MrFlibble:
You should do it at (or before) the start of the shift, so that if you are stopped during the shift, you are able to provide the officer with a full record of your previous work.
Now, whether you have to do it on an actual printout or just on unused printout paper is one question; the regs say:
This record shall be entered either manually on a record sheet, a printout or by use of manual input facilities on recording equipment.
so in theory it must be an actual printout; however, it doesn’t say when the printout must have been made, so in theory I think you could pre-print a load of printouts on one shift, so that you can manually fill them in at home before your next shift, so that you arrive at work with your records all pre-prepared.
Thank you very much for this. So could I do a printout on Sunday and record my last 3 weeks of work/rest on the back of that 1 printout, or does there need to be a printout for each day?
Goff118:
Thank you very much for this. So could I do a printout on Sunday and record my last 3 weeks of work/rest on the back of that 1 printout, or does there need to be a printout for each day?
You won’t get three weeks’ worth of work/rest on the back of a single day’s printout. Don’t forget that the back of the paper roll is printed with fields for date, driver name, location, mileage, reg, etc. plus a table to record your duties. Each day’s record takes about 15 cm of roll, so 3 weeks (15 working days) will take over 2m of roll. Rolls are only 8m long, so you’ll only get three of these 3-week epics per roll of paper.
I’ll start off by cautioning you that I’m neither a lawyer, nor an expert on this. This is just my opinion based on my interpretation of the wording of the regulations.
The regs only say “on the back of a printout”. They don’t specifically say what has to be printed on that printout. Therefore, you could print anything and write on the back of it.
I’m not convinced that it absolutely needs to be a printout. If you are filling out the reverse side of an analogue tacho chart, then you wouldn’t bother putting the card in the tacho head just to write something on it - you’d just fill out your details by hand and complete the table. The reverse side of a digital tacho roll contains the same fields (name, start/end location, vehicle reg, mileage, etc.) as an analogue chart. I suspect that you could probably get away with filling in blank tacho roll paper rather than an actual printout, even though officially the regs say “on the back of a printout”.
Obviously if you are making the manual entry as a correction/addition to a day where you’ve also recorded work on the digital tacho card, then it makes sense to do it on the back of a printout of that day’s activities. However, if you’re making manual entries for days where you had absolutely nothing to do with a tachograph (like me, working in an office), then it doesn’t make any sense to try to link those entries to any day’s printouts. Perhaps you could go back in history and print out that day’s activities (none) from your card and then write on the back of that, but it seems somewhat pointless.
I think the reason they say “on the back of a printout” is so that it is done on the back of printout paper. This means that it is filled in in a standardised format (using the tables that are printed on the paper), rather than in some customised format of your choosing. Remember that these are (were) EU regs, and therefore they’re designed to ensure that an enforcement officer can read and interpret the data irrespective of language. A (for example) Hungarian enforcement officer might not be able to read a hand-written logbook if it’s written in (for example) Swedish, using the Swedish words for Monday, Tuesday, etc. and “Driving”, “Other Work”, etc. By forcing it to be recorded in a standardised format using known symbols on the back of standardised printout paper, this should help overcome the language barrier.
Perhaps if you were to write on the back of a blank paper roll and were stopped by a particularly nasty enforcement officer, they might decide to be a complete jobsworth and prosecute you for writing on the back of blank roll rather than an actual printout, but I doubt it. They’re generally looking for people deliberately trying to break (or get around) the rules. If you were driving without any records of your non-driving work at all, then you probably would get prosecuted (and reasonably so). I can’t imagine that it’s worth their time and effort to prosecute someone for making their records on blank tacho roll instead of printout tacho roll.
So, if it were me, my choice would be
Where possible, do the manual entries on the digicard. That way, you don’t have to faff around with carrying stupid bits of till roll and returning them to the office after 28 days (who then look at you and say “what do I do with this?”).
If not possible, I’d do the manual entries for office days on the back of blank till roll, rather than creating printouts just for the sake of having “a printout” that is completely unrelated to the entry you’re making.
I just wish that the regs provided the ability to do manual entries using something other than a tachograph head, so that I could put all the manual entries on my card at home before turning up at the transport office. I’ve even considered getting hold of a scrap digital tacho head to use for it, but the card also records if it’s been inserted into a head that is (a) out of calibration, or (b) has been “tampered with” (because it’s not connected to a speed sensor), and that’s going to get flagged big-time…
Goff118:
Thank you very much for this. So could I do a printout on Sunday and record my last 3 weeks of work/rest on the back of that 1 printout, or does there need to be a printout for each day?
You won’t get three weeks’ worth of work/rest on the back of a single day’s printout. Don’t forget that the back of the paper roll is printed with fields for date, driver name, location, mileage, reg, etc. plus a table to record your duties. Each day’s record takes about 15 cm of roll, so 3 weeks (15 working days) will take over 2m of roll. Rolls are only 8m long, so you’ll only get three of these 3-week epics per roll of paper.
I’ll start off by cautioning you that I’m neither a lawyer, nor an expert on this. This is just my opinion based on my interpretation of the wording of the regulations.
The regs only say “on the back of a printout”. They don’t specifically say what has to be printed on that printout. Therefore, you could print anything and write on the back of it.
I’m not convinced that it absolutely needs to be a printout. If you are filling out the reverse side of an analogue tacho chart, then you wouldn’t bother putting the card in the tacho head just to write something on it - you’d just fill out your details by hand and complete the table. The reverse side of a digital tacho roll contains the same fields (name, start/end location, vehicle reg, mileage, etc.) as an analogue chart. I suspect that you could probably get away with filling in blank tacho roll paper rather than an actual printout, even though officially the regs say “on the back of a printout”.
Obviously if you are making the manual entry as a correction/addition to a day where you’ve also recorded work on the digital tacho card, then it makes sense to do it on the back of a printout of that day’s activities. However, if you’re making manual entries for days where you had absolutely nothing to do with a tachograph (like me, working in an office), then it doesn’t make any sense to try to link those entries to any day’s printouts. Perhaps you could go back in history and print out that day’s activities (none) from your card and then write on the back of that, but it seems somewhat pointless.
I think the reason they say “on the back of a printout” is so that it is done on the back of printout paper. This means that it is filled in in a standardised format (using the tables that are printed on the paper), rather than in some customised format of your choosing. Remember that these are (were) EU regs, and therefore they’re designed to ensure that an enforcement officer can read and interpret the data irrespective of language. A (for example) Hungarian enforcement officer might not be able to read a hand-written logbook if it’s written in (for example) Swedish, using the Swedish words for Monday, Tuesday, etc. and “Driving”, “Other Work”, etc. By forcing it to be recorded in a standardised format using known symbols on the back of standardised printout paper, this should help overcome the language barrier.
Perhaps if you were to write on the back of a blank paper roll and were stopped by a particularly nasty enforcement officer, they might decide to be a complete jobsworth and prosecute you for writing on the back of blank roll rather than an actual printout, but I doubt it. They’re generally looking for people deliberately trying to break (or get around) the rules. If you were driving without any records of your non-driving work at all, then you probably would get prosecuted (and reasonably so). I can’t imagine that it’s worth their time and effort to prosecute someone for making their records on blank tacho roll instead of printout tacho roll.
So, if it were me, my choice would be
Where possible, do the manual entries on the digicard. That way, you don’t have to faff around with carrying stupid bits of till roll and returning them to the office after 28 days (who then look at you and say “what do I do with this?”).
If not possible, I’d do the manual entries for office days on the back of blank till roll, rather than creating printouts just for the sake of having “a printout” that is completely unrelated to the entry you’re making.
I just wish that the regs provided the ability to do manual entries using something other than a tachograph head, so that I could put all the manual entries on my card at home before turning up at the transport office. I’ve even considered getting hold of a scrap digital tacho head to use for it, but the card also records if it’s been inserted into a head that is (a) out of calibration, or (b) has been “tampered with” (because it’s not connected to a speed sensor), and that’s going to get flagged big-time…
As you say, would it not be easier, regardless of if you are using a digital machine, to have a box of wax discs and record each day missing day that needs recording on a separate disc?
shullbit:
As you say, would it not be easier, regardless of if you are using a digital machine, to have a box of wax discs and record each day missing day that needs recording on a separate disc?
The only question I do have to that is, if you fill out the back of a digital tacho roll, it does have a field for a card number which the manual tacho charts don’t have, would that have a bearing? I mean this is starting to get to areas that anyone will only ever know if it boils down to a difference of perspective with a DVSA officer, but it’s a difference I’d rather avoid…
shullbit:
As you say, would it not be easier, regardless of if you are using a digital machine, to have a box of wax discs and record each day missing day that needs recording on a separate disc?
The only question I do have to that is, if you fill out the back of a digital tacho roll, it does have a field for a card number which the manual tacho charts don’t have, would that have a bearing? I mean this is starting to get to areas that anyone will only ever know if it boils down to a difference of perspective with a DVSA officer, but it’s a difference I’d rather avoid…
When I had to do correcting printouts for John Lewis, whom I would describe as ■■■■ about all the rules, I only had to fill out the bare minimum of my name date and signature. Never my card number etc.
stu675:
When I had to do correcting printouts for John Lewis, whom I would describe as ■■■■ about all the rules, I only had to fill out the bare minimum of my name date and signature. Never my card number etc.
Ah that’s interesting - boss at my firm who is also TM is happy on either tacho discs or on the back of tacho rolls when I messaged him. Taking a reasonable interpretation of the PSV375 and discussion in here, I’m going to pick one of them and make that my ongoing thing.
MrFlibble:
I’m an agency driver that works in an office Monday-Friday, and drives HGVs on weekends, (at most) one day per fortnight.
I’ve been doing this record-keeping ever since I restarted HGV driving last year - doing manual entries for every day spent in the office - at least, a reasonable approximation of my office hours. I don’t record it as to-the-minute accurate, but just record 9am-5:30pm with an hour for lunch. In reality, my hours will be slightly different to that, but my actual hours are always well within the requirements of the regs that the deviations are irrelevant.
I’ll typically spend a minimum of 20 minutes at the start of a shift (sometimes as much as 40 minutes) doing manual entries, because it takes so long just pressing the buttons, and I’m careful to make sure that everything is correct so that I don’t get an infringement. Working for a large supermarket chain, they’re pretty hot on telling us that we have to be absolutely perfect on manual entries, so they’ve never complained about the amount of time it takes.
Note that if I have a 3-week gap between shifts, it’s actually impossible for me to do a proper set of manual entries. This is because the tachograph head has a limit on the number of manual entries that can be made per card insertion. Each working day has four mode changes (morning work period, lunch break, afternoon work period, overnight rest). Three weeks, five working days per week means sixty separate entries, and the tacho head simply will not allow this many manual entries. In theory I could miss out the lunch break to reduce the number of mode changes, but then I’d be recording myself has having broken WTD requirements for mid-shift breaks.
This might just be a limitation of the tacho heads that our trucks have, but I suspect that it might have been part of the EU specification - the digital tacho cards are designed to have enough storage for a specific number of mode changes before it starts overwriting previous data; if they allowed an unlimited number of manual entries, then it might be possible to put in a huge number of manual entries in order to “lose” the record of a previous infringement.
I’m reasonably sure that the regs used to be that you only required records for weeks where you drove under EU regs. If you didn’t drive under EU regs for the whole week, you weren’t required to have a record. However, I’m currently unable to find evidence to back this up, so maybe this has changed (or it was never true in the first place).
Out of interest, what happens when you reach the limit on the number of manual entries? I’ve got a shift tomorrow and am going to try manually entering my last 3 weeks of office work…
Tell you what… instead of the industry,.(whatever the aspect may be) prioritising on all this kind of absolute ■■■■ ■■■■■■■■, they should concentrate on the real issues that are the main problems in this job.
(Who tf cares apart from them about manual ■■■■ entries, and if the guys they are trying to stop working, assuming they’re doing non HGV work,.they’re hardly going to declare it anyway if they’re losing money, (that they obviously need, who tf wants to work on their rest days), they’re going to declare ‘rest’…in the real world anyway. )
And no Conor,.I don’t ‘condone it’ it’s got ■■■■ all to do with me.
I know all this has been done to death, but it’s far more relavant and important than manual ■■■■ entries…
Let’s start with ridiculous hours you’re allowed to (or expected to ) work,.all this crap is supposedly to do with drivers having proper and enough rest, what?.. 9 hours 3x a week after working 15?..aye right…and where tf are you supposed to have this rest exactly, where is the vast choice of venues?
Just look at the thread discussing Heywood t/stop closing for instance (and as usual, with no alternative provided ) you’re supposed to just ■■■■ off somewhere else and do your best to find somewhere.
What happened to the supposed investment for making this crock of ■■■■ industry more attractive to new drivers, to ease the so called ‘‘driver shortage’’, big news a few months ago, but nothing happened since afaik.
They should ask the question…WHY is there/was there a driver shortage, and try and make the job easier instead of harder with all this type of pedantic crap they come up with.
robroy:
Tell you what… instead of the industry,.(whatever the aspect may be) prioritising on all this kind of absolute [zb] ■■■■■■■■, they should concentrate on the real issues that are the main problems in this job.
(Who tf cares apart from them about manual [zb] entries, and if the guys they are trying to stop working, assuming they’re doing non HGV work,.they’re hardly going to declare it anyway if they’re losing money, (that they obviously need, who tf wants to work on their rest days), they’re going to declare ‘rest’…in the real world anyway. )
And no Conor,.I don’t ‘condone it’ it’s got [zb] all to do with me.
I know all this has been done to death, but it’s far more relavant and important than manual [zb] entries…
Let’s start with ridiculous hours you’re allowed to (or expected to ) work,.all this crap is supposedly to do with drivers having proper and enough rest, what?.. 9 hours 3x a week after working 15?..aye right…and where tf are you supposed to have this rest exactly, where is the vast choice of venues?
Just look at the thread discussing Heywood t/stop closing for instance (and as usual, with no alternative provided ) you’re supposed to just [zb] off somewhere else and do your best to find somewhere.
What happened to the supposed investment for making this crock of [zb] industry more attractive to new drivers, to ease the so called ‘‘driver shortage’’, big news a few months ago, but nothing happened since afaik.
They should ask the question…WHY is there/was there a driver shortage, and try and make the job easier instead of harder with all this type of pedantic crap they come up with.
Completely agree with that. The only reason I’m doing a day per fortnight around my full time office job at the moment is to build some experience while getting a feel for the industry. The extra couple of 100 quid per month is a nice bonus but having to spend the first 30 minutes of my shift on a tacho head before thinking about doing the actual job is not helping anybody!
robroy:
Tell you what… instead of the industry,.(whatever the aspect may be) prioritising on all this kind of absolute [zb] ■■■■■■■■, they should concentrate on the real issues that are the main problems in this job.
(Who tf cares apart from them about manual [zb] entries, and if the guys they are trying to stop working, assuming they’re doing non HGV work,.they’re hardly going to declare it anyway if they’re losing money, (that they obviously need, who tf wants to work on their rest days), they’re going to declare ‘rest’…in the real world anyway. )
And no Conor,.I don’t ‘condone it’ it’s got [zb] all to do with me.
I know all this has been done to death, but it’s far more relavant and important than manual [zb] entries…
Let’s start with ridiculous hours you’re allowed to (or expected to ) work,.all this crap is supposedly to do with drivers having proper and enough rest, what?.. 9 hours 3x a week after working 15?..aye right…and where tf are you supposed to have this rest exactly, where is the vast choice of venues?
Just look at the thread discussing Heywood t/stop closing for instance (and as usual, with no alternative provided ) you’re supposed to just [zb] off somewhere else and do your best to find somewhere.
What happened to the supposed investment for making this crock of [zb] industry more attractive to new drivers, to ease the so called ‘‘driver shortage’’, big news a few months ago, but nothing happened since afaik.
They should ask the question…WHY is there/was there a driver shortage, and try and make the job easier instead of harder with all this type of pedantic crap they come up with.
Completely agree with that. The only reason I’m doing a day per fortnight around my full time office job at the moment is to build some experience while getting a feel for the industry. The extra couple of 100 quid per month is a nice bonus but having to spend the first 30 minutes of my shift on a tacho head before thinking about doing the actual job is not helping anybody!
Yep,.I did it for first time last week…don’t agree that I should, but covering arse as usual as you always have to do in this job.
Finished Saturday,.started back Monday, …so basically two and a half days to account for to the snooty pedantic ■■■■.s (not usual shift pattern, just helping out)
So…
‘Manual Entry ?’ came up…pressed ‘Yes’
Periods of time between shifts,.and dates comes up…Just pressed ‘Bed/rest’ mode.
So I’m assuming that will pacify and appease ‘them’ …if not, cgaf,.at least I’ve attempted to do something.
Time will tell.
robroy:
Finished Saturday,.started back Monday, …so basically two and a half days to account for to the snooty pedantic [zb].s (not usual shift pattern, just helping out)
So…
‘Manual Entry ?’ came up…pressed ‘Yes’
Periods of time between shifts,.and dates comes up…Just pressed ‘Bed/rest’ mode.
So I’m assuming that will pacify and appease ‘them’
It will. And I’d bet you’ve done this for years without giving it a second thought, so nothing has changed.
The only thing that is different now is the scare mongering attached to courses being sold by RHA and BHJ (and god knows who else by now) making claims you have to account for holidays or sick leave etc. which is grossly misleading, you’ve either been doing “work”, in which case an ME is needed, or you haven’t been doing work (doesn’t matter what kind of non-work, weekly rest, holiday, sickness is immaterial).
The only people to be impacted by this “new” system (that’s been around since 20/08/20) are the occasional drivers.
Goff118:
I’ve just sent an e-mail to the DVSA to see if they can help. I might hear back for my next shift in 2 weeks’ time!
Slanderous! I got a reply today and it had only taken 12 days to arrive!
I am being serious about the 12 days BTW. I send/receive emails to/from DVSA with some frequency; any notion that they are there to help should be accompanied by one of those disclaimers you see at the end of every film :
“Whilst the DVSA is a real organization, any notion that they may be able to render assistance is fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products who may be helpful to the haulage industry should be inferred.”
robroy:
Finished Saturday,.started back Monday, …so basically two and a half days to account for to the snooty pedantic [zb].s (not usual shift pattern, just helping out)
So…
‘Manual Entry ?’ came up…pressed ‘Yes’
Periods of time between shifts,.and dates comes up…Just pressed ‘Bed/rest’ mode.
So I’m assuming that will pacify and appease ‘them’
It will. And I’d bet you’ve done this for years without giving it a second thought, so nothing has changed.
.
You’d lose your bet mate, never bothered with manual entries before, apart from the very the odd occasion I’ve took my card out at another depot to download it or something if I’ve forgot to do it at my own depot previous weekend,.and I’ve got talking to somebody for longer than expected…so made a manual entry for the reason I said, solely to cover my arse.
At start of new week when '‘Manual Entry?’ came up, ,.I always just pressed ‘No’…
So in my case,.it has changed
Goff118:
I’ve just sent an e-mail to the DVSA to see if they can help. I might hear back for my next shift in 2 weeks’ time!
Slanderous! I got a reply today and it had only taken 12 days to arrive!
I am being serious about the 12 days BTW. I send/receive emails to/from DVSA with some frequency; any notion that they are there to help should be accompanied by one of those disclaimers you see at the end of every film :
“Whilst the DVSA is a real organization, any notion that they may be able to render assistance is fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products who may be helpful to the haulage industry should be inferred.”
As I recall it, most of the tachos I ever used would start off with “rest until now?”, so I’d press “OK” and that was my ME done. But, TBH, I don’t recall the company ever cared, I know they weren’t on the ball with licence checking, and their CBA attitude to safety was a bit more of an issue than whether any of us did, or did not, do an ME.
Zac_A:
As I recall it, most of the tachos I ever used would start off with “rest until now?”, so I’d press “OK” and that was my ME done. But, TBH, I don’t recall the company ever cared, I know they weren’t on the ball with licence checking, and their CBA attitude to safety was a bit more of an issue than whether any of us did, or did not, do an ME.
Stoneridge normally fitted in scanias ask rest till now, siemans normally fitted in everything else asked if you want to do a manual entry, if you select no, then it’ll record ? For the time the card was out, this used to be accepted as rest, but it’s no long and you must record the rest period with the bed symbol
)
) you’re supposed to just ■■■■ off somewhere else and do your best to find somewhere.