One for the Gurus

ASK THE EXPERTS SAFETY, LAW AND WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE FORUM (INTE
1

I, :blush: a friend of mine was taken off normal duty last week, asked to deliver a unit and trailer and get a lift back in a wagon with another driver. I :blush: he took 3hrs 15 mins to get there and do whatever I :blush: he had to to. % mins in the office and then sat in the cab with someone else driving back to base (total hours 7.5). I :blush: he put my :blush: his card in no.2 slot in the tacho to save too much work in filling out manual entries on the back of the printout.

I have now just been thinking about what I (yeah alright it was me :smiley: ) did and am now worried about getting an infringement. I was not double manning as my card didn’t go in in the first hour of duty for the other driver and wagon. But of course my tacho will be recording me as no.2 driver and putting my time down as POA.

If I was double manning the first 45 mins of this POA would count as break, but as I wasn’t double manning what will my sitting in the passenger seat eating sarnies and chatting count as? I get a horrible feeling thats other work, even though I wouldn’t count what I was doing as that. Is it my fault that the tachograph defaults to the wrong setting?

2

Doesn’t matter, it might be a breach of the WTD but where is the tacho infringement?

You did 3 hours and 15 minutes of driving, and then 3 hours and 15 minutes of either POA or other work. That’s legal.

3

If I’m reading your post right then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
You haven’t reached 4.5 hours driving so don’t need to show 45 mins of ‘break’.
The time spent on POA while in the passenger seat means you won’t have exceeded 6 hours ‘work’ either.
Assuming you were simply being driven back rather than assisting the other driver with deliveries etc, then I see no reason to record any ‘other work’ on your card.

4

Legal.

I did it double manning earlier this year, and did exactly what you have described, and haven’t been notified of any infringements off our agency’s high profile customer.

Ken.

5

It’s not double manning it’s what I believe is called a ‘shunt’. As long as you haven’t exceeded your 4.5 hour driving limit or your 15 spread I can’t see a problem.

6

If your records are analysed by an analysis company I’m not sure that they would know that you were not double manning so you probably wouldn’t get an infringement off the company either way.

If you were stopped by VOSA would they know that you were not double manning unless you told them, I doubt it.

Having said that, as others have said it doesn’t look like you’ve done anything wrong anyway so it’s all academic really.

7

You’re not double manning anyway - You’re on “other work” whilst being driven back by the other guy. No need to even put your tacho in and hit the “2” button.
You were never going to drive this vehicle right?

Manual entry is “other work” rather than POA, as you are not free to do anything but be your driver’s captive audience for the duration. If it is night time, you’re not even free to “read a newspaper” so don’t use POA if you want to really be squeaky clean here! :grimacing:

8

Basically you could drive for 4 hours 29 minutes and then spend the next 10 hours 31 minutes doing other work and although that would be a breach of the Working Time Directive, it would be 100% tachograph legal.

You couldn’t do 4 hours 30 minutes and do 10 hours 30 minutes other work though because as soon as you’ve completed 4 hours 30 minutes of driving you MUST take a break and cannot do any other work until you have.

9

Thanks for all the replies.

I just try to keep as clean as possible whether its Tacho regs or WTD.

I’ve recently started a new job and don’t want any excuse for them to look at my probationary period again.