Digital Tachograph Driver Cards May Expire Early
The UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has revealed that if your digital tachograph card was issued before 26 August 2006, it may expire a day earlier than the card states.
Naturally DVLA will be sending reminders out to all the affected drivers and VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency) has also issued some guidance.
VOSA has warned that drivers must take action to ensure that they stay compliant to the Drivers Hours requirements. They say that ‘on the last two days prior to the card expiry date, a daily activities printout should be produced from the vehicle unit (VU) when taking over the vehicle and when leaving it’.
The statement from the DVLA says that if you are in a vehicle at the time of card expiry you must ‘immediately, or at the first safe time, after midnight on the expiry date, insert your new driver’s card into the digital tachograph.
‘In order to comply with the requirements to produce your tachograph records, you must [also] carry your old tachograph card with you for the following 28 days.’
Continental and Stoneridge who are the two main manufacturers of Digital Tachograph Vehicle Units have confirmed what will happen with their units when the drivers’ card expires.
Continental have said that ‘the DTCO waits until the first stop after the expiry of the card, before ejecting it and stating that the card is no longer valid. If the vehicle is stationary, the DTCO will write the data up to midnight onto the card and automatically eject it.’
For users of Stoneridge VUs, the unit will stop recording to the driver card when the card is first ejected after expiry, or at midnight after card expiry. Stoneridge say that they don’t know if the VU will display a warning. They are testing this to find out and will advise us when they know. Story By: Derek Broomfield Web Link: www.novadata.co.uk Email Link: enquiries@novadata.co.uk
Date : 05-11-2010
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