I have just started a new job today, in a traffic office. Part of my remit will be to review and tweak where necessary the current working practices.
The first thing that i have found is that the practices around downloading tacho’s and cards is a bit haphazard! We also have a couple of vehicles with analogue tachos.
We use Tachomaster software to download and scan in the paper charts. On a quick review there are 32 infringements from the last 6 weeks and as far as i know not one has been dealt with.
There are drivers that haven’t had their card downloaded for over 4 weeks, and no one was sure when the vehicles were last downloaded.
I aim to download drivers every 14 days, but what is the recommended frequency for the vehicles? Should i work on 14 days as well? We only have 15 vehicles but they spend a lot of time in Europe with 3 spending up to 4 weeks at a time in Russia and the Baltic states.
Obviously i don’t want to put everyones back up in the first week by dishing out a load of infringement letters, but they have to be actioned at some point!
I don’t know of any recommended frequency but legally you must download the data from the tachograph no later than 56 days from the day after the last download, cards as you know should be downloaded no later than 28 days from the day after the last download.
tachograph:
I don’t know of any recommended frequency but legally you must download the data from the tachograph no later than 56 days from the day after the last download
tachograph:
I don’t know of any recommended frequency but legally you must download the data from the tachograph no later than 56 days from the day after the last download
Is that the VU itself Ken?
Yes, sorry I should have been more clear, it’s 56 days for the tachograph head (VU) and 28 days for the driver card
DonutUK:
We only have 15 vehicles but they spend a lot of time in Europe with 3 spending up to 4 weeks at a time in Russia and the Baltic states.
I personally would download those vehicles every time you see them then. If they’re away for two lots of 4 weeks in a row then it doesn’t take much of a delay for you to go over the 56 day maximum.
As for drivers, the maximum is 28 days but quite a few places will have a company policy of weekly downloads before the driver goes home on a Friday, that way even if one driver gets missed for a couple of weeks for some reason (sickness, holiday, running in on a Saturday or whatever) then you’re still going to be well within the 28 day maximum.
If you use agency drivers then I would suggest a policy of downloading after every shift in case you don’t ever see the driver again.
