The card download before you pull out of the yard
First day at a new operator and most TMs who run a tight ship will download your card before they hand you keys. If they don't on day one, they'll do it within the first week. The card carries your driving record for the previous 28 days — who you drove for, what hours you did, whether any infringements show. That's the picture of your recent compliance history, and it tells an experienced TM more than your CV does.
This isn't an invasion of privacy — it's lawful processing under UK GDPR, with the operator as data controller and you as the data subject. Your employer has a legal obligation to check that you've been driving legally, and the card is the primary evidence. The processing is justified by legal obligation (drivers' hours law) and by the performance of the employment contract. You have the right of subject access to what they hold about you — but they have the right to look at what's there.
Understanding what they see when they look is worth five minutes of your time before your first shift.
What the previous 28 days looks like on your card
Your driver card stores approximately the last 28 days of activity. When your new operator downloads it — using their company card and a card reader, or via the vehicle unit — they see a timeline of activity modes for each day: driving, other work, availability, rest. They see which vehicles you drove, the vehicle registration numbers and VINs, the start and end odometer readings, and any infringement flags that the tachograph recorded.
The between-jobs gap — the period between your last day at the old employer and your first day at the new one — shows as rest mode if you didn't record anything on the card, or as 'not inserted' if you didn't put the card in a vehicle at all during that period. Neither of these is an infringement. Days without driving are days without infringements.
What triggers infringement flags on the card isn't absence — it's presence with rules broken. Daily driving over the limit. Break not taken. Daily rest too short. Rest shortened beyond the three-reduction cap. Weekly rest missed or inadequate. Those are the things that show as infringements in the analysis software. A week between jobs where the card sat in your wallet is just a week of rest.
Previous employer infringement history
The 28-day window means your new operator can see infringements from your time at your previous employer if they fall within that window. A minor daily rest reduction from two weeks ago is visible. A break infringement from three weeks ago is visible. An over-hours day from the last week at your old job is visible.
This is one reason some drivers are nervous about card downloads at new depots. They had a rough patch at the old place — difficult dispatcher, bad week for traffic, a run that went wrong — and they know there's something on the card that needs explaining.
Most TMs who see isolated infringements in context understand them. A single reduced-rest event during what was clearly a busy tramping week, surrounded by otherwise compliant records, is a different picture from a pattern of daily rest reductions across multiple weeks. Experienced analysis reads the data, not just the flag count. If there's something on your card you know is there, better to mention it during the induction than to let the TM find it without context.
The DVLA licence check your new employer is supposed to do
Before you drive for a new operator, they should carry out a DVLA licence check. This verifies that your licence is current, that you hold the correct categories (Cat C or C+E as required), that there are no disqualifications or penalty points that would affect your ability to drive, and that any medical conditions noted on the licence are still compliant.
The DVLA online check service — available through GOV.UK with the driver's consent — gives operators a real-time view of the licence record. Some operators use this at induction and then at intervals throughout employment — quarterly or six-monthly checks are common practice in well-run fleets. I covered the employer duty around licence checking in more detail in the licence check post.
What this means for you: don't assume a new operator won't notice a penalty point accumulation you haven't mentioned, or a medical restriction you haven't flagged. They'll check. And if the licence check shows something you should have declared, the conversation is harder at that point than it would have been at induction.
The induction that should happen before you drive
A new operator has obligations before they let you drive for them. Not every depot does this properly — particularly on agency, where the first-day briefing can sometimes be 'here are the keys and here's the delivery note' — but the operator's responsibilities exist regardless of how rushed the handover is.
They should check your licence. They should download your card. They should brief you on the specific vehicles you'll be using and the routes you'll be running. They should inform you of any site-specific rules — height restrictions on approaches to regular delivery points, customer-site access requirements, any depot speed limits. They should confirm you know how to operate the specific tachograph model fitted to the vehicle.
If the induction is thin — and on agency day one, it often is — ask the questions yourself. Where's the defect sheet? Who do you call if you have a breakdown? What are the height restrictions on the regular run? Where's the nearest DVSA-approved weighbridge if you're unsure about a load? A first-day PG9 isn't the new employer's problem alone — it goes on your card record too.
The tachograph entry at the start of your first shift
On a digital tachograph, you insert your card into slot 1 before the vehicle moves. The head unit will prompt you to confirm your country of residence and, on some models, whether this is the start of a new employer period. Follow the prompts — each model has a slightly different menu sequence, but they all have the same end result: the card is now recording against your identity, the vehicle unit is logging the pairing of your card and this vehicle, and the clock is running.
If the previous driver's card session ended recently and the head unit still shows their activity in the display, it means they took their card out and the vehicle unit is waiting for the next card insert. Insert yours, follow the sequence, and you're recording correctly. Don't skip the startup prompts — on some older units, an incomplete startup sequence can leave ambiguity in the activity record that shows up in analysis as a gap.
If the card shows more than 28 days ago — what operators check differently
For records beyond the 28-day window, your new operator won't see them on the card. But if they're thorough — particularly for a permanent role rather than agency day work — they may ask you for a reference or compliance summary from your previous employer.
This doesn't happen at every depot. But larger operators with formal compliance programs, or those working under the DVSA Earned Recognition scheme, sometimes request a compliance history covering a longer period. That's the operator going beyond what the card alone shows.
You're not legally obliged to provide this. But declining tends to create a question it's easier to answer proactively. If your record at the previous employer was clean, a compliance summary isn't a problem. If it wasn't, the card will show some of it anyway, and a full summary might actually provide helpful context that the card data alone doesn't.
First week at a new depot — the card habits that matter
Start the card correctly on day one. If you've been off work for two weeks between jobs, check the card is still valid (five-year validity, check the expiry date on the front of the card). If it expired during your gap between jobs, you need the replacement before you can drive.
Keep your analogue record sheets from the last 28 days in the cab if any apply. If you drove a vehicle under GB domestic rules at the tail end of the previous job, those sheets count toward your 28-day producible record. They should be in the cab with you, not filed at the old employer's depot.
And if there's anything on the card from the previous job that a new TM is going to find and want to discuss — raise it during the induction. An infringement you explain is manageable. An infringement that surfaces in the TM's analysis report without any context from you starts a different conversation.