect the actual infringements recorded to be “Insufficient use of limiter”, “failure to generate adequate g-forces when cornering” and “Recording Break when not tipping”.

yourhavingalarf:
I can confirm…

Tachographs opinion. At Continental Express, we had exactly the same problem of a list of infringements as long as your arm. The company said to us that the software was at fault and we didn’t have to sign for any of the alleged contraventions.

like id have signed them anyway lol

Same at Domino’s, told to use POA double Manning and then given infringements by the guy at the next desk