A. Rule 148 of the Highway Code states that ‘safe driving and riding needs concentration’, and refers to avoiding distraction when driving or riding, referring specifically to eating and drinking amongst others.
A driver will be liable to prosecution for the more serious offences of careless or dangerous driving where it can be shown that a collision or poor driving was caused by failure to have proper control of the vehicle because of some distracting activity, which could include eating or drinking whilst driving.
Fancy a lock in?
Q. We’ve recently had a hire vehicle that was taken back by the supplier for annual test. The supplier found a few issues and rescheduled the test date, so we off-hired it rather than wait for it to come back. We’ve just realised that the vehicle tachograph unit wasn’t locked out and it is not feasible for us to send someone to the supplier to do it. If the supplier use their company card to lock the tachograph, would that not also lock our data out so they can be locked in?
A. If another company inserts their company card, then this will automatically create a lock out event of the previous operator. It may be worth looking to understand how much data could potentially have not been downloaded between the last download and the vehicle leaving your possession, as this would constitute a gap in the records and may be questioned by enforcement officers.
