Before commencing a journey you will be required to insert your driver card(s) into the 1st or 2nd man slot (driver or co-driver) on the front of the Vehicle Unit (VU) in the same way a chart is put into the head. The ‘centre field’ details will be recorded automatically by the tachograph — driver name, vehicle registration number, start and finish odometer readings and place code.
How is it going to know where you started on that day?, it also says “automatically by the tachograph” are we still going to be using carbon/paper tachos or is that reference to the digital one? if its the digital one then go back to the beginning of this sentance and answer the question at the start. I dont see a keyboard forentering start and finish place.
And here second from bottom sentence , “The visual display will probably be set to the local time, but this will not affect the internal time. What needs to be remembered is that the stored record will be an hour behind in British Summer Time — for example - a driver starts at 0600 (6am), the record will show 0500 (5am). There will be no difference in the winter as we are back to GMT.”
Is this for real do we have to drive for 6 months of the year an hour behind the correct time, it says the sorrect time will be shown on the Vu but the tacho will record the time as one hour before , is it me or is that going to get confusing?.
Maybe i,m the only driver in the U.K. who might be confused by the daylight saving thing but chances are i,ll be getting a new lorry about January time so i,ll have to get used to it if they ever sort it out.
not much has been mentioned about these new tachos except its gonna cost us for the cards and the employers will be forking out £600 per driver for training on all 3 devices as we will be required to know how to use them all.
I’m sure I read somewhere that all the start / finish locations in the UK on the digital tacho will simply go down as the ‘UK’ regardless of where you are, so you’d only have to scroll up and down the display until UK appeared on the screen. This may have changed or indeed be incorrect itself.
I think the idea of digital tachos is to give a complete record of a trucks and driver movements. I am led to believe that the truck cannot be used without either a driver card, fitter card or enforcement card in place
the start and finish points do not really matter as they come from the old record sheets when silent checks were the only enforcment tool, The main thing with the digital equipment will be that it records everything including powercuts
Place of duty start / end. You enter this from a list. With the exception of Spain (which elected to have a number or regions) all other countries are using their international letter codes, wherever you start or finish in the country, for example;
Barnsley>Birmingham will be UK/UK
Doncaster>Edinburgh will be UK/UK
Nottingham>Paris will be UK/F
Paris>Amsterdam will be F/NL
etc, etc
At present this info has to be entered by the driver, although, some sat nav systems can be hooked-up to the vehicle unit, allowing automatic location entry at start and end of duty. Don’t worry, the vehicle unit doesn’t have the capability or memory capacity to track your route. The other usual centre field entries; name, date, odometer reading will all be passed between vehicle unit and driver card automatically.
Time; ALL ANNEX 1B compliant RECORDING EQUIPMENT (there is no such thing as a Tachograph, legally speaking) will record time in Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) format. For those of us that served Queen and Country that’s the same as ZULU time, for everybody else think of it as Greenwich Mean Time. There will be no more; time = country of registration, so the Gendarmes will not be very happy looking at French trucks displaying British time!!! The time recorded (for UK and Portuguese drivers) will be 1 hour adrift from local time for the period of the year that we are using BST. For most Western European drivers their winter time will be one hour adrift from UTC, their summertime will be 2 hours adrift.
The problem here is that when you put manual entries in you have to ‘think’ in UTC not local time. The other problem is that the vehicle units can display either UTC or be set to display a local time of the drivers choice. In my humble opinion this could be very dangerous as it’s not easy to determine which is being shown and if you enter the incorrect data in manual entries you CANNOT change it. Best leave the display on UTC and look at your watch the rest of the time. By the way, analogue tachos; those using waxed paper charts stay on the current; time in country of registration. So if the boss has a mixed analogue and digital fleet there is going to be some head scratching at checkpoints as they try and work out if you’ve had sufficient rest!!
You can drive a digitally equipped vehicle without a card in place. But the vehicle unit will record all driving / stops / times and distances. The offence of driving without a card in a digital tacho is exactly the same as for not putting a chart in an analogue unit i.e. up to £ 5000. The other cards; Control and Company have no recording function for driving. The Workshop (approved tacho centres only) is not permitted to be used as a drivers card other than for calibration purposes.
All I can say is, if you think this is complicated wait to you get to use one for the first time, loads of fun
Wheel Nut:
I am led to believe that the truck cannot be used without either a driver card, fitter card or enforcement card in place
I went to a presentation of the subject about…must 2 years ago now.
Vehicles can be used without a card. To cover the eventualities where the driver forgets his card, leaves it in another vehicles, or simply loses it, etc. Or even, has not applied for one on cost principle.
What is required in these situations is, at the end of the shift, the driver generates a print out from the device and retains it as one would a tacho chart.
This creates a problem for companies inasmuch that unless they fund to cost of the cards, then drivers may elect to simply not apply for one, and conform to the Regs by simply obtaining a daily printout.
Sorry Krankee, there are a few problems in what you say;
if the Member State is issuing driver cards (and the UK is) then a driver CANNOT drive a digitally equipped vehicle unless he is using his driver card. If he has lost his card, it has been stolen or it’s malfunctioning then the driver must report such to the Competent Authority (DVLA in the UK) within 7 calendar days. The issuing Authority then have 5 working days to issue a replacement card, in the UK you will have to go to a local DVLA office or HGVTS to collect your card and sign a declaration. Whilst you can drive for upto 15 days in these cases, or longer, if it takes longer for the vehicle to reach base (unlikely in most cases) at the end of each day you are required to print out your daily record, add your full name, signature and driver licence number. you then retain the record as if it were a tachograph chart.
If you don’t want to pay for a drivers card then DO NOT drive a digital tachograph equipped vehicle. You will be charged with ‘fail to keep a record’ which can result in a fine of upto £ 5000. Same goes if you leave the card at home or in another vehicle, don’t drive, if you do, you commit an offence, you cannot ‘cover’ yourself in these circumstances by taking printouts at the end of the day.
in my thoughts the terms GB and UK are interchangeable, that way every UK registered vehicle leaving these shores (admittedly not many HGV’s these days)for a trip abroad has my initials on it!
So, for the sad muppets (like me) out there here is the full list of countries according to 1360/2002, the legislation that brought us the full specification for Annex 1B recording equipment; be warned the document is over 240 pages, you loose the will to live after about 48;
A Austria
AL Albania
AND Andorra
ARM Armenia
AZ Azerbaijan
B Belgium
BG Bulgaria
BIH Bosnia & Herzegovina
BY Belarus
CH Switzerland
CY Cyprus
CZ Czech Republic
D Germany
DK Denmark
E Spain (note Spain are using region codes, but this may be for domestic journeys only)
EST Estonia
F France
FIN Finland
FL Liechtenstein
FR Faeroe Islands
UK United Kingdom; Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar
GE Georgia
GR Greece
H Hungary
HR Croatia
I Italy
IRL Ireland
IS Iceland
KZ Kazakhstan
L Luxembourg
LT Lithuania
LY Latvia
M Malta
MC Monaco
MD Republic of Moldova
MK Macedonia
N Norway
NL The Netherlands
P Portugal
PL Poland
RO Romania
RSM San Marino
RUS Russian Federation
S Sweden
SK Slovakia
SLO Slovenia
TM Turkmenistan
TR Turkey
UA Ukraine
V Vatican City
YU Yugoslavia
UNK Unknown
EC European Community
EUR Rest of Europe
WLD Rest of World
The codes for Spain are; AN; Andalucia, AR; Aragon, AST; Asturias, C; Cantabia, CAT; Cataluna, CL; Castilla-Leon, CM; Castilla-La-Mancha, CV; Valencia, EXT; Extremadura, G; Galicia, IB; Baleares, IC; Canarias, LR; La Rioja, M; Madrid, MU; Murcia, NA; Navarra and finally PV; Pais Vasco.
If I can ever work out how to do it I’ll add the 90 plus pictograms that the Vehicle Units use to show certain things, fortunately; Rest/Break, Driving, Duty and Other Work are the ones we are familiar with. The new ones are shall we say interesting
Well you do amaze me. Are you saying that the official country code has now been changed to UK? The thought now occurs to me what did N. Ireland vehicles have before, as UK includes them, but Great Britain does not?
I do wish organisations would standardise on such things, in my French English language newspaper a report on accepting/not accepting GM crops lists all the countries voting. Some are obvious but where the hell is : SE,PT,MT,BE,AT,EE,LU,IE,SI, and ES?
Perhaps BE is Belgium and ES, Spain, and I could probably make a resasonable stab at LU, but the others?
I know how you feel. I guess it depends upon whether you are reading the UN list, the EU list or any other list. The ones I quoted are those given in 1360/2002, but they only apply to digital recording equipment. I could never understand how, in athletics meetings, GB suddenly became GBR!
I think the second line of my signature sums it up perfectly!!
I dont see a keyboard forentering start and finish place.
