I’ve been told I’m going to be shunting in the yard for a few days, the way understand it is I won’t need my tacho in whilst in the yard?? Is this correct? They do have another yard which is 50 yard up the road and I may have to go there with a trailer once or twice so would it be better to just leave the tacho in ■■ Unless it has to be in there anyway ■■ 
Darb:
I’ve been told I’m going to be shunting in the yard for a few days, the way understand it is I won’t need my tacho in whilst in the yard?? Is this correct? They do have another yard which is 50 yard up the road and I may have to go there with a trailer once or twice so would it be better to just leave the tacho in ■■ Unless it has to be in there anyway ■■
You don’t say what you will be shunting in but assuming the vehicle is capable of going over 40 mph then you will need to use a tachograph any day that you go onto public roads with the vehicle.
If it’s a tug I doubt it will come in-scope of EU regulations because of the maximum speed it’s capable of.
If you don’t know when you will be using the tachograph I guess the best way would be to insert a chart/card when you are told to go onto public roads and make a manual entry for the time you’ve already worked then leave it in.
Having said that if the distance is literally 50 yards up the road on the rare occasion I’d guess that some of the shunters may not bother with the tachograph, but you should understand that it would be an offence if you did get caught so you choose 
Cheers, I won’t be using a tug it will be a normal unit, that’s as I thought then, I’ll stick a tacho in to be on the safe side as with my luck I would get pulled in that 50 yards 
I could fall in a bucket of ■■■■ and come out sucking my thumb 
Darb:
I could fall in a bucket of ■■■■ and come out sucking my thumb
You probably already know this but …
For journeys that take you onto a public road the whole of the driving time is in-scope and so classed as driving, this includes the driving time that was off-road.
For journeys that are entirely off-road ie: picking up a trailer and dropping it in the same yard without going onto a public road, the driving time is out of scope of EU regulations and can be recorded as “other work” by a manual entry on the back of a chart or by using the “out of scope” mode on a digital tachograph.
Darb:
I’ll stick a tacho in to be on the safe side as with my luck I would get pulled in that 50 yards
Wise decision in my opinion
I’ve mentioned this to other drivers who run vehicles to the workshop at the other end of the industrial estate without cards because it’s “only down the road”. In this case down the road is about a mile. I pointed out that if they had a smash and the authorities found them sans card they would be royally shafted but apparantly accidents dont happen when you’re only going “down the road”.
I’ve learnt already to keep my gob shut, me being a newbie means I know nothing and they know everything ( some of them anyway ) even when I present them with proof some drivers still know better 