@WickedDNA You were saying you hadn’t been in a 7.5 tonne since you were 17 and then you have said you were with RM last year. So I take it you were working in the warehouse or something last year?
Since the Agency Worker Regulations came in and RM were having to pay agency the same rate as permanent staff, they reduced the minimum shift length, but they do vary it depending on how badly they need drivers.
My assessment was class 1. Are they more strict or less on the time frames on class 1?
I didn’t do class 1 at RM.
I have been on Sprinters.
But, given that the max nightshift is eight hours, I may stay on the Sprinters if I can, but on the same rate as 7.5T. The extra hour pays the tax.
Then get my class 1.
The hourly should then justify a shorter shift.
But unless you have 45 hours uninterrupted rest on your tacho each fortnight, you’ll not be able to drive under tacho regulations.
I do understand that.
Balancing out my job in Learning Disabilities is proving very tricky.
Although I can show a break of 37.5 hours from a Monday 9am finish, going to a night on Tuesday, it STILL doesn’t count as 24 hours rest because it’s not between midnight and midnight!
It’s a LITTLE frustrating.
If you are unable to show 45 hours uninterrupted rest on any week then any driving work that you do will result in an infringement.
I’m aware of this too.
THIS week, I don’t need to demonstrate 45 hours rest, as long as I do next week.
It is good that you are keen and willing to put yourself through your class 1. That will impress somebody I think.
Possibly the fastest way to get the work you want would be to jump right in like you probably would do if you had just been made redundant or something. Accept any driving you can get and then try with RM after a year or 18 months.
Deliberately using “?” would be unwise: that symbol represents “unknown activity”, and DVSA only want to see (direct quote from them) “full records of all activities”.
Anyway, that’s mainly a problem for Siemens VDO tacho users, Stoneridge tachos offer you “Rest until now?” and if you click “yes”, the ME is done for you
EDIT: I see this is just RM policy, but it is not in the actual regulations.
How else could you record 56 days worth of work/breaks or whatever timeframe they now require?
The 56 days is still yet to be formally brought in for the UK, it is not 100% guranteed as yet, but it will apply to EU driving from 01/01/2025
As for how to record activities, there’s four options:
(a) Manual entries on a digital tachograph
(b) Making a manual record on the rear of an analogue tachograph disc, or,
(c) on the rear of a digital tacho printout.
(d) For “occasional” drivers only, an official format “Attestation Form”, here’s the downloadable template document
Thanks for the info.
Considering option A wouldn’t be possible for more than a fortnight of work/breaks, how would you record the manual entry for the time you have recorded elsewhere.
Surely “?” is the only suitable entry for that period of time on the digcard?
The general idea is that you do an ME at the start of every shift to show what’s missing from your card, eg it was ejected and you were on rest (crazy that we are required to do this now, but that’s just the way it is)
If you’ve been off on the sick or holiday, that gets inputted as “rest”
Putting “?” = “unknown activity” so according to Page 149 of DVSA’s Enforcement Sanctions Policy (2023) could get you a £200 fine
But what if you haven’t driven a lorry for 2 months for example, but have carried out other work?
That would fall under the “occasional driver” category, so they can use the Attestation Form in the link a few posts back.
Sorry, I may not be explaining what I mean clearly enough.
Even with an attestation form, you would need to do a manual entry for the minutes at the end of the last shift, and minutes at the start of the new shift. So what would the time in between be recorded as on the manual entry. Surely the only option is “?”
If we’re talking about a two-month hiatus, no, no requirement to account for last few minutes of shift.
The Attestation Form covers the past 28 days, that’s all.
And the “?” has no value now, it means “unknown activity” or in other words, “I can’t tell you what I was doing”, to which DVSA will respond “We want FULL records of all activities” most likely whilst quoting a chunk of (EU) 2020/1054, which is part of our legal system, because we were still part of the EU in 2020.
So would you record it all as rest as far as the digcard is concerned?
