Following on from my last thread, I’m feeling a bit better in my job. Starting to get my head around the tacho etc. I do have some questions though and hopefully you guys can shed some light on them.
Tacho, I’ve noticed there’s a black dot next to the time? And next to that it shows what looks like a steering wheel? Are these always displayed? Can’t remember seeing them before.
How do you deal with traffic? As I’m crawling through it the tacho changes between driving and other work but I’m not sitting still long enough for it to register 1 min on other work. Then the driving time starts adding up and before you know it it’s flashing up for a break, then gone over to get to a safe place. I make a print out and write on the back but I feel like I’m doing this a lot. How often do you guys have to do this? I take it there’s no other mode to put the tacho on whilst crawling?
You’ll only see the lack dot for six months of the year. This means that the time displayed is a local time not a UTC time. When the clocks change and we leave BST the dot will dissappear when the time is corrected.
The steering wheel would only be there when you are driving and will change to crossed hammers when you stop (if other work Is the default setting if the unit)
In slow traffic there’s no way to fiddle the driving time. Most drivers will not go over and do a printout because experience will have them pull over sooner and take a break. Remember you don’t have to do 4.30 driving before a break. You can easily stop at 4 hours, get yourself out of any traffic and you often find after a 45 the road you just left is quite often clear by the time you join it again.
Thanks for the reply. I wasn’t looking for a way to fiddle any times. Just wondered what more experienced drivers do and if there is a way to save on driving time. Still learning as only been driving for 4 weeks now.
I guess the key is to pull over sooner rather than later and take a break. I’m sure I’ll get there soon with more experience.
Its all been said really .Stop earlier if you can till you get to know your timings …
Its not worth pushing driving time to the max as you’ll get caught out thinking I’ll just make that last layby /services, not only if you stop early you’ll be more relaxed not having to push it…
I do the same run every night and know where I’m stopping or I should say where I’m going to stop without being tight on time.