have just had my TM on the phone saying (that as i am off next week) could i sign my infringement sheet. 'Eh…wot bloody infringements…over-speed,mis-calculated break i say. ‘U need to explain why u have manually entered lines at the start/end of yr trace and to explain the gap between the start/end of trace and yr manually entered lines’ he replies. My answer was that i have done this for the last 3 years since going back to an older truck to show the start/end of my duty which i duly mark SOD(W)R or EOD(W)R and if my tacho goes in at 2110,i draw the line at 2100 for when i started my shift on count this as POA. I also take it to the nearest quarter at the end and count this as other work cuz i’m doing paperwork. Is this ‘good’ practice or am i doing something slightly wrong or shall i forget the lines altogether (we were told to do these by the hierarchey but now they want to know why we do 'em 
I don’t do this, if I mark start or end of duty I do it on the reverse on the grid which is designed for that, it even has pretty squares to make it simple, in 15 minute increments.
The reason for marking the wax face of the chart is because the bloody analysts are too sodding lazy to turn the card over.
Actrosman:
have just had my TM on the phone saying (that as i am off next week) could i sign my infringement sheet. 'Eh…wot bloody infringements…over-speed,mis-calculated break i say. ‘U need to explain why u have manually entered lines at the start/end of yr trace and to explain the gap between the start/end of trace and yr manually entered lines’ he replies. My answer was that i have done this for the last 3 years since going back to an older truck to show the start/end of my duty which i duly mark SOD(W)R or EOD(W)R and if my tacho goes in at 2110,i draw the line at 2100 for when i started my shift on count this as POA. I also take it to the nearest quarter at the end and count this as other work cuz i’m doing paperwork. Is this ‘good’ practice or am i doing something slightly wrong or shall i forget the lines altogether (we were told to do these by the hierarchey but now they want to know why we do 'em
i used to do the same thing a few years back (s.o.d/ e.o.d) technically anything that is writen outside of the middle is defacing the tachograph and will get a vosa man asking questions, just don’t bother doing it now, put ya card in show 10 minutes on other work, at end of day show another 10-15 minutes other work, sorted
Grahamzx6r said;
i used to do the same thing a few years back (s.o.d/ e.o.d) technically anything that is writen outside of the middle is defacing the tachograph and will get a vosa man asking questions
Another MMTM myth. So long as the lines you draw do not obscure the trace produced by the Tachograph there is no problem. Although I should add that many enforcement authorities across the Channel have domestic legislation that makes it an offence to put anything other than the required centre field entries on the face of the chart. Where the nice person from VOSA will get twitchy is when there is no record of what happened between the marked shift start time and the beginning of the trace.
As a pragmatic approach, write the shift start time on the reverse of the chart and either fill in the ‘grid’ to cover the ‘missing minutes’ as Wheel Nut suggests or make a note on the reverse of the chart that the 18 minutes of time between the shift start and the Tacho record starting are ‘other work,’ ‘availability,’ or whatever. Do the same thing at the end of the day.
We have to draw the lines on the FRONT of the tacho to indicate edr/sdr.
We also have to show what we were doing between starting shift and putting tacho in.
To do this, we put, BETWEEN the edr/sdr lines and the tacho trace, the corresponding symbol relating to whatever activity we were doing (usually “other work”).
You CAN write on the front of a tacho, as long as you do not touch the trace.
cheers fellas,thats good enough for me then!!
Owing to another post I have spent a fair part of my time recently reading and digesting 561/2006 when I remembered this thread and as Geebee45 has assured us that VOSA are not so worried about the face being marked as long as it does not obscure the data.
This is how it would be seen across the channel.
‘When as a result of being away from the vehicle, a
driver is unable to use the equipment fitted to the
vehicle, the periods of time referred to in
paragraph 3, second indent (b), (c) and (d) shall:(a) if the vehicle is fitted with recording equipment
in conformity with Annex I, be entered
on the record sheet, either manually, by
automatic recording or other means, legibly
and without dirtying the sheet;or
(b) if the vehicle is fitted with recording equipment
in conformity with Annex IB, be entered
onto the driver card using the manual entry
facility provided in the recording equipment.