Is the 4.5 hours driving time only when the wheels are turning?
The tacho display on the dash of the Renault Premium I drive only counts driving time when I’m actually moving.
Can I stop/start/off load/muck about right up till it says 4:30 driving time before I need to stop for a break?
The company I’m working for says I can only take other work/off loading off the counted down time if the other work is more than 10 minutes, meaning those two minutes at the traffic lights etc etc aren’t counted.
i have heard that abutton can be pressed when standing at traffic lights ect or waiting to load when in and out of quarries.itstops recording as drive time .this can not be right, it would make nonsense out of the regs
Is the 4.5 hours driving time only when the wheels are turning?
The tacho display on the dash of the Renault Premium I drive only counts driving time when I’m actually moving.
Can I stop/start/off load/muck about right up till it says 4:30 driving time before I need to stop for a break?
I’m not sure how ‘exact’ that Renault display is, i have used them. To be safe when its says four and half hours i would stop and have a break.
The company I’m working for says I can only take other work/off loading off the counted down time if the other work is more than 10 minutes, meaning those two minutes at the traffic lights etc etc aren’t counted.
Anyone shed any light on this?
Thanks
As far as i understand, the Renault counter actually counts ‘driving’ and not work. So you can’t deduct anything off it.
Yes but if you stop at the lights for a minute it’s still technically driving time although the Renault comp. won’t show it.
Like many I use a Salter Big Kitchen Timer, I set it to 4h 28min and it’s next to the handbrake. It gets started and stopped when each section of the journey starts and stops.
Although I never need my second 4.5hr it saves the mental arithmatic and always gives me some indication of when a break is due.
This reminds me of sweating on 4.25 and the services are still 9 miles away thinking ‘I wonder if all those stop starts in that jam add up to a 5 clear minutes?’ You couldn’t stop at the last services because they’re more than an hour from base if you’re extending. Pulling off onto A roads is a gamble if you’ve not got an encyclopedic knowledge of laybys. This happened at night trying to get to Membury so I could get back to Bristol. I chanced the Wantage junction North and ended up ripping it round in pitch black in a lane to get back out. That was the day they sent me - Bristol, Pershore (Worcs), Chelmsford, Greys (Thurrock), Bristol with 3 bad jams.
What I need to know is…when my tacho gets analized, will all the two and three minute stops (traffic lights/quickly pulling in to look at the map) on cross hammers be classed as ‘driving’?
As the Renault dash clock is linked to the tacho it shows what mode etc I’m on. Can I wait till the clock is almost at 4:30? Knowing full well the actual time behind the wheel will be longer?
I’m all new to this and the company I work for analizes 100% of tachos.
Would I be safer to have my own timer and stop/start it between driving/off loading?
Is the 4.5 hours driving time only when the wheels are turning?
Yes
If you want proof make a note of the times that you stop for a minute or two and then at the end of the day check your chart, If it’s not recorded on the chart as driving time then it isn’t driving time
Having said that to be honest it’s not really a good idea to go to the last minutes of driving time unless absolutely necessary, you will eventually get court out
Also remember that you are to some extent at the mercy of the accuracy of the software used to analyse the charts.
Steve-o:
Would a TachoGuard thingymajig be a good idea?
Depends how much stopping and starting you do in my opinion, if you want to go down that root do as someone else in this thread has already suggested and buy a big clock, about £8 I think, but remember that any clock or hour guard that you buy will only be as acurate as the way you use it, so a lot of stopping starting will mean a lot of remembering to press the button on the clock, personaly I rely on the dash computer in the DAFs that I’m currently driving and haven’t had any infringements so far even though our charts are analysed daily.
My own personal opinion is that if the vehicle has a clock that starts and stops with driving as many do now, then why not use it, as I said before check your charts some day for added confidence in the dash computer clock.
A few years ago any stops lasting less than 5 minutes I think it was, was counted as driving time but that doesn’t apply any more.
