hey people i have just passed my class 2 and i am waiting for my digi taco card to come and i have a few questions. like if i have drove for 2 hours and i am at my drop is the time at my drop classed as other work? and what would i have to do with my taco anything? all i know is how to drive really sort of going into it blind if anyone can help thanks.
Congrats on the pass mate!!! Have you done the cpc yet?
yea done cpc
but i am only 23 so the truck training company i think saw me and just thought we can make some money out of this kid and they really didn’t tach me a lot and very company wants experience which i don’t have so i will go agency and i just don’t want to get thrown in the deep end if u know what i mean
lewis new trucker:
hey people i have just passed my class 2 and i am waiting for my digi taco card to come and i have a few questions. like if i have drove for 2 hours and i am at my drop is the time at my drop classed as other work?Yes
and what would i have to do with my taco anything?
You should make sure the tacho is set to other work. Most but not all digitachos will do it automatically. No need to change it again before setting off as it will automatically revert to driving mode.
all i know is how to drive really sort of going into it blind if anyone can help thanks.
Use this period before you start driving to educate yourself on the tacho and drivers hours regs. There is a digitacho simulator on this site somewhere that will help as well as some good members willing to help. Welcome to the forum Lewis!
lewis new trucker:
hey people i have just passed my class 2 and i am waiting for my digi taco card to come and i have a few questions. like if i have drove for 2 hours and i am at my drop is the time at my drop classed as other work? and what would i have to do with my taco anything? all i know is how to drive really sort of going into it blind if anyone can help thanks.
Congratulations on the pass.
Using your tacho will come as second nature as you use it more.
It will automatically record driving and will default to either rest or other work when stationery. This all depends on the type of tacho and what the switch is set to.
When you are doing the unloading then it should be set to other work. If someone else is doing the unloading and you have your feet up then it can be set to rest.
It may be advisable to take a CPC course in drivers hours or tachos just to fast track your knowledge.
Hope this helps.
Dean
thanks i found the taco sim online today but didn’t have time to have a watch had to rush out, will have a good look tomorrow, will the taco go back to the original 2 hours i drove and start from there? so i would have to still take a brake after 2.5 hours?
thanks dean will look into the tacos course
thanks people this is good advice really putting my mind at rest, if there is anything els u guys think i should know or help me out would really appreciate it
lewis new trucker:
thanks i found the taco sim online today but didn’t have time to have a watch had to rush out, will have a good look tomorrow, will the taco go back to the original 2 hours i drove and start from there? so i would have to still take a brake after 2.5 hours?thanks dean will look into the tacos course
You can drive a maximum of 4.5 hours before having to take a break but it’s normally a good idea to be thinking about finding somewhere safe to have your break 30-60 minutes before you actually need to stop. You will get infringements for going 1 minute over!
ok brilliant, and with my hours of driving do i always have to check it with my 90 hours for 2 weeks to make sure i am within my 90 hours and make sure i don’t go over my weekly hours, or if u just stick to ur 9 a day u will never go over,
lewis new trucker:
ok brilliant, and with my hours of driving do i always have to check it with my 90 hours for 2 weeks to make sure i am within my 90 hours and make sure i don’t go over my weekly hours, or if u just stick to ur 9 a day u will never go over,
You should always keep a track of weekly and fortnightly driving and working hours.
And remember its a rolling fortnight so last week and this week is your current fortnight. And next week will become week 2 (if that makes sense)
ok yep i a with you see what i mean when i said i am join in blind, lol and i just like to get things right i know i won’t be perfect but don’t want to lose my licence because i did something stupid it could be just me worrying to much because its so new to me
ok so if i drove for 2 hours and then at my load someone is offloading me and i have set my taco to rest and i am there for say an hour hen have to start driving again would that wipe the slate and start at 0 driving hours or how would that work ?
lewis new trucker:
ok yep i a with you see what i mean when i said i am join in blind, lol and i just like to get things right i know i won’t be perfect but don’t want to lose my licence because i did something stupid it could be just me worrying to much because its so new to me
Don’t worry too much. You would have to get it very wrong a lot of the time to lose your license. As I said it will be like second nature to you soon.
Just enjoy the driving and ask if you get stuck 
cool i am glad i joined this site big big help right will be back on tomorrow cheers people
lewis new trucker:
ok so if i drove for 2 hours and then at my load someone is offloading me and i have set my taco to rest and i am there for say an hour hen have to start driving again would that wipe the slate and start at 0 driving hours or how would that work ?
It would start a new period of 4.5 hours of available driving before a rest break is required. (provided you have not reached your daily / weekly / fortnightly limit)
You also would need to look at your ■■■■■■■■■■ work period as once you reach 6 hours of work you need to take a minimum of 15 minutes break.
welcome and congratulations on yur pass
Ill try and give you adays driving to hopefully make it clear in simple terms
doing multidrop :
you start a 0800 half hr for checks and a coffee
drive to first drop for 1 hr that takes you to 0930 , whilst unloading your tacho will be on cross hammers (other work)
when you start driving again your tacho automatically record your driving no need to change ok
so like this doing a little driving and then unloading , if you press the down arrow on your vu the accumlative driving will come up so you can keep an eye on it
so then you see its coming up to 1400 hrs and you may have only done maybe 3 hrs driving on your tacho but with the wtd regulations you need to have a brk before 6 hrs so you could take a 15 min brk and be perfectly legal to drive for another hour and half before you need to take another 30 mins for the driving rules but your nearly done on your drops so you take full 45 mins this covers you for your wtd and driving time regulations when you have had your brk the tacho resets driving time to zero and off you go again got another 4 1/2 hrs driving left to get you home and do your last few drops
you pull into yard at say 1700 ,pull your card by pressing the eject button once and the vu will prompt you , is this end of shift just press ok , then it will come up 24hr print out yes or no if nothing untaward has gone on that will need you to write on a print out press ok to no and then the card will eject (prob missed a promt there but you get the gist ) jobs a good un hand in paperwork and head home fer ya tea 
when your just trunking very easy as you will probably only have one drop and a fair ol way to get there your 41/2 drive will be close so no need to worry about wtd as you will be nowhere near 6hrs into yourshift when you need a break
eg
start 0800 checks coffee etc start driving 0830 takes you 3 1/2 hours to get to drop , take 45 mins for brk then home with another 31/2 hr drive , jobs a good un
hope these examples help tried to just make it simple enough to understand
all the best
Jen
thanks ever so much, big help there i am getting the hang of it i am sure all will come clear when i get out there
Here’s what I do to help keep me straight. I set the alarm on my phone to go off 5 hours after I’ve clocked in. By the time I get paperwork, find the lorry/trailer and do my checks that takes care of the first 30/45 minutes. On the work I tend to do I won’t reach 4.5 hours of driving before I reach the 6 hour mark doing other work+driving. That is the time limit for your first break under the Road Transport Directive, RTD for short. Just to confuse things the RTD is also referred to by many as the Working Time Directive or WTD. They’re just different names for the same thing! By setting my alarm to 5 hours after clocking on I get plenty of notice that a break is coming up to give me time to plan where I will be able to take my break. You need to do something like this because going 1 minute over will get you an infringement.
If a job involved a lot of driving I might set the alarm to 4 hours after clocking on. This would give me 30 minutes plus the time I took in the yard at the start of shift to think about finding somewhere to park which should be enough. If you had a long drive ahead it would be an idea to plan a suitable place to have a break in advance.
ok cool so soon as i get to the yard does that start my time for the 6 hours ? then soon as i put my card in my wagon does that start the time for my 4.5 hours ?