Two gaps in European regulations can waste time and undermine the effectiveness of road controls. How can companies prevent this?
Remote detection without filter
The first obstacle for the controller: Remote detection is YES/NO type, without possibility of filtering (DSRC link). RTM data n°3 "Driving without a valid card" in the last 10 days cannot be selected by severity level. For a single minute or for the whole day, the report is identical. Many vehicles will be reported even though the anomaly is minimal and no fraud results from it.
In many cases, this driving without a card was not committed by the driver, but by a third party such as a mechanic from an outside garage. The offence cannot be detected immediately. The owner of the vehicle will receive a summons to justify the absence of a card while driving.
Third parties without obligation
The lack of obligation for drivers exempt from CSR is the second obstacle.
Regulation 561/2006 defines exempt driving but does not require the tachograph to be positioned in the "OUT OF RANGE" position. In such a situation, anyone driving a heavy goods vehicle is exempt from all the provisions of this regulation.
This is confirmed in the Trace document (p. 28-29), "There is no obligation to record out-of-range driving activities or other tasks on a day when in-range driving activities are being carried out."
If the driver continues to use the vehicle, it will be his responsibility to justify his exempt driving. He knows this. Very often, the vehicle or the nature of the load speaks in the driver's favor.
This is not the case when the damage is caused by a third party, such as a mechanic. As a service provider, he punctually drove his customer's vehicle. Or the wife who drives the detached 3t5 to do her shopping.
Anomalies caused by the service provider
If the third party does not set the tachograph on "OUT” or “OUT OF RANGE”, the vehicle will show an anomaly for 10 days. From then on, the HGV will be a candidate for a road control as part of remote detection. This goes against the DSRC's objective to improve the efficiency of road controls and to better select the vehicles to be checked.
The fact that vehicles are not required to be in the "OUT" position during exempt journeys limits the sorting capacity of vehicles. This leads to unnecessary waste of the time for everyone involved: controllers, companies and drivers.
We have reported this difficulty to the attention of the European services responsible for defining the rules for using the tachograph (Trace II page 11 - question 14).
Instructions for use
In Mécaniciens et exonérés RSE : Préserver le client (Mechanics and CSR exemptions: Protecting the customer), we alert service providers whose conduct falls outside the Regulation 561/2006. After intervention, they must return vehicles to their owners without the "Driving without a card” anomaly. This also concerns conveyors who do not require a card (the W garage exempts from CSR?).
In the absence of certainty that the professional will have this concern, we give in Garage ou parc the procedure to follow companies and drivers.
The latter will keep the danger by taking care to carry out all his entries manually. He was unable to drive without a card because he was in another vehicle or was resting.
Driving without a card or driving "off range", the owner must provide the driver the proof. The difference between the two is that only the first is reported to remote detection. The "OUT is not RTM data.