Tachograph and WTD expert? Quick question please.

[NickM450]

The firm is work for has recently undergone a big change, new depot and contracts etc. and we are now paid a salary based on a 45 hour week over an average of 17 weeks.

I've recently found out that when being a second driver, a lot of the time for me as a trainer, and the vehicle is stopped for doing deliveries or whatever the tachograph head defaults to POA. This time is then not counted towards our WTD and my average hours are kept artificially low.

Firstly, is this legal and secondly, is there a legal obligation for me to put my tachograph in the head? Can I instead leave it out and do a manual entry when I return at the end of the day meaning my hours would be correct.

Thanks

[NickM450]

Thanks for that

It has already been proved with another driver that they are taking it as a Break and not including it in his weekly WTD calculations, as such his average hours were well below what was expected, it also answers my query as to why my own hours seemed so low. This has not been briefed out to any of the drivers as far as I'm aware, so my guess is that we have a whole fleet of double manned wagons out there with the 2nd driver being permanently on POA even when working.

So to clarify, there is no legal need for me to put my card in the 2nd driver slot when out in a lorry and I'm OK to do aannual entry upon my return to depot?

[NickM450]

Seems as though a can of worms has been opened with none of the managers agreeing or even giving the same answer. As I've yet to see my hours for the last few weeks I can't really comment on what our system has done, all I have so far is here say and speculation so I'll wait to get some solid proof before I go in with my issues.

More research is needed on both the regulations as well as what the company is doing. Thanks again all.

[NickM450]

Well it's all come out now, it turns out we run two separate systems at work. There is the 'smart analysis' which takes your tacho information and keeps a track if that. This is just a legality to make sure no one is being too naughty, on top of that someone keeps a separate spreadsheet that calculates our contractual hours. This is done by start time, finisht time less 30 minutes, this is the information that should be used when calculating our 45 hours average over 17 weeks.

The problem has been that some managers are either not aware of this or simply don't care and aew just using the tachograph data to make uninformed drivers think they still have hours left to work. Legally they do but contractually they do not.

I keep a personal diary of my hours in accordance with our contract, this however has made me in to some sort of trouble maker in the eyes of some managers.

My last 8 weeks have all been 55 hours plus, but due to me being doubled up or training I legally have plenty of hours available. I will be having a chat with a manager over the next week to explain that the deeper in to the 17 week period we get the more difficult it will be for me to get down to the 45 hour average.