Taking a break as a 2nd man
Just a quick one this week. I have had 4 calls this week asking the same question, 3 of which came on the same day, so I assume DVSA may be targeting this right now.
People are asking if you are allowed to take a break while having your card in the 2nd man slot, and the first man is driving. The answer is very simple, ‘Yes’.
The reason this is an issue, arises from the fact that a digital tachograph will not let you record a break if the vehicle is moving. This includes if your card is in the 2nd man slot. I agree, this is strange, but it’s just the way it is.
This means your print outs and card downloads will definitely record you as having had no break when doing a double man shift. This is of course wrong and some people will view this as an infringement. When we analyse digital tachograph data and produce the reports we always investigate large periods of availability and if the vehicle is found to be moving at that time we are able to change the report to reflect a break. This is only possible if you are manually checking the data before producing a report and most of the automated tachograph analysis programs will miss this and produce a report which is incorrect so be careful with these. That is why our tachograph analysis service still uses real people to verify the reports before sending them to a client.
You must of course bear in mind, that if you are doing ‘ANY’ kind of work while not driving, i.e navigation, paper work or cleaning the vehicle etc, then you should be using the Other Work/Cross Hammers mode to represent this.
As always if you have any questions please give me a call on (0191)4915032 or drop me an email.