Tacho question

Hi all.

Apologies in advance for this dense question but for some reason they don’t actually teach you useful stuff during the CPC and just after some basic info!

Basically I picked my first truck up today and inserted my company card and then my drivers card in the Tacho and drove the truck back to base.

When I got back I changed the mode to rest as that was me done for the day. I have since come home and downloaded the data onto the computer (just to make sure it was working) and it has recorded everything fine with 2 minutes of rest at the end which is obviously the time when I changed it to rest and before I withdrew the card.

My question is… when I return to drive again, will I need to make a manual entry for the rest or simply insert the card and drive (this is all presuming I have done no other work in the mean time)?

Its an old style Siemens VDO

Like I said, pretty basic stuff but I don’t want to mess anything up.

Thanks in advance

Steve

What do you mean company card followed by drivers card?
You only need to use the drivers card unless downloading a vehicles data.
There is no need to make a manual entry for rest. The time your card is out will just show as a ? on any printout which is unaccounted time. This is widely accepted as rest and your driving time will reset.
There is no need to show rest before removing your card either.

m1cks:
What do you mean company card followed by drivers card?
You only need to use the drivers card unless downloading a vehicles data.
There is no need to make a manual entry for rest. The time your card is out will just show as a ? on any printout which is unaccounted time. This is widely accepted as rest and your driving time will reset.
There is no need to show rest before removing your card either.

as M1cks has said.
when you put your card in next you’ll only need to do manual entry’s if, you do any work after taking your card out or any work before putting your card in otherwise all you need show is a bit of other work showing for pre veh inspection (checks).

Cool, thanks.

I put my company card in to ‘lock in’ the data to the card as its the first time I had used the company card with the vehicle, or any vehicle for that matter… I was under the impression that’s what you had to do before using it?

So next time I finish my shift, I literally just eject the card… No need to change the mode to rest?

Thanks

If you need any practice on the tachograph try the Digital Tachograph Simulator, the simulator is based on the same version of Siemens digital tachograph that you have.

harps:
I put my company card in to ‘lock in’ the data to the card as its the first time I had used the company card with the vehicle, or any vehicle for that matter… I was under the impression that’s what you had to do before using it?

That’s right, inserting the company card will register your company into the tachograph ensuring that you to have access to the data associated with your company.

harps:
So next time I finish my shift, I literally just eject the card… No need to change the mode to rest?

On a type 1 digital tachographs, that’s the one you have, any time between shifts will be regarded by DVSA as rest so it shouldn’t matter what mode the tachograph is on when you eject the card.

Great, thanks for that. That link was really helpful.