Vosa & driving a van as a service vehicle

[Nigel Worc's]

Hello chaps.

I'm beginning to wish I'd stayed driving a car, no matter how useful the van is.

I work as an electronic engineer, I travel to factories and repair machine control circuits, drives, fit systems, design systems, write software etc etc etc.

Vosa seem to be getting a little serious about vans these days, and I've been given a leaflet about staying legal whilst using your van, and it was suggested I look at these :

https://www.gov.uk/drivers-hours/gb-domestic-rules

It is complicated, but I think I break these.

I don't and never have, keep/kept any record of driving hours.

I am both employed and self employed.

Anyone in the know regarding this commercial stuff, I may just end up going back to a car/estate car, where I can do as I wish.

[Nigel Worc's]

16 hours I can cope with, 11 hours, which is what I'm reading is far too tight.

A call to Gt Yarmouth, or Greenock, although not every week, will easily eat those driving hours, and leave me a whole 1 hour to work, which isn't enough.

I don't want to be arsed to record driving hours, but if I have to, where do I get the correct logbook from, if you know ?

They are certainly cracking down on vans, I've seen a few being led by vosa galaxys, although they've seemed overweight to me.

[Nigel Worc's]

Many thanks for all the answers, it appears that VOSA are very serious about this, and are doing an information campaign before they begin a clamp down.

It would appear that I (and many others I'm sure), have been breaking these rules we've never heard of for a couple of years or so (twelve months in my case since I bought the van).

The main one I'm breaking is not keeping records, although occasionally I have exceeded the hours.

Having kitted the van out to be my ideal service vehicle, I may now be faced with selling it and returning to a car.

If I keep the van it may be easier to just fit a tacho.

My mate and I are assessing the negatives of these rules, versus the positives of the van.

I've looked into this quite carefully, it would appear that I thankfully don't need the CPC, and I do have a licence for the van, nothing has changed on that front.

A lot of the time I drive less than 4 hours a day, but if the call is a fair way away, then I'm very likely to be "over hours", unless I can lose the call as self employed non duty time.

This is like being transported back to 2000, when DVLA decided I could no longer use my landrover as a service vehicle (due to number of seats, I'm diabetic and at that time my licence was reduced to less than eight seats), but a 150 mph 5 series was fine.

Now I can do as I wish with my 528, but not my 69 bhp slugmobile of a van !

[Nigel Worc's]

JM.

Many thanks, it looks like as you say, just the driving time applies to me, but so does the record keeping.

To avoid recording a day I need to drive less than 4 hours AND stay within 50 kms of my workshop, if either of these are broken, I need to fill in a logbook.

[Nigel Worc's]

I've just ordered a log book from fleabay, £6.90, it'll do a whole year, I couldn't be arsed printing out anything for that price.

I wonder how much VOSA are going to enforce this, and what is the penalty for not having a log book ?

It says the fines start at £100 !

[Nigel Worc's]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260635287804?ssPageName=...

[Nigel Worc's]

heebeegeetee said:

Nigel Worc's said:

A call to Gt Yarmouth, or Greenock, although not every week, will easily eat those driving hours, and leave me a whole 1 hour to work, which isn't enough.

So, on a day like that, how many hours will you have been at work, and how does that affect your drive back home?

I could have been at work for 16 - 18 hours.

IF I felt tired I'm free to stop and book into a motel, I have done both, driven home and on another occasion booked into a motel, depending on how I'm feeling.

It would appear that if driving a van, that choice in no longer available to me.