I recently left my Tacho card in the pocket of a pair of overalls while working elswhere.
I had no access to my card for my drive on the Saturday ( I couldn’t go and collect it). After my shift I completed and signed 2 printouts, kept 1 and handed the other to the operator. I collected my card again on the Tuesday morning ready for my drive next Saturday (I only drive 2 days a week).
The operator now wants me to register my card lost and pay for another card. I have done this, but it doesnt seem correct.
I tried to call DVLA, but they passed me on to DVSA, who then passed me back to DVLA. No-one could answer my question as to whether I should have reported the card lost and applied for a new card or not.
What’s your opinion?
Once you drive on manual records the card is considered lost.
You could have said I forgot my card by leaving it somewhere and not done the shift, in which case finding the card again is okay.
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Quote from above, but heavy print mine
“Similarly, a driver who is not in possession of their issued driver card is not permitted to drive a vehicle equipped with a digital or smart tachograph unless the card has been lost or stolen, in which case the procedures for reporting this must be followed. See the information at Lost, stolen or malfunctioning driver cards below. It is not permitted to keep manual records if the driver card has been forgotten.”
You knew where the card was. It was therefore not lost nor stolen.
You didn’t register it as lost/stolen before driving without it.
If it was somehow awkward for you to get a hold of your card. That is down to you.
If the operator knew that you were driving without your card then that is him acting in the wrong too.
Option 1) Have you used it again since it was “misplaced”?
If not, and you reported it as lost and got a replacement that seems fine, though
getting a replacement requires a declaration it is permanently gone, which isn’t true
Option 2) If you’ve used it, keep the printouts and have your excuse ready for the next 28 days that it was believed to be lost but then was found and you decided this was the correct option because you knew it was a bigger problem to make a false legal declaration.
Then forget it after 28 days.
I’d probably go for option 2 myself
EDIT: although ignorance of the law is never accepted as an excuse, if you can convince whoever it is might be that you had a sincere belief that your actions were correct, these things are usually taken into account.
zac_a, it sounds as if the operator is playing it by the book. You can only drive on manual records for a select few reasons, one of which is that the card is lost.
I think it is the case that all non-trivial mileage driving without a card has to be accounted for, so that driver finding the card and driving on it again wouldn’t be acceptable.
You can only have one card at a time, so the one that has been found should be destroyed.
Thanks very much to you all.
I haven’t used it since, Have applied for another, registered the card as lost, and destroyed the old one.
Much clearer now.
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Yes, very correct behaviour, but complicated by “finding it” and the potential for having used it after it was “lost”, that why I asked OP about that part, but he’s in the clear it seems.
Also, OP said he did two printouts afterwards, he would have needed to do one before starting his shift and one after, preferably two copies of each, for him and operator
The “missing mileage” can be accounted for by the operator’s copy of the printout. Anything over 5km needs to be justified.
I think the operator has saved the OP from himself.
.
Should all tick along easily now.