These blooming digital tachos dont record driving time properly. I drive to the office to pick up straps, 30 meters. Drive over the yard to pick up trailer, 100mtrs. Drive out of yard with 8 minutes driving time gone! Probably driven for 1 minute. I have to do a bit of faffing about in the customers yard as well and am losing quite a bit of time.
The law states I can drive 4.5hrs but the recording equipment is not fit for purpose. Its the same with any motor I`ve used.
In a traffic jam the other day I was using a stopwatch, just to relieve the boredom, and was amazed how much the discrepancy was.
I realise this doesn`t really matter too much on the grand scale of things but when we hear stories of guys getting fined for going “just over” I think its worth asking the question, if it comes to the push can we use this as a defence?
cheekymonkey:
I realise this doesn`t really matter too much on the grand scale of things but when we hear stories of guys getting fined for going “just over” I think its worth asking the question, if it comes to the push can we use this as a defence?
No because the regulations cleary state that driving time is that recorded by the recording equipment so doesn’t matter what you’ve driven, it’s what the rich says that counts.
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
weeto:
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
That surely can’t be right. As poor as the type 1 tachos are, they will not record more driving time than actual time elapsed in any given period.
For anyone who is losing too much driving time with a type 1 tacho, the best way to minimise the amount of driving time the tacho ‘steals’ is to whenever you start moving from a stationary period of 2 minutes or more, Wait for the tacho to tick over to a new minute and then set off. This way you will get the vast majority of that minute actually driving rather than the tacho recording a minute driving for what may be just driving for the last second of that minute.
OP, can you not just put your card I just before you leave the yard and do a manual entry for the other work leading up to card entry.
weeto:
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
I don’t think that is possible. Knowing the way these tachos work, I don’t see how they can record driving time that exceeds actual elapsed time.
weeto:
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
I don’t think that is possible. Knowing the way these tachos work, I don’t see how they can record driving time that exceeds actual elapsed time.
It’s not possible at all. While they do count a whole calendar minute as driving when you might have only driven 5 seconds they cannot record more minutes than have actually elapsed. If you are stationary for the first 55 seconds of a minute then move for 10 seconds then don’t move for the next 55 seconds they will record that as two minutes but two calendar minutes will have elapsed so it won’t be more than the clock has moved.
If you are in the yard don’t move until a new minute flicks up on the screen and do your shirt move then and you won’t lose as much time.
weeto:
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
I don’t think that is possible. Knowing the way these tachos work, I don’t see how they can record driving time that exceeds actual elapsed time.
It’s not possible at all. While they do count a whole calendar minute as driving when you might have only driven 5 seconds they cannot record more minutes than have actually elapsed. If you are stationary for the first 55 seconds of a minute then move for 10 seconds then don’t move for the next 55 seconds they will record that as two minutes but two calendar minutes will have elapsed so it won’t be more than the clock has moved.
If you are in the yard don’t move until a new minute flicks up on the screen and do your shirt move then and you won’t lose as much time.
You may not think its possible, I have been told in the past that its also not possible for the tacho to clock up driving time when you stop, but they do, I’ve seen 3 more driving minutes clock up after stopping.
It wont do it when doing a non stop run from A to B, but add in a lot of stop start between A to B and those extras get added on at the end.
weeto:
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
I don’t think that is possible. Knowing the way these tachos work, I don’t see how they can record driving time that exceeds actual elapsed time.
It’s not possible at all. While they do count a whole calendar minute as driving when you might have only driven 5 seconds they cannot record more minutes than have actually elapsed. If you are stationary for the first 55 seconds of a minute then move for 10 seconds then don’t move for the next 55 seconds they will record that as two minutes but two calendar minutes will have elapsed so it won’t be more than the clock has moved.
If you are in the yard don’t move until a new minute flicks up on the screen and do your shirt move then and you won’t lose as much time.
You may not think its possible,
I know it’s not possible. If you start driving at 8:00 and stop driving at exactly 12:00 and you were in stop start traffic for some or all of the journey the most driving time the tacho will record is 4 hours the same as the elapsed time. It cannot record more time than actual calendar minutes. If you stopped driving at 12:00:05 the most it would record is 4 hours 1 minute because you have started a new minute and it will record all if the minute as driving. It cannot record 4:20 or 4:30 for that period as they just don’t work that way. Do any driving in a calendar minute and that whole minute will be driving but only that minute, it don’t count more than that minute so you cannot record more minutes than have actually elapsed.
weeto:
I have been told in the past that its also not possible for the tacho to clock up driving time when you stop, but they do, I’ve seen 3 more driving minutes clock up after stopping.
You were told wrong. It will still clock up after you stop and in the case of three minutes it’s because you drove part of minute 1, all of minute 2 and part of minute 3 and it will count all three as driving but they are still minutes of the day that have actually elapsed, calendar minutes, not extra minutes
The new ones don’t do that, they count the majority activity in the minute as the full minute. Drive 31 seconds, other work 29 and that’s a minutes driving. Drive 29 seconds, other work 31 and that’s no driving its all other work.
Mate of mine had to drive an 06 plate wagon with a Stoneridge (original to the motor) it was a run he’d done in loads of other motors. Wasn’t our best wagon, but neither is it the slowest, so as a bit of a check, he started the stopwatch on his phone.
As the stopwatch clicked over an hour, he checked the tacho. Driving time had gone up by 1.05.
weeto:
The worst ive seen the old version do is, 3hrs 30mins driving in a 3hr 10min period, with a large amount of stop starting on the M25, the trick is to not move every time the vehicle in front moves in a jam, don’t move until there is a nice big gap in front of you, or back off and move very slow with out stopping, and don’t move if you don’t have to.
That surely can’t be right. As poor as the type 1 tachos are, they will not record more driving time than actual time elapsed in any given period.
For anyone who is losing too much driving time with a type 1 tacho, the best way to minimise the amount of driving time the tacho ‘steals’ is to whenever you start moving from a stationary period of 2 minutes or more, Wait for the tacho to tick over to a new minute and then set off. This way you will get the vast majority of that minute actually driving rather than the tacho recording a minute driving for what may be just driving for the last second of that minute.
OP, can you not just put your card I just before you leave the yard and do a manual entry for the other work leading up to card entry.
Cheers Kevin, Nah…Im not too bothered to be honest. Ill just have more breaks! It was just the technical side I was interested in. i.e. we legally can drive 4.5hrs but…well, we cant really. Well, maybe we can....depends on what were doing…typical of the bollox in this industry.
If you imagine minutes as little boxes and so on. If you do ANY driving that changes the tacho to drive mode (usually 1 revolution of a wheel) in a box , then that full box becomes a drive symbol (think back to your old drawing manual entries on the analogue tachos).
As Rog said, if at 59 seconds into a minute you move enough that your tacho changes to drive mode, and it’s still in drive mode as the minute changes, then you sit there watching your drive time, you’ll see it jump by 2 mins drive time, this is 2 boxes being turned into drive symbols.
It can’t add minutes or boxes that haven’t passed, hence why you see the jump sometimes, you’ll always see the jump in drive time as the minute on the clock changes.
They’re very logical and simple, if inefficient. I even run over my 4.5hrs drive time today because of stop / start traffic heading back to the yard, choice of a few mins over the 4.5 or stopping for a 45 min break a mile or 2 from the yard on a Friday night because of the stupidity of the design of the old tacho.
The newer ones are MUCH better for stop / start driving that’s for sure.
The new ones are better. When the M6 was closed a few months ago I managed to register 19 minutes of extra work creeping forward in the traffic. Didn’t get very far but much of that would be driving time in an old tacho.
We have a digital tacho Lorry and an analogue. If we go in convoy to the beet factory the first driving period of 4.5 Hours. The analogue can do at least 15 mins more
We’ve a mix of early and later ones where I am. Some of the trucks will record nearly 20 minutes before you leave the yard by the time you’ve got the unit, gone topped up the engine oil, found your trailer. The rest record about 5.