Double Manning breaks

After a recently run Driver CPC course 4 candidates asked me the same question, so I assume DVSA may be targeting this topic. 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.

 

The tachograph shows POA instead of Break

This means your printouts 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.

You must of course bear in mind, that if you are doing ‘ANY’ kind of work while not driving, i.e. navigation, paperwork or cleaning the vehicle etc, then you should be using the Other Work/Cross Hammers mode to represent this.