I’ve read some other posts on here about tacho head unit UTC time being out, over 20 minutes needs a recalibration.
In my case, I don’t normally leave it as late having a break, on the six hour rule, but the clock was 2 minutes fast so it shows I was late putting it on break.
Did a manual entry at the start of the shift, stating that I started work at 8 a.m. when the head unit would have been reading 8:02 unbenown to me.
So I suppose what I am getting at is that I only did six hours driving and other work, not six hours and two minutes as the tachograph record shows.
However surely you could argue that the head unit was making a false record as that was not the time I stopped work?
Alternatively perhaps I should have checked the tacho time as part of my 15 minute walk around checks?
Thoughts please, as I have an infringement discussion at work soon.
Is the time wrong on your tach unit? If so best before you insert your cards .
go to settings vehicle settings and change. UTC time. You can change it every day by 1 maybe 2 mins thats all.
If not that best bet maybe is go off time on your phone when you inserted card. Or set phone alarm to go off after 5 hrs 40 giving you time to park up.
It’s not the normal truck I drive, I just didn’t notice that the time was out by two minutes when I stuck my card in.
But now obviously company are wanting to do an infringement interview/bollocking.
Again my argument is that I did take the required break at the required time but because the head unit had the time set incorrectly it doesn’t show that.
Not the end of the world obviously, but just want to be able to argue my corner correctly.
You’ll probably have to put it down to experience and learn from it, you can argue that the UTC time was out but they can argue that you should have checked and anyway should not have left it to the last minute before having the break.
At the end of the day it’s just a WTD break infringement, as annoying as it can be it’s not like you went over your driving time or never had the correct daily/weekly rest.
Your employer is legally obliged to bring it to your notice but as long as it’s not a regular occurance no-one else will care
The tacho head would have shown that it was 08:02 on inputting the manual entry? So your rest period would have been inputted up to 08:00, then 2 minutes of other work to take you up to the current time.
I guess you then took a break at 14:02?
As said, chalk it down to experience, and check the tacho time above your head for when you need to take a break instead of your watch or Satnav or whatever you currently use.
I find myself looking up even when I’m in my car to check the time nowadays!
That’s one of the risks of having breaks so tight to the requirement. Good practise, regardless of using your watch or the tacho head clock, is to take a break plus two minutes anyway.
Unless I’m doing a long run where my break is dictated by driving time and there are plenty of laybys to get as close to 4:30 driving time as possible (to suit my day), I try to take a 15 minute break 3-5 hours into the shift.
Infringements will be inevitable if you are consistently working up past 5:30 working time, as there’ll be times when you can’t find a space to take a break. Especially in built up areas.
