Hi this may be long winded please bear with me and apologies for sounding stupid.
So basically I work for a flooring company based in Reading UK and our main work is warehouse work with occasional driving to deliver stock to our depot in Milton Keynes or to local sites. Our working hours are mon-fri 07.30-16.30. Usually we will use our van for local site drops but every Tuesday and Thursday we will use our lorry as it will take the bulk of our stock to the other depot.
We share the driving between 4 members of staff, all have done CPC and have tacho cards etc… but usually one of us will drive the lorry Tuesday whilst the other member of staff will drive Thursday and so on meaning I probably won’t drive the lorry again until about 2 weeks later. We will start driving after the walk around checks around 7.50am and most of the time will be back by around 11.30am (traffic depending). On rare occasions were any later we will stop for breaks if our time is almost up.
When we put our tacho card in and it comes to manual entry we’ve been told that saying no is ok. Meaning that we usually get the ? Symbol on our printouts I believe. When we get back we will unload the lorry, park it up and take the card out even though we won’t finish work until another 5 or do hours later. However, one of our team was pulled by the DVSA for a check and the only thing they questioned was records of other work. This has made me question whether we are doing this right at all.
My question then is are we supposed to be doing manual entries and if so how do we record what we’ve done for the past week or so as I don’t know how to record all of that? And whoever is driving on the day are they supposed to leave their card in until they actually finish their working day or is it ok to take out when we’ve finished driving?
I’ve seen comments about written manual entries for non driving time. Does that mean we can carry on as we are as long as we have these written records with us? Because driving isn’t our main role it all seems so complicated. Even though we only drive locally and no where else, I’m also guessing as we deliver products we don’t come under domestic rules?
I have contacted the DVSA about this many times and seem to get no straight answer so I’m hoping I can get some advice from all of you
Wiggzy85:
When we put our tacho card in and it comes to manual entry we’ve been told that saying no is ok.
That’s because the person who is saying it is “ok” is not the one that will be paying any fines if DVSA or Plod decide to make an issue of it.
You’re an “occasional driver” there’s four options available to you to “create a full record of all work activities”
masses of MEs - not recommended
creating your record on the back of an old wax analogue chart - who has any of those lying arounf these days? Very few outfits
Do a print out of your last driveing day pulling out a good handfull of printer paper, then write it all on the back in week long blocks eg Mon 1st to Fri 5th, 7am to 4pm, breaks 12:00 to 12:45, then repeat for the remainder of your 28 day history
Or, an official-format DVSA-approved “attestation letter”, filled in on the office computer, printed off and signed. I have a copy of that supplied by a TM FB group
Wiggzy85:
When we put our tacho card in and it comes to manual entry we’ve been told that saying no is ok.
That’s because the person who is saying it is “ok” is not the one that will be paying any fines if DVSA or Plod decide to make an issue of it.
You’re an “occasional driver” there’s four options available to you to “create a full record of all work activities”
masses of MEs - not recommended
creating your record on the back of an old wax analogue chart - who has any of those lying arounf these days? Very few outfits
Do a print out of your last driveing day pulling out a good handfull of printer paper, then write it all on the back in week long blocks eg Mon 1st to Fri 5th, 7am to 4pm, breaks 12:00 to 12:45, then repeat for the remainder of your 28 day history
Or, an official-format DVSA-approved “attestation letter”, filled in on the office computer, printed off and signed. I have a copy of that supplied by a TM FB group
Thanks for your reply so what is the process for a company like us? What do we enter on the tachograph or do we just keep as we are pressing no to manual entry and then whoever is driving for the week keep written records of the week they are driving and working? For the week(s) they are not driving would we still have to make a written entry as well including breaks etc…?
Also in terms of the tacho card then. Do we keep that in the tacho unit until the driver for the day has finished their day completely or when we have finished driving the lorry?
We really want to make sure we get this right but we can’t seem to find any advice for occasional drivers like us. We are getting so many conflicted answers from delivery drivers who deliver to us it’s all so confusing.