Hi, Abit of advise please. Im going to be driving a road-train through europe,I have a second man with me who only holds a class C license. I would like him to do abit of driving when i dont have the trailer on. Question is this: How do we carry on with the digi-tacho ? will we need to produce holiday letters for his times when not driving, or do we leave his card in all the time to record that he is only a second man, if so how will that effect us if we get stopped whilst driving with the trailer as he is not authorised to drive it ? Many thanks in advance for your helpful replies.
Spain is a very expensive place to learn from your mistakes.
He cannot count as a multi manned crew member if he doesn’t have a licence to drive that vehicle.
You cannot teach him as he doesn’t have a full licence and you I presume are not a qualified instructor.
Of course anyone who took a risk multi manning could find themselves up the arroyo.
Whether anyone would ever ask to see a driving licence is another matter 
I will add - if you drop trailer in say Spain , he can not then drive just the truck. Because it would then become a two driver operation, and thus should have been picked up within 100k of the start of your journey. Obviously at the beginning of your journey you had a trailer so therefore he is unqualified. Hope that makes sense.
Check out the supervising driver laws in each country but ASSUMING that they are the same as those in the UK then if you have held CE for over 3 years and the vehicle is fitted with L plates and insured for this then you can be the supervising driver for the cat C driver if they drive with the trailer on because they will have CE provisional
They can drive without the trailer on their cat C
As the second driver does have provisional CE then in my view they can be counted as a second driver for the EU regs
This could get interesting as it needs to be legal under the driving rules of each country which then allows to be legal under the EU regs
Rog.
I can tell you exactly how that will go.
Spanish ( for example ) officer would be less than 100% sure , so will issue a deposit to be payed on the spot in full. Usually in the thousands. Then “you” will have to fight it. Costly , time consuming, stressful & ultimately not worth it.
turnip:
Rog.
I can tell you exactly how that will go.
Spanish ( for example ) officer would be less than 100% sure , so will issue a deposit to be payed on the spot in full. Usually in the thousands. Then “you” will have to fight it. Costly , time consuming, stressful & ultimately not worth it.
What are the driver supervising laws in spain ?
No idea.
But I do know they don’t hesitate in taking money off you for the slightest excuse. They also complete ignore any protests of innocence and simply issue the deposit ( fine ) its then your job to sort it out.
Dont do it, I tried in Spain with the ex missus and went through hell …and we had a house there at the time, and i believe you need a trainers licence for teaching now anyway. We had to appear before the court to explain ourselves as to why she was driving a solo unit alone , then they were asking about the L plates and the trailer and were not impressed…it cost us money before we could set off again.
I am not sure about double man driving but there is something about collecting the second driver up within an hour of the journey commencing.
The Northern area of Spain in the Basque and Navara area have a reputation of high court deposits that are paid at the road side.
They do not have to provide you with food if there is delay in finding the money or waiting for it to wired via Western Union.
The holiday letter covers no tacho records for the last 28 days for sickness or time off.
The fine is up to 3000 euros for no attestation activity letter.
I was parked for a week and had the letter but my boss had written some parts of it by hand with a biro.He paid me back.But daily i had to take out 300 euros a day from the ATM and used some running money.
ROG:
turnip:
Rog.
I can tell you exactly how that will go.
Spanish ( for example ) officer would be less than 100% sure , so will issue a deposit to be payed on the spot in full. Usually in the thousands. Then “you” will have to fight it. Costly , time consuming, stressful & ultimately not worth it.What are the driver supervising laws in spain ?
Doesn’t matter what the driver supervising laws are anywhere else. If you don’t hold a full licence to drive that vehicle, then you have provisional for that vehicle. You cannot drive a vehicle you don’t hold the full licence for in a foreign country. Your insurance will be invalid among other things.
Military personnel have a get out clause for that.
That’s the way it used to be anyway and I can’t see that changing.
That is - a provisional licence is only valid in the country it’s issued in.
Steve Barnes:
Question is this: How do we carry on with the digi-tacho ? will we need to produce holiday letters for his times when not driving, or do we leave his card in all the time to record that he is only a second man,
You would have to leave his card all the time, but it would be a waste of time anyway (see above), until he gets a C+E.
Thanks for the info Simon
That now means the second driver can only be officially used for driving or multi manning is when the trailer is not used as I see it
I would say not to do it.Either with the trailer or without.As said before the Police would just fine you and then up to you to contest it at a later date.It seems you may be a resident in Spain so you do not have to pay at the road side with proof of your address.
Subtle Differences
ROG:
Thanks for the info SimonThat now means the second driver can only be officially used for driving or multi manning is when the trailer is not used as I see it
Looks good at first glance, but then the Gendarme/Red Cap/Carabinieri stops a wagon and drag for a ‘routine check’. He finds that the second man only has a C licence, but has been driving.
How could you prove the second man had only been driving the wagon without its trailer?
turnip:
No idea.
But I do know they don’t hesitate in taking money off you for the slightest excuse. They also complete ignore any protests of innocence and simply issue the deposit ( fine ) its then your job to sort it out.
Well I for one gained a lot of driving experience driving a 44t artic on a provisional cat C with a fully qualified co-pilot,once over the water we would take the L plates off, as there was a possiblity of attracting the attention of the gendarmes ect, who can all speak the words “you must pay …euro’s” in fluent english
We never got stopped once, but we did stop the spanish plod a few times for directions, But regarding a provisional licence holder, could only drive a company vehicle if it wasn’t doing a job, so for driver training only, and that is in the uk, but how true this is i don’t know
I can remember soon after i passed my C +E my boss asked me to supervise another driver over the water , i refused
ROG:
turnip:
Rog.
I can tell you exactly how that will go.
Spanish ( for example ) officer would be less than 100% sure , so will issue a deposit to be payed on the spot in full. Usually in the thousands. Then “you” will have to fight it. Costly , time consuming, stressful & ultimately not worth it.What are the driver supervising laws in spain ?
they do not exist instruction can only be carried out by registered driving schools