Achim, you're not just a BKF instructor, but also have your own platform with nextDrive.de. What prompted you to set up this information portal?

First of all, thank you for the opportunity to answer these questions here. Drivers often have a strong network and like to exchange information. And so Facebook, where we now have quite a large and loyal following, and of course nextDrive.de have become a very important and above all free source of information. On Facebook, everyone is addressed, i.e. drivers, dispatchers, driving instructors and many more from the transport and logistics sector. And on our website, it's more about the BKF instructors and trainers, so it's about training.

Our information channels are really about passing on important information directly. It can't be that until the next good BKF education and training, there is a vacuum in terms of important information. Of course, this information is also important later for our products for BKF training and further education, i.e. our nextDrive WORK and nextDrive TRUCK, as well as the nextDrive books. We always want and need to be up-to-date!

As a manufacturer of tachographs, we are of course interested in how the drivers you talk to feel about the DTCO.

Oh, that depens! Especially older drivers often have problems with the DTCO versions. Here, often several trainings are necessary, in order to obtain the basics and the changes. Often, these drivers are at war with the tachograph. Some tell me that they keep banging on the keys until the "thing" quiets down! Which of course is not an option!

But, often I have been surprised by true experts among the drivers. Across the board, however, I hear that the DTCO is seen as a supervisor. Here, there is still much need to explain and inform, because the possibilities of the DTCO in the 4.1 version are enormous!

The legislation has just changed again. What is your impression: do the drivers already know what to do when crossing the border?

Certainly not all of them! The changes have not yet gotten through to everybody, even if we inform them on Facebook and our website again and again. If you talk to drivers about crossing borders, they often ask why the DTCO can't do everything automatically.

Thank you very much for this insight into your everyday life, Achim.