New driver here, I am currently only covering holidays/sickness for my company so there could be long break periods when I am not driving up to a month or more.
My other job role involves no driving at all.
I have been given a driving hours log book to fill in , will this cover me for the periods that I am not driving? Or will I have to input every day into the tacho machine when I eventually do drive?
My head of transport says It does, just want to confirm from you guys if you have experienced what I am asking.
from what I understand when I do go back into driving the tacho asks for manual entry, I should say no and it defaults to the ? symbol right?
Then if Im pulled over the logbook shows what Ive been doing during that period?
I did this hgv apprenticeship for a year and they barely scratched the surface on tachograph, Im learning as I go now
I can’t find the actual legislation at the moment but according to the DVSA guide records for none driving work days must be kept on printouts or charts or by manually inputting the records into a digital tachograph.
Personally I would say that under no circumstances should you try to manually input none driving work days records into a digital tachograph, it’s time consuming and you’re likely to make mistakes and apart from that it’s not legally required, use printouts or charts, my preference would be to write the records for none driving work days on printout paper, to me it just seems the easiest way.
When you put your driver card into a digital tachograph after some none driving work days record the time since the last time you used a digital tachograph with the ? symbol.
The ? symbol is for work days that are not recorded on the digital tachograph, in other words time that cannot or is not to accounted for on the digital tachograph such as driving under UK domestic rules or none driving work days.
Mixta:
from what I understand when I do go back into driving the tacho asks for manual entry, I should say no and it defaults to the ? symbol right?
Whilst that is what many people on this board will say I would say you should learn to do manual entries properly.
If you can let us know the make of tachograph (it will be either VDO or Stoneridge) and the year of the vehicle I’ll try to fine a video on Youtube and the tachograph user manual for you.
Mixta:
from what I understand when I do go back into driving the tacho asks for manual entry, I should say no and it defaults to the ? symbol right?
Whilst that is what many people on this board will say I would say you should learn to do manual entries properly.
If you can let us know the make of tachograph (it will be either VDO or Stoneridge) and the year of the vehicle I’ll try to fine a video on Youtube and the tachograph user manual for you.
I have been doing manual entries for the first 15mins or so start of work as other work, example my shift starts at 6am , i dont get in the vehicle til 6.15 so ive been doing manual entry for that 15minutes.
When you say write on printout paper for the days non driving work , what should i record on the paper? At the moment I have been filling in a logbook type booklet that shows start time , lunch , finish time and total hours.
Also im not too sure what type of tacho machine it is, the vehicle is a 66 plate iveco hiab truck. I wont be in the vehicle for some time to check.
Mixta:
I have been doing manual entries for the first 15mins or so start of work as other work, example my shift starts at 6am , i dont get in the vehicle til 6.15 so ive been doing manual entry for that 15minutes.
OK but you did say in an earlier post “from what I understand when I do go back into driving the tacho asks for manual entry, I should say no and it defaults to the ? symbol right?”, so I thought you didn’t want to do manual entries.
Mixta:
When you say write on printout paper for the days non driving work , what should i record on the paper? At the moment I have been filling in a logbook type booklet that shows start time , lunch , finish time and total hours.
According to the guide I’ve linked to in my previous post the DVSA will not accept records kept in a booklet unless you’re on UK domestic rules.
From the link I posted earlier.
For a fixed week in which EU-regulated driving takes place
For all 7 days of the fixed week, drivers must keep a full record of all periods of other work and availability.
They must also keep records of:
driving
breaks and rest
periods of annual leave
periods of sick leave
So for none driving days that are in a fixed week in which you drive in-scope of EU regulations you should keep a record of:
Breaks and rest Periods including any holiday or sick leave.
You need to keep a record of your breaks so that your total working time can bee checked.
For weeks in which you do not drive in-scope of EU regulations you only need to keep a written record of work periods and weekly rest periods.
Again there are examples in the link I posted earlier.
For weeks that you do not drive you can use attestation forms but given that you need an attestation form for each period of work and each rest period you’re probably better off just writing it on printout paper.
