Ello, Just a few questions you guys might be able to help me with.
When I am given an infringement in the yard, are they meant to explain to you what you have done wrong and how to correct it? not just throw it at you and say sign here? has something changed. My issue is I have a supervisor in my yard who doesn’t have his pro cpc etc nothing like that who is telling me things that In all my years of driving I know aren’t true. Basicly he is saying the reason I’m getting my infringements is because I am not ejecting my card properly?? and it should be on “Bed” when I eject it? I honestly have never came across this and I thought you could eject your card in any mode?
He says its all correct and that I am driving for 13hrs straight even though I go from Liverpool to Manchester and do 10 drops and return to the yard? and its because after I take my card OUT its still thinking its in due to me not removing it on “Bed”? I think this is utter rubbish but I am not familiar with the new 1.4 Siemens tacho’s so I’m asking your expert advice.
I will upload a snip of my infringements because I cannot work out where I am going wrong, and really need some help as I am not doing anything different than I have always done but lately I’m getting all kinds of infringements that just aren’t true. My Supervisor doesn’t know neither… yet he wants me to sign them.
I get in my wagon, I add on to the end of my last shift and then put it on the bed symbol and go forward until my current shift start time, then I tell the tacho what I have been doing since I put my card in (depending on the time) and add other work etc - am I doing my manual entry wrong?
On the infringements its telling me my start of duty is 01:00, start driving at 00:00 and then end of duty 01:00…■■ I start at 17:00 every day and finish around 2-3am yet my times are incorrect on the infringements. and I’m doing nothing different than I’ve ever done.
thanks, sorry to bend your ear but I left the yard tonight in a really bad mood then got stuck on the M56 for 2hrs - took me 3hrs to get to Wrexham from Liverpool
And as for the timing at the bottom of you page only thing I can think of is the tachograph has not been calibrated properly.
And you can eject the card in any mode, personally I eject it on other work abuse I have to complete paperwork etc in the office after the card comes out, I then do a manual entry the following day to tell the tachograph what time I finished and what time I’m starting.
Sounds like you need to check the clock on your tacho - the UTC time, not the time on the display.
Or you’re doing something wrong, but I can’t see how you could possibly be doing it wrong, it’s the easiest and clearest manual entry system on the planet
About the eject, your boss sounds like an unknowledgable arse
Firstly the requirement hasn’t changed in that should an employer find an error in a drivers’ records they are required to bring it to their attention and prevent repartition of the problem; in other words explain where you went wrong and how not to do it again. From what I’ve seen of many so called Transport Managers they’re incapable of explaining the problem or how to avoid it in future.
The mode being recorded at time of ejection should make no difference. Most drivers will be doing something after their card has been removed from the Tacho; walking to office, handing keys and paperwork in, maybe some unloading etc etc all of which is ‘work.’ Possibly the only ones not needing to do ‘work’ after ejecting their card are the trampers away from base, who could always leave their card in overnight anyway - not forgetting the ‘location of end of duty’ entry and selecting ‘rest.’
My understanding of the v1.4 from VDO is that if you make a manual entry for the end of the previous day you need to ‘fill-in’ all time between previous card withdrawal and subsequent card insertion, although it sounds like you are doing this. Think that it’s more likely that the analysis software needs a bit of bug fixing, but to be sure I need to look at the original data from your card. PM me if you want more details
i can see where he’s coming from.
when ejecting your card you should put it on rest and end the shift in the country that you’re in.
but why do you keep ejecting your card? just put it on bed and go to sleep. if you drop it in the yard does anyone else then take it out?
as for the 13 hours driving thing. he’s also right, but there’s more to it.
if you do this all the time, then you could be prosecuted for failing to use the mode switch, and also it may appear on paper, that you’ve not taken any rest for several weeks.
what you are doing are very simple/daft mistakes, you really need to do some reading up.
if you get pulled by vosa, they’ll just have a word with you. but if in the future there are more serious offences, then you’ll be prosecuted for the lot. we’ve all seen reports of drivers with 200+ offences, but when we look closely at it, there’s only one or two serious ones.
geebee45:
Firstly the requirement hasn’t changed in that should an employer find an error in a drivers’ records they are required to bring it to their attention and prevent repartition of the problem; in other words explain where you went wrong and how not to do it again. From what I’ve seen of many so called Transport Managers they’re incapable of explaining the problem or how to avoid it in future.
The mode being recorded at time of ejection should make no difference. Most drivers will be doing something after their card has been removed from the Tacho; walking to office, handing keys and paperwork in, maybe some unloading etc etc all of which is ‘work.’ Possibly the only ones not needing to do ‘work’ after ejecting their card are the trampers away from base, who could always leave their card in overnight anyway - not forgetting the ‘location of end of duty’ entry and selecting ‘rest.’
My understanding of the v1.4 from VDO is that if you make a manual entry for the end of the previous day you need to ‘fill-in’ all time between previous card withdrawal and subsequent card insertion, although it sounds like you are doing this. Think that it’s more likely that the analysis software needs a bit of bug fixing, but to be sure I need to look at the original data from your card. PM me if you want more details
That’s a good point, what do your printouts show, do a few printouts for the days you’re getting infringements, see what they show.
limeyphil:
i can see where he’s coming from.
when ejecting your card you should put it on rest and end the shift in the country that you’re in.
but why do you keep ejecting your card? just put it on bed and go to sleep. if you drop it in the yard does anyone else then take it out?
as for the 13 hours driving thing. he’s also right, but there’s more to it.
if you do this all the time, then you could be prosecuted for failing to use the mode switch, and also it may appear on paper, that you’ve not taken any rest for several weeks.
what you are doing are very simple/daft mistakes, you really need to do some reading up.
if you get pulled by vosa, they’ll just have a word with you. but if in the future there are more serious offences, then you’ll be prosecuted for the lot. we’ve all seen reports of drivers with 200+ offences, but when we look closely at it, there’s only one or two serious ones.
Why does it matter what mode you take your card out in if you are doing a manual entry the following day? - We are not allowed to leave our cards in, we only do 8-10hrs a night job and knock. I honestly don’t understand why it matters what mode the card is ejected in, when the card is removed its not writing any data to it so how could it be adding driving onto my card :/.
I will upload the infringements when I get home later, all I want to know is what I have done wrong on them days if anything - I asked about the calibration and he said “there is only one way to calibrate and the system is never wrong” - doing my ■■■■ head in.
Btw I do 2.5 - 5.5hrs driving a night - not 13hrs - depending what run I am on. id say its impossible to do 13hrs straight driving in the job I do unless you have terrible luck in traffic jams.
If you are using the the new version tacho you need to manually enter your daily rest.
When you insert your card the time and date you ejected your card from your previous shift will be shown on top and the current date and time on the bottom.
You need to take the bottom date and time back to when you ejected your card put the symbol to bed and then press o.k, then bring the time forward to the present, also you need to manually enter any other activity after the card was ejected, this way you have manually entered your daily rest, if you fail to do so your daily rest may be shown as whatever mode the tacho is in when you re-insert your card this is where your 13 hour drive and infringements are coming from. There are a number of You Tube videos that explain that may be worth a look, your employer should help you with this, you need to get on top of it before V.O.S.A catch up with you.
Basically I am doing everything correct but sometimes the manual entry I am doing isn’t being registered by the machine and that “happens” sometimes, so the best course of action is to make sure each night I take the card out on break, which I honestly have never done before since tacho cards came out - This is the new Siemens 1.4 tacho.
I was also told “Manual entries are for emergencies only”■■? I’ve only worked here for just over a year left DHL to come to Gist and yeah… everything I have ever been tought seems to be getting turned on its head lol.
So now I run the risk of just sticking my card in when I get in the yard and then taking it out after Ive finished unloading / paperwork etc - and just the few mins it will take me to hand keys back and download card is what will be missing, will that be ok? or could I still get fined if my Working hours / tacho dont exactly marry up, not sure how much - grace you might get you see.
mike68:
If you are using the the new version tacho you need to manually enter your daily rest.
When you insert your card the time and date you ejected your card from your previous shift will be shown on top and the current date and time on the bottom.
You need to take the bottom date and time back to when you ejected your card put the symbol to bed and then press o.k, then bring the time forward to the present, also you need to manually enter any other activity after the card was ejected, this way you have manually entered your daily rest, if you fail to do so your daily rest may be shown as whatever mode the tacho is in when you re-insert your card this is where your 13 hour drive and infringements are coming from. There are a number of You Tube videos that explain that may be worth a look, your employer should help you with this, you need to get on top of it before V.O.S.A catch up with you.
Right this is exactly what I do, just let me know if you see anything that I might have missed then.
I enter my card around 17:30, my start time is 17:00
The previous night I took my card out at 03:30 and was signed out for 04:00
So what I do is, I add the 30 mins onto my last shift and then I tell it from 04:00 until the start of my current shift (17:00) I have been on bed. Then it will ask what have I been doing between 17:00-17:30 (When I put my card in) and I enter that as other work. Then that’s my manual entry done. so is that correct or am I missing something?
mike68:
If you are using the the new version tacho you need to manually enter your daily rest.
When you insert your card the time and date you ejected your card from your previous shift will be shown on top and the current date and time on the bottom.
You need to take the bottom date and time back to when you ejected your card put the symbol to bed and then press o.k, then bring the time forward to the present, also you need to manually enter any other activity after the card was ejected, this way you have manually entered your daily rest, if you fail to do so your daily rest may be shown as whatever mode the tacho is in when you re-insert your card this is where your 13 hour drive and infringements are coming from. There are a number of You Tube videos that explain that may be worth a look, your employer should help you with this, you need to get on top of it before V.O.S.A catch up with you.
Right this is exactly what I do, just let me know if you see anything that I might have missed then.
I enter my card around 17:30, my start time is 17:00
The previous night I took my card out at 03:30 and was signed out for 04:00
So what I do is, I add the 30 mins onto my last shift and then I tell it from 04:00 until the start of my current shift (17:00) I have been on bed. Then it will ask what have I been doing between 17:00-17:30 (When I put my card in) and I enter that as other work. Then that’s my manual entry done. so is that correct or am I missing something?
The only thing I can suggest is that you do a printout and study it carefully and make sure that your daily rest is on the correct mode.
geebee45 mentions the analysis software, that may well be true, but nothing has changed for years, even when we used analogue charts, the traffic clerk would still write out an infringement because he couldn’t be arsed to turn the cards over to look for an explanation.
It is that reason why we ended up in the ridiculous situation of having to write EOD and SOD on the card face!
It might say ready meal on the pack but you still have to prick the cellophane and press the power button
or it could be a malfunctoning card ■■? had it happen to me showed me doing all sorts of working and driveing hours insufficent breaks/weekly rests couldnt work out what was happening for ages.
Funny thing is I had to renew and the new card I got I had to send back because that was Malfunctioning so this would be the second malfooked card haha.
Which really would be bad luck, I guess I will just manual entry and take my card out on Rest and see if that works
It occurs to me that you could possibly check your card by comparing a couple of vehicle printouts with corresponding card printouts for a couple of days when you’ve had infringements, if the vehicle printouts and card printouts show the same activities then you could probably rule out card malfunction.
As for the 13 hours without a break, I’ve had this problem with my lads:
Same tacho heads as yours, when you pull up for a break, unless you click button 1 and switch onto bed, the tacho automatically defaults to ‘other work’.
So the lads (who’re used to just pulling up and having a break with paper charts), would drive for 4.5 hours, stop for 45 mins the drive for 4.5 hours.
The printout would show 4.5 hours driving + 45 mins work + 4.5 hours driving = 9 hours driving and no break.
Your TM/gaffer appears to be what’s known as, an “arse”.
DO NOT TAKE YOUR CARD OUT ON A BREAK - the VOSA won’t be too impressed with that tactic.
Next time he presents you with infringements, do not sign for them until he’s explained exactly what the offence is, exactly what’s caused it and precisely what you should should do to correct the problem.
If he can’t do that, then that’s his problem. That way, you’ve asked him for help and it’s down to him to remedy the situation.
Certainly the UTC time seems to be out on the tacho head.
