Recently heard of a driver being stopped and has got himself in a bit of bother over this. personally i have never heard of it being a problem before, apparently it is supposed to be on other work. Can anyone shed some light on this?
Yeah should be other work. Or else every time you stop at the lights or an island or whatever you’re recording break.
Yes I also heard this before.
Assuming it’s not an absolutely ancient tachograph unit, it will record driving whenever the vehicle is moving, irrespective of which mode it was left on when stopped.
The only issue would be that it records rest every time the vehicle is stopped, including momentarily in traffic etc.
This could lead to questions as to whether breaks have been taken correctly, but my biggest worry would be if the authorities checked the tacho while you were actually engaged in other work, then it could look like you were intending to record a break while working, even if that wasn’t your intention.
We had this issue years ago as several of our drivers just left it on rest all day regardless. It wasn’t REALLY a problem regarding actual driving as that showed on the trace, but the officials advised them to move it to other work mode during the day when loading to differentiate that they were not on a break as too many breaks shown looked suspicious.
Pete.
Incorrect use of mode switch is the official term, which only really affects analogue tachos, and never had hassle off the ministry for this offence in the past even though break was recorded throughout the day.
When i crashed the lorry and was taken to hospital they downloaded my card and looked at my charts which normally just show driving and break. Questioned my boss about this and he said that we don’t get breaks deducted from our pay so we have plenty as he only worries if the work is not getting done. DVSA man was happy enough im assuming as no crap came my way or the company.
weeto:
Incorrect use of mode switch is the official term, which only really affects analogue tachos as digi,
It should be that way. Unfortunately those lovely people at Siemens had other ideas and literally half the brand new wagons we buy get sent to us with tachos that default to break when the ignition is switched off. Not quite as bad as recording break at traffic lights but can still look very suspicious if you don’t show chunks of other work when on jobs that the DVSA know you have to unload yourself.
I’ve accidentally recorded over an hour of other work as break on several occasions. The company have them reset to other work at the first year recalibration but the odd few slip through the net and I had a 14 plate last week still like it.
Terry T:
weeto:
Incorrect use of mode switch is the official term, which only really affects analogue tachos as digi,It should be that way. Unfortunately those lovely people at Siemens had other ideas and literally half the brand new wagons we buy get sent to us with tachos that default to break when the ignition is switched off. Not quite as bad as recording break at traffic lights but can still look very suspicious if you don’t show chunks of other work when on jobs that the DVSA know you have to unload yourself.
I’ve accidentally recorded over an hour of other work as break on several occasions. The company have them reset to other work at the first year recalibration but the odd few slip through the net and I had a 14 plate last week still like it.
I suppose the type of work you are doing would dictate the best mode for the tacho to default to, on some work I’d prefer it to default to break and other work default to other work.
weeto:
Incorrect use of mode switch is the official term, which only really affects analogue tachos, and never had hassle off the ministry for this offence in the past even though break was recorded throughout the day.
That applies to most people. I’ve been spoken to about it by management years ago but never in bother by the ministry.
However; it is an offence and if you do it you run the risk of meeting a DVSA officer on a bad day when he wants two more pulls for a line in lorry driver bingo. Your call.
I was also told not to leave on break mode when I had an analogue brand new with the cd player type tachograph.
Talking of digis switching to break when ignition is off, our grab wagon defaults to poa. I prefer the default to be other work but poa for a grab sort of makes sense. You can’t exactly do other work ie loading with the grab with the engine off, can you?