Domestic rules and tacho

So one company depot needs you to have a tacho card?
Your normal depot, same company, says you should give your card up?

Bunch of idiots.
But leaving that aside.

The tacho law is clear:
The card is yours.
The card must be downloaded every 28 days.

There may be practical issues about how/when/where, but the law ignores those. Any problems must be overcome.
A card reader at the depot is so easy and cheap…why not? Surely all the other 270 drivers are not without cards?

Can the company require you to give up your card as part of the Contract Of Employment?
I don’t know.
As the reply from DVSA shows that is the issue here. Not tacho laws, they are quite clear.
This is when Unions can be very useful.
If you are in one, then go to them. If not then you might need to speak to a Lawyer about employment law.
Would Citizen Advice or ACAS be helpful here? I don’t know.

The company is requiring you to have a driver card for the purposes of some of the work you carry out, so you can’t surrender the card to the DVLA.

You need to present your card to the company for download. Do this once a week at your normal place of work.

The operator is obligated to download the card.

The rest is all down to the company behaving in an inappropriate way.

I was at Stockport depot and downloaded my card at the Hyde Rd depot. Stagecoach get spooked,thinking you will use it on your day off,and exceeding driving hours per week,or if using the 26 week reference period. Metaphorically speaking,if you do use your digicard,the mixture of EU and GB domestic will cause your 2 week period to default into EU hours,meaning a max of 90 hours,not to the liking of the Ops manager

“If they are too tight to supply a reader at your depot(?) and the download facility is 20 miles away, and they instruct you to use that, then they must pay your time and expenses in travelling there, I would have thought, that is part of your work”…Stagecoach have it in writing to those drivers who have digicards,to “do it in your own time”

Stagecoach like to be incompatable towards drivers.

The law seems clear that it is the Operator who is responsible for downloading cards.
I don’t see how they can try to offload that duty onto drivers.

And if a driver is carrying out work instructions, paid/unpaid they are not on rest so it appears false entries are also being knowingly made.

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It maybe clear,but Stagecoach are not prepared to have a downloader at each depot,possibly to be stubborn

good point

Downloaders are only about £20, or less. They could buy one with the loose change that is dropped on their buses, and the software can be accessed via a web browser.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/tachograph-card-reader/s?k=tachograph+card+reader

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