A - No, it is a condition of your licence that vehicles are parked at authorised operating centres. Strictly speaking, it may be possible to park vehicles occasionally at other sites (provided it is normally parked at its authorised centre), but parking in a residential area is likely to attract complaints, so it is not a good idea.
Were this issue to be reported to the Traffic Commissioner, it could have a detrimental effect on your operator licence.
Forget me not
Q) What happens if we get a second-hand or hired vehicle with a digital tachograph where the previous company has forgotten to lock-out its data?
A) The fact that the previous user has forgotten to lock-out will not prevent you from protecting your own data, nor will it let you have access to their data (if they remembered to lock it in). All locking-out does is signify the end of an operator’s interest in the vehicle and the data held on the VU.
It is the locking-in of data before use that is the most important action. If you fail to lock-in data before you use it in these circumstances, your data will only be able to be read by the previous company’s card.
Watch this space
Q) When a vehicle’s tachograph unit has gone through the two-yearly periodic inspection procedure, can the registration number of the vehicle have spaces within it, as you would see on a vehicle’s registration plate?
A) When a two-yearly periodic inspection is being undertaken, there are 26 steps that need to be carried out by the workshop. Step 20 (check, confirm or update parameters of a vehicle unit) states the following:
An approved programmer is to be used to read and amend the parameters stored in the VU.
Amend or confirm the required parameters and update the VU, ensuring that all details are correct and entered in the correct format, eg vehicle registration number is entered with no spaces or additional characters.
Rest assured
Q) When we start a new driver, I would normally ask him to download his driver card, before he drives for our company. This gives me a chance to check his last 28 days and make sure he has taken sufficient weekly rest before driving for us. Is this good practice and where would we stand legally if we don’t download his card for the first time until after he has driven our vehicle?
A) It would be good practice to download the driver’s tachograph card prior to their first shift, to ensure the driver has had sufficient daily or weekly rest. But whilst there is no legal requirement to download a driver’s tachograph card prior to their first shift with an operator, with the legal requirement being to download the driver’s tachograph card every 28 days, if the driver was stopped and it was found they had insufficient daily or weekly rest, the driver could receive a fixed penalty notice of up to £300 depending on the amount of daily/weekly rest they had taken, whilst the operator would receive follow-up enquiries for aiding and abetting this scenario.
In addition, this would be a notifiable to the Traffic Commissioner, so it could have implications and consequences on the operator’s licence.
Sense of duty
Q. Some of our drivers have exceeded the 11-hour duty limit under GB domestic rules. However, there are known periods within the day that meet the definition of a period of availability, and therefore not duty time. Can you confirm whether POA can be applied within GB domestic rules?
A. Periods of availability (POA) originate in the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005, which apply to mobile workers subject to EU drivers’ hours rules. Therefore, drivers subject to GB domestic hours rules cannot use POA as an activity.
Mobile workers subject to GB domestic drivers’ hours rules can only record driving, duty, rest or breaks as activities to comply with the GB domestic rule requirements.
Trailer conundrum
Q. Can you confirm if longer semi-trailers can be used in the Republic of Ireland or are they out of scope due to different derogations?
A. The Road Vehicles (Authorisation of Special Types) (General) (Amendment) Order 2023 that covers the use of longer-semi trailers is a UK Statutory Instrument, so does not cover Republic of Ireland.
It is worth noting that despite the Order being a UK Statutory Instrument, longer semi-trailers that are authorised for use in Great Britain cannot be used in Northern Ireland unless they have been authorised in advance by the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland.
