Couple of questions about tachos

ASK THE EXPERTS SAFETY, LAW AND WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE FORUM (INTE
1

Right, although I have had my C&E for a few years, I am certainly not a full time driver. At the moment the company I work for (Company A) have sub contracted me out to work for company B. Now 99% of this work does not involve driving, however a week on Mon I will have to drive a Rigid or an Artic back from Germany for Company B. Whatever truck I take, it will have an analogue tacho and is owned by company B. As I understand it I must keep my tacho records for 28days in case I’m stopped at a later date, then I assume I must hand the charts into Company B as the truck belongs to them and they need the records, but does my employer (company A) need any record of this (they also have an operators license)?

If the truck was to have a digital tacho, how do I let company B download my card to record the hours spent in their truck, without them also getting the other data from time spent driving trucks for company A which has nothing to do with them?

If I have been working all week with no driving duties, then say on Thu I was asked to take a truck out during the day, do I then need to fill out charts for the full working week, even though I may not remember exactly times of duty from the 1st few days of the week?

I hope someone can help with these questions. Things would be much simpler if I was a full time driver :laughing:

I should be back to base by Tue afternoon, and I will not drive a truck again for weeks if not months, but do I need to fill out manual charts for the rest of the working week even tho it will just be on paper chart, and only show other work? and who should these charts be given to? Again this is easy done using paper charts, but how do I do this if the truck had a digital tacho, and I will not see the truck again after the Tue?

2

clark_rally:
Right, although I have had my C&E for a few years, I am certainly not a full time driver. At the moment the company I work for (Company A) have sub contracted me out to work for company B. Now 99% of this work does not involve driving, however a week on Mon I will have to drive a Rigid or an Artic back from Germany for Company B. Whatever truck I take, it will have an analogue tacho and is owned by company B.

clark_rally:
As I understand it I must keep my tacho records for 28days in case I’m stopped at a later date, then I assume I must hand the charts into Company B as the truck belongs to them and they need the records, but does my employer (company A) need any record of this (they also have an operators license)?

From what I believe they may need a record of your driving hours for your average. They wouldn’t need a copy of your tacho though as the driving wasn’t in their vehicle

clark_rally:
If the truck was to have a digital tacho, how do I let company B download my card to record the hours spent in their truck, without them also getting the other data from time spent driving trucks for company A which has nothing to do with them?

You can either take your card to the company and they will download all the data and sift through all the data they don’t need. The more than likely will not keep data that isn’t relevant to them as they don’t need to so why take up space on their system. or they can download the details from the tacho unit in teh vehicle, just mention it to the company when you pick the wagon up and they should tell you what they like to do. some companies do different things.

clark_rally:
If I have been working all week with no driving duties, then say on Thu I was asked to take a truck out during the day, do I then need to fill out charts for the full working week, even though I may not remember exactly times of duty from the 1st few days of the week?

You will need to fill out tacho’s for all the days you have worked that week that you are in scope for driving. It is just a manual record that needs to be made and as long as the hours you worked are on there and your WTD breaks are ok it shouldn’t be a problem as I think this doesn’t go towards your average

clark_rally:
I should be back to base by Tue afternoon, and I will not drive a truck again for weeks if not months, but do I need to fill out manual charts for the rest of the working week even tho it will just be on paper chart, and only show other work? and who should these charts be given to? Again this is easy done using paper charts, but how do I do this if the truck had a digital tacho, and I will not see the truck again after the Tue?

Yes as above really,

if you drive a vehicle in the week you need to keep a record of all work carried out that week once the 28 days are up for the manual charts they can just be destroyed by yourself. (That’s what I do anyway). If the unit is digital, you don’t need to, but take a printout and keep it with your manual charts for the rest of that week for 28 days than bin it or send it back to company B.

I think I am right but I will await cross hairs coming my way.

3

clark_rally:
Right, although I have had my C&E for a few years, I am certainly not a full time driver. At the moment the company I work for (Company A) have sub contracted me out to work for company B. Now 99% of this work does not involve driving, however a week on Mon I will have to drive a Rigid or an Artic back from Germany for Company B. Whatever truck I take, it will have an analogue tacho and is owned by company B. As I understand it I must keep my tacho records for 28days in case I’m stopped at a later date, then I assume I must hand the charts into Company B as the truck belongs to them and they need the records, but does my employer (company A) need any record of this (they also have an operators license)?

I would ask the company you’re employed by what they wish you to do with the tacho’s, they don’t necessarily need copies of them for WTD records but it really depends on how they keep records of your hours.
The company you’re employed by may wish to see the charts to satisfy themselves that you’re complying with the regulations, If they ask you to hand the charts to them then they will need to pass them onto company B.

clark_rally:
If the truck was to have a digital tacho, how do I let company B download my card to record the hours spent in their truck, without them also getting the other data from time spent driving trucks for company A which has nothing to do with them?

You can’t, they have a right to know what other work you’ve done at least in the week that you drive for company B, how else can they be sure that you’re complying with the regulations, as an agency driver everyone gets to see my previous records if I use a digital tachograph :wink:

clark_rally:
If I have been working all week with no driving duties, then say on Thu I was asked to take a truck out during the day, do I then need to fill out charts for the full working week, even though I may not remember exactly times of duty from the 1st few days of the week?

Yes, but you only need to record name, date and start and finish times for none driving days, also by week we mean 00:00 Monday to 24:00 Sunday.

clark_rally:
I hope someone can help with these questions. Things would be much simpler if I was a full time driver :laughing:

I should be back to base by Tue afternoon, and I will not drive a truck again for weeks if not months, but do I need to fill out manual charts for the rest of the working week even tho it will just be on paper chart, and only show other work? and who should these charts be given to? Again this is easy done using paper charts, but how do I do this if the truck had a digital tacho, and I will not see the truck again after the Tue?

Yes as said you need to complete charts for none driving days within a week where you’ve driven in scope of EU regulations.
If the truck has a digital tachograph the record for that day will be recorded on your driver card so you just need to complete charts for the other days that you work.
You can keep the records on digital tachograph printout paper if you wish but I think you’ll probably find it easier to use charts for none driving days.

4

did i get one right for a change then tacho? (apart from the WTD breaks on your manual records!)

5

Giblsa:
did i get one right for a change then tacho? (apart from the WTD breaks on your manual records!)

The only things I would say is that your driving time isn’t really relevant to the averaged week for WTD purposes, it’s the time that’s worked that counts.

As far as the breaks are concerned, as you’ve obviously realised you don’t need to record breaks for none driving days.

Apart from that it looks like the cross hairs will have to wait for another day :wink: :laughing:

6

phew! :open_mouth:

im finally getting there

7

Thanks for the replies! Cleared those few things up :slight_smile: How does the bit of paper I signed to get out of the WTD affect things tho?

8

clark_rally:
How does the bit of paper I signed to get out of the WTD affect things tho?

Although you cannot opt out of the mobile workers WTD you can opt out of the other.
As the majority of your work does not come under the mobile worker WTD then you are OK to opt out
Thats they way I see it but stand to be corrected…

9

clark_rally:
Thanks for the replies! Cleared those few things up :slight_smile: How does the bit of paper I signed to get out of the WTD affect things tho?

Depends what was on the bit of paper that you signed :wink:

As ROG said you can’t opt out of the WTD for (Road Transport) mobile workers, well at least the only part of it that you can opt out of is the night time workers 10 hour rule.

Presumably you’ve opted out of the 48 hour average week for the WTD, but you should be aware that you can’t opt out of the 48 hour average week for the WTD for (Road Transport) mobile workers.
However you only work to the WTD for (Road Transport) mobile workers when you are actively employed on road transport in some form (this doesn’t necessarily have to be driving), so the 48 hour average week probably isn’t going to effect you as far as the WTD for mobile workers is concerned as you probably won’t reach that limit anyway.

But as I said it really depends on what you’ve opted out of :wink:

10

I had a look this morning at the bit of paper I signed, and it was the 48 hour average week for the WTD.

11

clark_rally:
I had a look this morning at the bit of paper I signed, and it was the 48 hour average week for the WTD.

IMO, that would be for the non mobile workers one

12

ROG:

clark_rally:
I had a look this morning at the bit of paper I signed, and it was the 48 hour average week for the WTD.

IMO, that would be for the non mobile workers one

I agree with ROG, unless your employer doesn’t realise that you can’t opt out of the 48 hour average week for the WTD for mobile workers, in which case the opt out agreement wouldn’t be valid anyway.

Either way you can opt out of the 48 hour week for the general WTD but you can not opt out of that part of the WTD for mobile workers so …

13

Thanks guys! Only a very slim part of my work at current involves driving HGV’s. :frowning: I do miss being out on the road tho.

14

ok, another questions for those in the know: Do I have to get my driver card downloaded? I drove a new Scania back from Germany with Digital tacho fitted, and I thought the operator would have to download my driver card, but they said they dont need it as all the data they need is on the vehicle unit. So who downloads my card? or do I need to do it at all?

Also, when double manning, do you still need to swap the cards round when changing drivers? or can it just be done on the buttons? seems strange that you need to go through the whole log out procedure with both cards, swap them over and log in all over again.

15

clark_rally:
ok, another questions for those in the know: Do I have to get my driver card downloaded? I drove a new Scania back from Germany with Digital tacho fitted, and I thought the operator would have to download my driver card, but they said they dont need it as all the data they need is on the vehicle unit. So who downloads my card? or do I need to do it at all?

All you have to do is make your card available to the operator of the vehicle for download. If they choose not to download ot then it is their problem, not yours. You don’t need to download it at all.

clark_rally:
Also, when double manning, do you still need to swap the cards round when changing drivers? or can it just be done on the buttons?

You have to swap them round as position 2 does not record driving. Not so strange when you consider driving is automatically recorded so if position 2 could record driving it would be recorded on both cards when the vehicle was moving and could lead to drivers recording too much driving time, driving time they didn’t actually do.