me and my boss came across this the other day!!
We’ve got a hire truck with a digi tacho and the time displayed is the current uk time (bst) but after reading a manual it says the time during summer months should show an hour behind (utc). The hire company says that all they’re 80 odd trucks are showing the same time and are completely legal but this manual says different?? can anybody shed some light??
thanks
Gidion
just ignore it think they are all like it the all the ones ive used have never had the right time and been an hour out 
The display will read the current UK time, however all recordings are made in UTC. when you get your print out, it will show all times as one hour earlier than local time during summer. If you make manual entries, they should be done in UTC time
The displayed time has nothing to do with what’s recorded on the Driver card or the VDU, as truckerjon said the display will show local time (BST in the UK) but all records are recorded in UTC time (Coordinated Universal Time) and manual entries should be done in UTC time.
In fact the local time can be set by the driver whilst the UTC time can only be changed by 1 minute per week (I think it’s one minute anyway 
)
Next time you use the vehicle watch as the card is processed after insertion and you should notice that it shows the last card withdrawal 1 hour earlier than it actually was in our local time (BST time).
UTC time is the same as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) which is equal to British Summer Time - 1hour
Ok thanks guys, so no need to panic lol
But how does it work when you cross time zones i’e England to france and maybe onward in one day ?
speedyguy:
But how does it work when you cross time zones i’e England to france and maybe onward in one day ?
Makes no difference to the tachograph as all times are recorded on the tachograph and driver card in UTC time, whilst the local time may be different in other countries UTC time is universal hence the name “Coordinated Universal Time”.
You may change the local time display on the tachograph if you wish but it will not change what’s recorded on the driver card which will be recorded in UTC time regardless of what the local time is for any individual country.
Paris for instance is one hour in front of BST and two hours in front of GMT therefore it will be two hours in front of UTC time as UTC time is equal to GMT.
In other words when it’s 00:00 (midnight) UTC time it will also be midnight GMT but it will be 01:00 BST and 02:00 Paris local time.
Confused yet ? 
tachograph:
speedyguy:
But how does it work when you cross time zones i’e England to france and maybe onward in one day ?Makes no difference to the tachograph as all times are recorded on the tachograph and driver card in UTC time, whilst the local time may be different in other countries UTC time is universal hence the name “Coordinated Universal Time”.
You may change the local time display on the tachograph if you wish but it will not change what’s recorded on the driver card which will be recorded in UTC time regardless of what the local time is for any individual country.
Paris for instance is one hour in front of BST and two hours in front of GMT therefore it will be two hours in front of UTC time as UTC time is equal to GMT.
In other words when it’s 00:00 (midnight) UTC time it will also be midnight GMT but it will be 01:00 BST and 02:00 Paris local time.
Confused yet ?
how about then if you drive to china ■■?
nick2008:
tachograph:
In other words when it’s 00:00 (midnight) UTC time it will also be midnight GMT but it will be 01:00 BST, 02:00 Paris local time and 08:00 local time in China.how about then if you drive to china ■■?
China (all 5 time zones) is UTC + 8
speedyguy:
But how does it work when you cross time zones i’e England to france and maybe onward in one day ?
Same as it does on an analogue tacho, you just leave it as it is. digital tachos remain on UTC regardless of location. Analogue remain on the time for the country of registration for the vehicle regardless of location.
tachograph:
speedyguy:
But how does it work when you cross time zones i’e England to france and maybe onward in one day ?Confused yet ?
Yes, 
.
I’m thinking the time has come i may have to “invest” in a digicard just in case i ever drive a newish truck, saw one last week and thought it was a new type of CD player, me and technology don’t mix well 
, i’ll have to read all the driver’s hours regs again 
oh well at least i have 7 hours cpc under my belt now as well, why can’t i just find a decent well paid job that doesn’t involve trucks or hard work