yes but i have seen an individual take a individual download from a individual unit what are they then seeeing
The transport company you drive for have an obligation to download the data from your driver card, they are also required to download from the VDU.
This was recently discussed here
To the best of my knowledge the agency have no legal obligation to download from the driver card, some may do so in order to help them track a drivers hours but I’m reasonably sure there’s no legal obligation.
If you use both a digital tachograph and an analogue tachograph you don’t necessarily need to do a printout, you should however make a manual entry on either the chart or a printout for any unaccounted time whilst changing vehicles, this would normally be easier on the chart as you need to complete one anyway.
Charts and any required printouts should be carried for the current day and the previous 28 days
Page 34 Driver hours and tachograph rules:
- be able to produce at the roadside:
— charts and any legally required manual records for the current ‘fixed’ week and the previous
15 calendar days (this will change to the current day and previous 28 calendar days from 1 January 2008)
AG:
You work for the agency not the company they send you to. Your tachos therefore should be handed back to the agency.
The driver’s legal obligation is to return the cards to the vehicle’s operator, not the driver’s employer, so in law handing them directly to the client is acceptable. There is no requirement in law for the agency to take or keep a copy of any tachograph records.
In most cases though in practice you hand them to your agency who will forward them on to the vehicle operator, which is also fine.
Paul
AG:
You work for the agency not the company they send you to. Your tachos therefore should be handed back to the agency.
No, no and thrice no. The regulations state:
a person in his capacity as the driver of a vehicle to which section 97 applies, he must before the end of the delivery period deliver the document to the transport undertaking to whose orders he was subject in driving the vehicle.
The agency is not the transport undertaking so the records should not be handed to them.
The delivery period is the period of 42 days starting on the day after the latest date to which the document relates.
The driver must return them to the transport company within the above time frame.
A person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with subsection (2) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
By returning them to the agency and trusting them to return them to the transport company the driver is potentially leaving them self wide open to a tasty fine, a level 4 fine is between £1000 and £2500.
And anyone who is keeping digital printouts as records for a year will soon get a shock as the thermal paper will be blank long before that. 
The company you drive for needs either to copy the data on your card or a printout, either will do. Some company’s don’t like downloading agency cards because it bungs up their computer system with loads of one shifts here and there so prefer just a printout that they then must keep for one year so they only download there employed drivers data.
I personally prefer to copy the raw data and have it on my system as the printouts are a pain to file and can be lost but this does mean I have only 2 trucks with about 87 drivers registered on my computer system.
All you need as a driver is to have the card on you, you don’t need printouts unless you have gone over hours because of an accident or some other such reason then you must do a printout latest at end of shift and mark on it immediately why you ran over hours with as much detail as possible and sign it.
Coffeeholic:
AG:
You work for the agency not the company they send you to. Your tachos therefore should be handed back to the agency.No, no and thrice no. The regulations state:
a person in his capacity as the driver of a vehicle to which section 97 applies, he must before the end of the delivery period deliver the document to the transport undertaking to whose orders he was subject in driving the vehicle.
The agency is not the transport undertaking so the records should not be handed to them.
The delivery period is the period of 42 days starting on the day after the latest date to which the document relates.
The driver must return them to the transport company within the above time frame.
A person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with subsection (2) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
By returning them to the agency and trusting them to return them to the transport company the driver is potentially leaving them self wide open to a tasty fine, a level 4 fine is between £1000 and £2500.
Thanks Coffee, as always spot on. Can you let me know if I am reading this part write?
(6) If a person is subject to the orders of two or more transport undertakings in driving a vehicle during a period to which a document relates-
If you are an agency driver
(a) subsection (2) has effect as if it were a requirement to deliver that document to the undertaking to whose orders he was first subject in driving the vehicle during that period;
Deliver your tacho’s to the agency.
AG:
Coffeeholic:
AG:
You work for the agency not the company they send you to. Your tachos therefore should be handed back to the agency.No, no and thrice no. The regulations state:
a person in his capacity as the driver of a vehicle to which section 97 applies, he must before the end of the delivery period deliver the document to the transport undertaking to whose orders he was subject in driving the vehicle.
The agency is not the transport undertaking so the records should not be handed to them.
The delivery period is the period of 42 days starting on the day after the latest date to which the document relates.
The driver must return them to the transport company within the above time frame.
A person who without reasonable excuse fails to comply with subsection (2) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
By returning them to the agency and trusting them to return them to the transport company the driver is potentially leaving them self wide open to a tasty fine, a level 4 fine is between £1000 and £2500.
Thanks Coffee, as always spot on. Can you let me know if I am reading this part write?
(6) If a person is subject to the orders of two or more transport undertakings in driving a vehicle during a period to which a document relates-
If you are an agency driver
(a) subsection (2) has effect as if it were a requirement to deliver that document to the undertaking to whose orders he was first subject in driving the vehicle during that period;
Deliver your tacho’s to the agency.
Coffeeholic:
No, no and thrice no.
An agency isn’t a “transport undertaking” it’s an employment agency, so as already said you deliver the charts to the transport operator you’re driving for and not the agency 
Having said that when I was driving for different companies I would always give the agency the charts to pass on, but I always kept scans in the hope that the authorities would go easy on me if the charts went astray.
Coffeeholic:
No, no and thrice no.
Would you like to clarify or expand on that 
I pull a print out before I withdraw the card, and stick that in my tacho wallet.
I keep a A5 size day to a page diary & write trip/run info in it (in/out times for drops). I pull a printout when I withdraw the card and stick a print out to the relevant page. and non of them have gone blank so far…
but my main reason for pulling prints is to prove Start/finish time for wages purposes. Likewise why I record trip details
As for sending print outs to companies/agencies
so long as I down load the card, the companies happy.
The agency doesn`t want printouts, and has stated so, nor does it have facilities to down load my card.
so I download the card once a week, sometimes more in the transport office
Silver_Surfer:
The company you drive for needs either to copy the data on your card or a printout, either will do.
Either will not do. They have a legal requirement to download the data from the card, a print out will not cover it. The fact they don’t like it because it messes up their neat system is neither here nor there, if they don’t download they are committing an offence. They must download both cards and vehicle units within the prescribed periods.
As above, Source Here
AG:
Thanks Coffee, as always spot on. Can you let me know if I am reading this part write?(6) If a person is subject to the orders of two or more transport undertakings in driving a vehicle during a period to which a document relates-
If you are an agency driver
(a) subsection (2) has effect as if it were a requirement to deliver that document to the undertaking to whose orders he was first subject in driving the vehicle during that period;
Deliver your tacho’s to the agency.
What that is essentially saying is that if you drive a truck for operator A at the start of a shift and then go and drive a truck for operator B later on in the same shift, you’ll (on an analogue vehicle) have a card with traces from both trucks on it and you should give it to operator A, as it was their vehicle you drove first.
As others have said, the agency is not a “transport undertaking” so the rule doesn’t apply as you suggested.
Paul