Question on driving 7.5 tonne truck for delivery for my employer.

[Walter White]

Hi, I have a car licence that covers 7.5 tonnes as I passed back in 1992. I work for a council in Parks. The nursery grows bedding plants and supplies other councils. This year a 7.5 tonne has been hired to improve our deliveries. A couple are local drops, say 1 hour each way. One customer is miles away on the West coast, Blackpool way. We are in Nottingham. As an older licence holder I have been asked to do some deliveries. I am happy to drive the truck however there is a digital tachograph.

I have done some reading and am unsure.

As I am driving for work thus commercial I have some rules to adhere to.

I have no tachograph card.

I think I fit into GB domestic rules so I can drive for 10 hours max,

I should record my hours on a weekly record sheet.

I should break for 30 mins after a max of 5 hours 30.

My max hours in a day are 16.

I must leave 10 hours between shifts.

I am exempt from driver hours if I drive for less than 4hours a day.

 

Have I got that right ? Answers please drivers.

I am sure " the office" would say " it's fine blah blah" but that is no good when you find yourself on the receiving end of a driving offence.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Timewaster]

Check very carefully if you need CPC.

 

There are exceptions but they are often quite grey

 

Example: you could deliver a lawn mower if YOU mow the grass no problem, but if someone else mows the grass then you need CPC to deliver it.

[scruff]

You'll be exempt from EU drivers hours as a "horticultural undertaking" and able to run domestic if you are not travelling further than 100km from your base. So Blackpool is out of scope for domestic.

 

If you drive for less than 4 hours under domestic you are only exempt from your 'daily duty time' limit of 11 hours so your boss can get you to do a full day's work on top of your driving

 

I would say given the odd long distance delivery you'll need a driver CPC. 

[worldofceri]

You DEFINITELY need a digital tachograph card and driver CPC and adhere to EU rules for the whole week  in which you do any in-scope driving.

 

Horticulture is exempt from certain rules in certain circumstances, but if you are delivering plants to a customer (whether commercial or public body) you won't be exempt.  No different to delivering, say, steel or beer in these circumstances.

 

Your employer also needs a restricted operators licence as a minimum to run anything over 3.5t.

[Walter White]

Many thanks. I shall look at CPC as that is something I know nothing about.

[Walter White]

Holy shit. I shall do some digging. In the meantime as things currently stand as a driver of the vehicle if I do these deliveries I am leaving myself wide open to a potential prosecution.

[chaseracer]

Your employer really should have made it their job to discover all this...

[Cavcraft]

It's all gone to shit since I drove them, we didn't have any of that CPC nonsense. What you want is an old LDV and a paper tacho, that way you can put it in back to front or eat it, depending on the occasion.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Can't hurt to get employer to pay for digicard and driver CPC, you never know when it might come in handy.

Also amazed that a Local Authority hasn't got a whole dept and transport manager that would be all over this.

 

Unless the plants are for the use of you or your employer , ie you taking them to a local park then planting them. I don't think this would ever come under domestic/exempt even under the 100kms.

[Walter White]

Thanks again. We do have a fleet services which should give guidance.

I have been to see them a few times. The chap I often deal with likes Mk 1 and 2 golf gti so we have chatted away in the past so I am sure I will get honest advice.

Fleet services will have hired it as " the council" who operate Large vvehicles for our department who only have 3.5 gvw Transit. I just want to make sure I am doing this correctly and legally as once I am out of the gates as a driver ignorance of a law isn't usually a good excuse.

[Richard]

Your employer really should have made it their job to discover all this...

They should have, but as a driver of any vehicle it's your responsibility to make sure everything is in order.

[eddyramrod]

Absolutely right.  And please, make sure you get all the admin straightened out before the first time you set foot in the wagon.  As you say, if you're stopped, they won't take ignorance.

 

As Chaseracer said above, this is the employer's job.  They really should have got their act together (but it's no surprise at all that they haven't).

[Felly Magic]

And Blackpool is one place where the ministry wheeltappers like to be out in force during the summer months, a 7.5t rental would be an easy target for them

[Rocket88]

VOSA  have a predilection for pulling unmarked HGVs

[Cavcraft]

VOSA pulled me in my Transit van years back now and I had a sidelight bulb out. I honestly think the officious little wanker who discovered it would have been less bothered if he'd caught me in bed with his wife then found me defecating down his chimney on Christmas day.

[PiperCub]

^^ Some things never change with VOSA or the VI as they were. 

 

As an HGV licence holder who hasn't driven one in an age, I'm a bit lost with this info on digital tacho's - last one I used was a paper disc, are they all paperless now? Also it's odd that this CPC is exactly the same name of something I did in the 90's (an RSA qualification not government/DVLA) that wasn't the same thing as now. 

[Timewaster]

Certificate of Professional Competence.

A series of modules from which you can pick and choose with subjects like Reducing Environmental Impact, Load Security, Preservation of Nuns and Kittens. That sort of thing.

I think you have to do 35 hours training over a 5 year period or something like that anyway.

[colnerov]

 Hi, You will need digital tacho card (about £40) even if you're using paper discs. A drivers CPC (which is different to an operators CPC that pipercub had) which is 35 hrs or 5 days of modules of about £100 each. Ask the company and it might be worth pointing out that they are just as liable and need to ensure you're compliant. If they don't they will have there own fine to pay which can be more than yours and puts their operators licence at risk. I did 6 months with the council a couple of years ago and we worked under domestic rules but we had to have it all. So in short don't drive it until its sorted.

 

 Colin

[Walter White]

Thanks all.

I read up on drivers CPC and as you all say the job of delivering goods that makes a profit falls into needing a drivers CPC so I shan't be taking any of those runs without a CPC.

There are plans to move your own goods around which is CPC exempt which I am happy to do.

I still don't fully understand the circumstances that define either an EU driving hours job with tacho card and a GB domestic that may not need recording, recording with ballpoint pen and weekly sheet or digital tacho card. Those differences are purely academic until I have CPC and as the deliveries are planned for next week I can't see that happening.

We have a gardener who was a bus driver so following my reading his bus driving qualifications act as a CPC or so it seems.

Anyway come Tuesday I shall go back to work and say what I will and won't do and suggest our former bus driver.

Thanks a lot for the guidance. It seems our leadership has got a bit ahead of itself and made over simplistic assumptions. I am all for our nursery making a few quid to help cover funding gaps but not if it means doing something illegal.

[scruff]

I might be being simplistic but surely it'll be a lot easier to forget domestic and just run on EU regs, and pop your tacho card in. Job done. Doesn't sound like you'll exceed hours anyway.

[eddyramrod]

 It seems our leadership has got a bit ahead of itself and made over simplistic assumptions.

Did anyone expect anything different?  This is absolutely normal, especially when anyone employs a driver.

[Richard]

It's worth mentioning that any points you get on your licence will be replicated on the licence of the person who sends you out. That might concentrate their mind a bit.

[Walter White]

Update.

Thanks again to all contributors. I went to see the gaffers on Tuesday morning. They weren't aware of CPC and asked how I knew of it. I replied I was researching driving hours and associated legal matters should I be the one driving to the west coast.

The gaffer then said I shall ask fleet as we explained what we intended to use the rented 7.5 tonne for when we asked fleet to hire it.

The next day I asked what they had found out.

Fleet had assumed knowledge and compliance of CPC.

A driver from tree services has CPC so he did the driving.

The," thanks very much for looking into the legality of driving a 7.5 tonne for us in your own time" was said so quietly I must have missed it.

[Pillock]

Bill them for consultancy work.

 

Even as a joke, it will perhaps make them think a bit more in future.

[Felly Magic]

I bet you are now glad you asked, if you had driven it, and been copped, they don't accept ignorance as an excuse, and the fines are huge for non compliance, even not having your card on you is a fine of up to a grand

[Walter White]

Too right Felly. I do tend to check things out and plan which may not be the most exiting way to live but it reduces the chances of screwing up.

[alf892]

And once you are on tacho you need to comply with the WTD regs.......which is a rolling period so if you normally operate in a role which has opted out the opt out cannot apply. So you're fucked.