This is not my interpretation, I believe it is the Stonebridge tacho interpretation.
On a daily basis the tacho will tell from when you start your day, how long you have got before you have to start a daily rest period, from day one it will say 15 hours with minimum of 9 hrs rest for 3 shifts then the 4th will say 13 hrs and 11 hrs rest.
But if in one of those 3 shifts you did 15 hours then took in excess of 12 hours rest for one of the 3 15 hour shifts you can do , it won’t tell you to do a max of 13 with 11 off on your 4th shift, it will actually let you record a 4th 15 hour day with a 9 hour rest period.
Only thing I can think of is as we work on 24 hour periods start to finish, the tacho is starting a new 24 hour period after the 9 hour minimum break and counting the next 3 + hours as part of a split daily rest for the next 24 hour period.
Looking at the rules, it doesn’t really say to much about the requirements on when this 3 hours can be taken, all it says is in the day.
Someone got it wrong then!
The 3 hours just needs 1 min of work either side of it
Thing is tacho analys by the the company that does ours is recording split breaks when split break rules apply on the print outs even though I haven’t done any on what I thought was the correct way as in 3 hours continues break during shift.
So is that wrong as well?
As the rules doesn’t state that you have to do any work prior to taking the 3 hour break, you must be able to take it at any time during the day, and as long as the recorded day is less than 12 hours, and no one can say what time the shift started, I think this example would be why it’s being recorded as a split break.
1st shift 15 hours followed by 13 hrs rest, but only 9 needed so 4 hours spare, do a 12 hour or less shift then take 9 off, this second shift is being recorded as a split shift as 3 hours have already been recorded in the day.
Not saying this is right, but is likely to be the reason both tacho head and tacho analysis is recording a split rest period.
I had a Digifob card reader for a while, and it did the same thing. ie it would tell you it was ok to do more than three reduced rests if you had taken eleven hours off following a shift of more than thirteen hours.
When I’ve used a Stoneridge tacho, there seems to be a bug, whereby if you do a 13+ hour shift, followed by 11+ hours rest, it seems to class that as a regular rest, not a reduced rest as it should be.
Moral of the story, no software is perfect, it should just be used as a guide, and can’t replace the good old pen and paper for keeping track of your hours imho.
Conan the Librarian:
Moral of the story, no software is perfect, it should just be used as a guide, and can’t replace the good old pen and paper and grey matter for keeping track of your hours imho.
I added in the most important bit of equipment to your quote 
But yes I wholeheartedly agree with your statement (same applies to the Satnav argument too).
Reef:
Conan the Librarian:
Moral of the story, no software is perfect, it should just be used as a guide, and can’t replace the good old pen and paper and grey matter for keeping track of your hours imho.I added in the most important bit of equipment to your quote
But yes I wholeheartedly agree with your statement (same applies to the Satnav argument too).
Well, I figured most drivers can easily lay their hands on a pen and paper…
So, I have just got off the phone with the DVSA regarding this “glitch” and the outcome is possibly as per my example above being a legal split daily rest.
As there is no requirement in the regs to record any work or any driving before taking the 3 hours of a split daily and can be recorded at any time in the day, a day being any 24 hour period start to finish, it seems that the 3 hours break recorded after the 9 hour break for previous 24 hour, plus a 12 hour shift plus 9 hour rest = a 24 hour period, a new 24 hour period can start at any time after a daily rest period, and would be the reason why tacho analysis records it as a split daily rest.