Dealing with drivers’ hour’s infringements

The digital tachograph becomes intelligent – Smart Tachograph

When considering how to approach drivers’ hour’s infringements, the primary issue to address is what systems do the vehicle operator have in place to properly collect, analyse and report on recorded driving? For example, if operators are not regularly collecting and analysing data and producing clear infringement reports, it is very difficult to then look to criticise or indeed discipline a driver for potential infringements.

Please note that the focus of this article is on driving under EU rules (Council EC Regulation 561/2006) rather than driving under domestic rules. However, the principles are generally applicable to all types of driving.

The list of infringements from Regulation EC No 561/2006, Regulation EU No 165/2014 and Directive EC No 2002/15

Recording drivers’ hours

Operator obligations

Driver obligations

Roadside inspections

Permitted breaches

Driver’s contracts/handbooks

Dealing with infringements

Final points

Where operators have their tachographs analysed by an external bureau, transport managers should not simply rely on the infringement reports, but should also look at some of the tachograph records themselves. This is to ensure that matters that are not captured by a report looking at drivers’ hours are also being observed.

For example, ensuring that a driver is correctly using his or her mode switch and that a driver is recording his or her time at the beginning of a shift for conducting a daily walk around inspection of the vehicle would not be picked up on an infringement report. However, this is still important to check, as these matters are currently high on the agenda of enforcement officers, as drivers are frequently found to be failing to record their daily inspections on their tachograph as “other work”, and failing to properly use their mode switch throughout the day. Operators are expected to be aware of this issue and must be able to show the steps taken to ensure compliance or face prosecution or a digital tachograph data audit from the RSA.

Instruction and Training of the Driver