Don’t forget my email is ALWAYS OPEN if you need advice or some clarification. If I can’t answer I’ll know someone who can. Also if after 24 hours I’ve not replied please email me again with REMINDER in capitals in description, some emails so fall through the cracks in my non existent filing system! So yes email and remember you are never bothering me and I’m always happy to help if I can.
It’s made me realise I love everything about teaching so I need to get on with taking Driver CPC courses, just don’t have the pennies to get it off ground yet but waiting on news of another job I interview for the other day so fingers crossed! Or if you’ve a teaching job I could do that would interest me very much too.
(Chapters and timestamps below video for easy reference. The timestamps are links on YouTube in video description.)
Thank you to Tom Reddy & Anna Day for their help checking it. https://mobile.twitter.com/green_candle
Thanks for watching and have a great week.
So, good day to you! I’m finally tackling this pointlessly complicated issue and I’ve done it by writing a script, so apologies if it’s wooden!
There will be a few numbers that will are or familiar to you. 45 (minutes and hours), 4 and a half, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 24 and 45- ALL THE NUMBERS! So let’s begin. Driving
Couple of definitions. Your working week is from time you finish a weekly rest to time you start another. Can be any combination of days as working week isn’t fixed. Fixed week however as the name suggests fixed, imagine that! The fixed fixed week is 00:00 Sunday to 00:00 Sunday. Pointless over complication of the law. Also rests and breaks are different things. A weekly or daily rest you need to be able to ‘freely dispose of your time’. This isn’t the case for breaks, breaks are only defined as needing to be exclusively for rest and recuperation. Your boss can ask you to take it in a waiting room as freely dispose of time doesn’t apply to breaks.
You can drive for 9 hours a day, 9 hours divided is 4.5 so in theory it’s possible to drive 4.5, have 45 mins off, drive 4.5 in a shift less than 10 hours long. Almost impossible in U.K. but very common in places like France. You can increase it to 10 twice a week within a maximum of 56 hours driving in a week or 90 in two consecutive weeks. Two consecutive weeks is rolling. No more than 4 and a half hours in one stretch. Every 4 and a half hours you need 45 minute break. This can be split into two so you can have 15 minutes at any point during the 4.5 and 30 minutes at end or sooner. But must always be that way around, 15 minutes followed by 30.
Daily rest length in legislation is defined by 24 hour working periods. Needlessly complicated. What this means is you need to fit all of your work AND rest that day into a 24 hour period starting when you clocked on. You can take a reduced 9 hour rest, which means your working day is 15 hours 3 times a week, a week in this sense is working week I.e between two weekly rest periods. You don’t need to compensate. A regular rest is 11 hours meaning your maximum day is 13 hours. You can opt to take a split daily rest into 2, 3 hours rest taken during day (freely dispose of time relevant here as the 3 hours are rest not break) and 9 hours at the end of the day but this means you must have 12 hours rest. This will count as a full daily rest. ANY AMOUNT under 11 hours makes it a reduced rest. Just to needlessly complicate matters unlike rest rules you can increase driving hours to 10 hours twice a week, but FIXED WEEK, not working week. This means in theory that if your working week passes midnight Sunday it’s possible to do 4 10 hour drives in a working week.
There are 3 daily rest lengths, 9, 11, 12. You need to begin a weekly rest no later than 6 24 hour periods from when you finished your last so for instance if you started at 6am Monday your working week ends at 6am Sunday. It used to be effectively ‘6 cards’ (paper tacho) and many drivers think it still is. It isn’t. If you can legally fit 10 or whatever number shifts into 6 24 hour periods then that is perfectly legal too. (Also interesting to note that coach drivers can work 12 days before needing a weekly rest to facilitate tours etc. I used to do 12 on 4 off when I was a coach driver)
A weekly rest is 45 hours. It begins when you clock off and ends when you clock on again. It cannot be split or interrupted at all* (this has changed and can be interrupted for certain ferry movements. See https://youtu.be/QFy5PmGbrqM ) If it is it won’t count. Recent legislation brought in means this has to be taken at home or away from the truck. The days of living full time in the lorry like I did for over a decade are long gone! You can however reduce your weekly rest every other week to 24 hours that can be spent in Truck but any reduction needs to be compensated for by the end of the third week, but only hours you reduced. Say for instance you reduced to 39 hours, 45 - 39 = 6 so by the end of the third week you need to attach 6 hours to a daily or weekly rest. If you used full reduction of 24 compensation of 21 hours needs to be taken in a single block by the end of the 3 week. Like regular weekly rest you cannot interrupt reduced weekly rest(*except certain ferry movements see https://youtu.be/QFy5PmGbrqM). Companies will generally fit your shifts around this so not really something you need to worry about that much.
Ferries and daily rests. It is possible to split a regular daily rest into sections to facilitate getting on and off ferries. You can interrupt your daily rest no more than twice for one hour in total. So if you interrupt rest taking 15 minutes to get on the boat you have 45 minutes to get off and parked up. This will count as a regular daily rest. Procedure is once you get to ferry and are checked in and in lane finish the day with end country followed by rest as you normally would. When you are called to embark in menu press ‘ferry/train’ and get on the boat/train. Once aboard put back on rest. When called to disembark do same, ‘ferry/train’, get off, park up and continue rest. Once a total of 11 hours rest has been taken you can start again as you would any other day. You can only use ferry rest when you have access to a bunk or couchette, whatever that is so the Woolwich Ferry is out sadly and also worth noting that if you plan or expect to use your full hours ‘movements’ to fit within the 24 hour day your working day can only be 12 hours.
Now as if that wasn’t complicated enough we also have the Working Time Directive! Basically your average week mustn’t exceed 48 hours over normally 17 weeks & up to 60 permissible one week if average 48. However periods of availability were brought in as a stupid opt out for the transport industry and so drivers could do as long a weeks as they ever could. POA needs to be known in advance, tho often it isn’t and I’ve no idea how the authorities think they’d know if it was or wasn’t, and needs to be known how long it will be, technically often isn’t. It allows companies and drivers to ignore 4 hours at Iceland Swindon as it supposedly doesn’t count as working. By the letter of the law it wouldn't but POA is a misused cop out. Also WTD you can’t work more than 6 hours without a break of at least 15 minutes if working up to 6 hours and 30 minutes between 6 and 9. 45 minutes if working over nine. Maximum shift length if any part of it falls between 000 and 0400 is 10 hours unless company opt out used via a drivers ballot. You’ll often be signing for that in your employment contract.
So, some myths! As I said freely dispose of your time is for rests not breaks. If a company plans you so you get a 45 minute break in an RDC while you might not like it it’s not against the law.
Also as pointed out the ‘6 cards’ is just a hangover from the old days and no longer relevant.
Companies can plan you to max hours, I.e 10 driving but if they regularly do and regularly get infringements the Traffic Comminsioner may have something to say!
Some think you can’t drive any more than 9/10 hours in the 24 hour period, ie if you do max driving but shortish shift, have 9 off and start again it’s possible to go over 10 in 24 hours and this is perfectly legal. The 24 hour period is reset once you’ve completed a daily rest and you start a new one when you start shift.
Using one of your 2 10 hour driving days doesn’t mean you must to take a regular daily rest, length of driving has has no bearing on daily rest.
Also it is perfectly legal for a company to plan your break for a certain time at a certain place. Many think this means they aren’t as the legislation puts it ‘able to freely dispose of their time’ but that is only relevant for rests, not breaks.
Some think you cannot reduce daily rest on consecutive days, untrue you can, you can take three in a row if you like.
Another is that driving up to the tacho showing 9 or 10 hours is an infringement is nonsense. 9 hours 59 seconds is 9 hours, the legislation doesn’t mention seconds only hours and minutes so for these purposes that’s up to 59 seconds. Not that anyone would ever prosecute you for going 59 seconds over anyway!
Also the need to show 15 minutes other work at start of shift isn’t set in stone. You just need to be able to point to a period showing other work where you did your daily checks on the vehicle you drive.
Some think you cannot take your break in the driving seat- absolute nonsense you can spend it where you like. Some say a break taken in a waiting room isn’t a break- as long as you aren’t working it’s a break. Breaks just need to be exclusively for rest and recuperation and for these purposes a plastic chair in hiviz hell counts.
Another is some reckon you can’t take a break on bay while being unloaded. I’ve heard people justify this nonsense by claiming if forklift shakes the truck it won’t count as break! In similar vein if someone knocks on your door you have to restart the break. As long as you don’t engage in other work it’s a break. So if someone knocks on your door and asks you to come to office it’s other work but answering a knock on the door to say ‘I’m on break’ isn’t. It’s perfectly legal to take daily rest on bay even, as long as you are free to come and go from site as you please. In fact I took a full weekly rest in bay in Italy loading fruit a few years ago!
Some say you can’t have a reduced rest if you’ve done 15 hours. The exact opposite is true, when working over 13 hours you are using one of your reduced rests no matter how much time you have off. It’s such a silly nonsense in the legislation that longer day = reduced rest.
There are reasons to exceed your hours but these are for exceptional circumstances, not frequent. They can involve weather delays to ferry delays to illness etc. if you do do a print out and explain the the circumstances on it and sign it. Keep this for 28 days and hand in to traffic office. Or as I do do two, one for office one for myself. Important that you do this as quickly as possible, I.e at the time as putting it off can trip you up if checked and you don’t have a printout.
Ferry rest needs to be 11 hours including movements- untrue. You need 11 hours rest and driving on or off ferry and dealing with whatever may occur isn’t rest. The one hours movement doesn’t mean exclusively driving, but rather anything involved with embarking and disembarking a ferry or train.
You’ll hear some mention using train or Dover Calais with ferry movement. Not allowed. You need access to a bunk or a couchette. I have been known to use it when ferry is super late but this was only ever been done to avoid infringements
So to finish with the granddaddy of made up nonsense, a story you’ll have all heard before and to my amazement people still tell it after all these years. Involves pink chalk! A driver runs out of hours on a bay due to RDC delays, office tell him he must move it off bay, argument ensues, driver calls the police, driver explains the situation and get police on side. They then go an and inform the lorry isn’t moving till after daily rest is taken and proceed to cone off bays beside lorry and mark ground and tires with pink chalk to tell if moved. Yup, people believe that
Be interested if you have any others and will be making more #TopTips on this subject. Most of you will never be stopped by DVSA if you work for a green light operator and even if you are they are helpful and sensible, they ignore the odd infringements when not particularly serious but if you are getting several indictments a week they wont but if this is case you likely don’t work for a green light opeator. Every operator has a OCRS score of Red, Brown or Green depending on their adherence to the law. Even as far as MOTs. An operator having repeated MOT failures will come to the attention of the traffic commissioners so as you can see it encompasses the whole operation. So next time you hear a drivers full time victim mentality in full swing bitching about DVSA (though they almost always call it VOSA) ask how often they’ve been stopped and have they ever been done for anything! Most never get stopped, which is normal, I’ve only been stopped a lot as I’ve spent a long time working for the Dutch or Irish!
#LorryDriverLegal
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