running back to the yard i went over my 15 hours by 45 min because of a minor car crash blocking the lane to the yard. i have written it in my diary and i clocked at 10:45 and did the necessary print outs etc.
last night i get into work and the start time for tuesday has been altered to 7:45 so it looks like i only did 15 hours and 45 min has been added to wednesdays shift. I havent lost out financially on this as i am payed the night rate from start to finish. However, here is the rub my tacho now doesnt match my time sheet.
i spoke to the office and their attitude was that it was illegal to pay more than 15 hours when i pointed out that my tacho now doesnt match and it looks like i have made false records they just shrugged.
is it a big issue or am i worrying about nothing agaiun
Look after yourself. You are being paid for the hours you did and you have a correct record with you. That is all that matters. Kicking up about it doesn’t help you.
If on one day you go over your 15 hours then you ought to have the next day as a reduced weekly rest.
It’s all about 24 hour work periods, not days of the week.
15 hrs 45 mins mean it is impossible to get a 9 hour reduced daily rest within that 24 hour work period.
If you get stopped within the next 28 days, both you and the company will have questions to answer, you’ll be in line for a fine for insufficient daily rest.
The company time sheet isn’t the issue, they can fudge that till the cows come home, it’s just fudging for their own purposes, it’s your tacho card data that counts as far as the authorities are concerned.
Legally, that’s the score, but no doubt someone will say that’s all rowlocks and you can just crack on and not worry about it.
@zac_a that is what i said but they were insistent it wasnt the case usual cobblers about being in transport before they were born etc etc.
they moved my start time to 7:45 to compensate and i didnt actually start till 8 pm
the weird thing is that they took great delight in telling me is that the drive time was reset according to the tacho and no warnings came up during the shift.
so far i havent had the infringement for it so we shall see what realy happens
FYI, in case you need it in further “discussions” with these people (from DVSA Enforcement Sanctions policy, April 2024, page 103, free to download online if you need it).
I’d suggest you’ve potentially got a “reasonable justification”, depending on what they mean by “very close to base”, that’s open to wide interpretation. Likely worst case would seem to be £100 fine, but a TE160DH is pretty serious, it can have a maximum penalty of up to £5000
You can do another print out for that day and the following day, and write both yours and their interpretation of the situation on the back, that way should anything come of it you have documented their actions in an evidential way, so helps to cover yourself - definitely worth ten minutes of your time I’d say
But a recorded infringement can be mitigated by an explanation like caught and held in a motorway closure or incident.
That’s not falsifying a tachograph record.
It’s clear that your tacho record doesn’t show any evidence of, or any motive, to falsify a tachograph record.It shows that you went over 15 hours from your start time.
To me sounds like if they tell wages/ HR dept you did over 15 hours thed want to know why as max is only 15.
Kinda sounds like they didn’t want the hassle of wages /HR kicking off about it all.
I agree it is probably summat like that.
The pay system is set so that it impossible to pay over 15hrs. In order to make the correct 15-45 payment the office have tweeked the time sheets.
As @zac_a and others have said, so long as print out with notes is made, no one is forging tacho records.
Nowt to worry about, apart from the breach of hours, which seems to have a valid excuse.
surly though if anyone came to check and my tacho records didnt match my time sheet whos in the dog house because you can bet your bottom dollar that if it hits the fan they will deny all knowlage. I know at the first company i worked for as a driver it all had to match perfectly if they didnt you got hauled over the carpet
Hauled over the carpet?
Seriously though mate what’s the worse they can do ffs?..
We aint at school…although some of them try and treat us like school kids if you let em.
As said, as long as you keep things legal on your card/records, to cover your self, I wouldnt give it a second thought.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the DVSA, you have already said that the car crash was blocking the lane that led to the company’s yard, the tacho print out will show the time taken to drive into the yard and park up which will be what? 10 minutes or a bit more? This and the distance involved will be available to the DVSA from their tacho download. If the full circumstances are on the back of your print out a reasonable DVSA enforcement officer will probably only comment on the actual amount of rest taken between shifts, ie did you make any compensation for the long shift by increasing the rest period taken beyond the minimum required? that would show recognition of the need to recuperate from the additional fatigue from the previous day.
So, silly question. Why didn’t you call the office, tell them you were just up the road and they come and get your truck? Presumably you would have returned to base within the 15hrs had there not been the road blocked.
They should already have been aware you would be close to the limit anyway
Sounds like a hooky operator prepared to fudge their records to make them look legit and leave the OP to their own problems.
Acorn, not a silly question, but would you expect the company to send a driver to recover the truck only to get stuck in the same incident? It wouldn’t achieve anything really.
If we accept the OO, they’re literally just u the road, matey sits there over an hour, when he office could have walked down and saved all this grief Or parked and walked themselves and handed the keys over
Imagine being back in the yard and the gaffer says “I know you’re about to go home but could you just rescue one of our trucks? Oh by the way you’ll have to walk to it and then wait for the road to open before driving it back” not really gonna happen is it?
