nurburg340:
I’ve been driving a 2014 Merc and the tachograph automatically goes into other work as soon as you stop for traffic lights/queues etc (so I’m assuming they do not count as your driving time).
Starting with an agency Thursday, do all digital tachos do this? I only ask because they’ve never given a drive which according to my satnav will take 9 hours 44 minutes but take off time stopping at traffic lights and junctions…
No, they don’t all “default” to other work - they can be changed so the default is rest. I drove for a firm recently where this happened and the boss explained he could never remember to select the bed symbol when he took a break, so he had the default changed (this can be done only at certain, authorized places), so that if challenged (by DVSA or Police), he could look at his diary to see when he took a break and marry it up. It was difficult to explain the amount of “Breaks” I took while in the queue caused by an accident…
Sumsmeister you are confusing stopping at lights etc with turning the ignition off. Every single tacho will go to other work if you simply stop and leave the engine running. It’s only once you turn the ignition off that they’ll default to other work or break.
Coffeeholic:
With the new type 2 tacho in stop/start traffic it would be possible to clock up several minutes with the vehicle moving but not actually record any driving time with the way it assigns each minute to the activity with the most amount of time in the minute.
Great isn’t it? A few months ago I was caught in 48 minutes worth of stop/start traffic, during which time I managed to clock up 48 minutes worth of other work, and not one minute of driving time.
Long waits and short bursts rather than plodding along on tickover
nurburg340:
I’ve been driving a 2014 Merc and the tachograph automatically goes into other work as soon as you stop for traffic lights/queues etc (so I’m assuming they do not count as your driving time).
Starting with an agency Thursday, do all digital tachos do this? I only ask because they’ve never given a drive which according to my satnav will take 9 hours 44 minutes but take off time stopping at traffic lights and junctions…
No, they don’t all “default” to other work - they can be changed so the default is rest. I drove for a firm recently where this happened and the boss explained he could never remember to select the bed symbol when he took a break, so he had the default changed (this can be done only at certain, authorized places), so that if challenged (by DVSA or Police), he could look at his diary to see when he took a break and marry it up. It was difficult to explain the amount of “Breaks” I took while in the queue caused by an accident…
Sumsmeister you are confusing stopping at lights etc with turning the ignition off. Every single tacho will go to other work if you simply stop and leave the engine running. It’s only once you turn the ignition off that they’ll default to other work or break.
Interesting - there must have been something wrong with this one, as the boss had a right good go at me for what looked like an attitude problem. Just my bad luck I s’pose. I saw the printout and it was dotted with break periods, some just two minutes. I’ll be on the look-out for that in future, thanks.
