I’ve just started the C+E bootcamp training, one of the conditions of application was I could be “self employed and looking to supplement your income”, which is definitely me. Just done the Tacho & Drivers Hours module, only to come across the logging other work part.
As a director of my own company (self employed, outside of HGV & transport work), I’m not bound by the working time directive. I can work as much as I want.
I was hoping to work on a 2 week rotation, 2 weeks HGV work, 2 weeks of my other work. The HGV work I have lined up will take me to around 90hrs over the two weeks that I’m on. My other self employed work on the 2 weeks off HGV work is more like 60hrs a week (but over 4 or 5 days). Obviously this will take me over the 48hrs average over 17 weeks. It also means I have to input two weeks of data onto tacho when I next get into a truck…
You’ll not get 2 weeks of other work onto a tacho via manual entry, so your best bet will be writing it on the back of a tacho printout. See below for more info.
Quite a few problems with that:
Drivers hours rules still apply, so forget “working all hours”. Time spent working in any exempt situation cannot count as rest for the purposes of driving work. So being WTD exempt does not help you with EU hours as these are two separate pieces of legislation.
But your biggest problems can be illustrated by looking at Statutory Document No.5, (link 1 below) under the section headed employees, which states: “It is now well understood that it will be rare for someone to be genuinely self-employed unless they are an owner-driver.”
That means your own vehicle and your own O-licence.
Anyone reckless enough to employ “self-employed drivers” who don’t fit this bill are their own worst enemy; see link 2 below
@goff118 Don’t understand how I haven’t come across that, even after several hours of googling to try and figure this out. From that it looks like as long as I keep the 2 weeks off driving in complete weeks, and ensure it’s a full 45hr rest before starting week 1 of HGV work then I should be okay to input them as a single record per week for out of scope work.
Interesting that the example given of the transport manager logs the total hours they’ve worked in “out of scope” week even if it is outside of EU hours.
@zac_a Oh yeah, I’m not talking about working all hours, or even working as a driver in a self-employed (or self ltd co) situation. I’ll be on PAYE, 0 hours with a couple of local farms & an aggregate place. I may look at long term leasing a tractor unit, O licence etc once I’m a bit further into my time but thats a good year or so off.
The self-employed bit really comes a bit more aimed towards keeping my existing event company going. Working two weeks on and two weeks off would give me time to run my company and work as an employee of each of those companies on 0 hours contracts. But logging the hours I work outside of the HGV weeks is likely going to take me way over the average 48hrs in 17 weeks.
All the HGV weeks averaged out will be under 48hrs a week, but the event industry is brutal and in peak season I can be doing 80+hours a week.
As an External Transport Manager (one of my job roles) not only do I have to make sure I do not exceed 48 hours per week every single week - not as an average over a reference period - but I need to give a detailed breakdown of how all my various other duties fit together with my TM duties, including travel times to client sites, and submit this for the TCs approval before I’m nominated on an O-licence. It’s far more prescriptive than driver’s hours working.Nothing in the working day is “out of scope” for people in my position.
It works on fixed weeks, so yes full fixed weeks off require a less detailed record. The main thing is the weekly rests, which must be exact.
When going back to work straight from an out of scope week then the last daily (or weekly) rest before starting back must be recorded in full too.
I believe it was member @tachograph who found a source somewhere that said working time spent outside of the transport sector (effectively work done where the employer isn’t an operator) doesn’t get added to the running total for a reference period for RT(WT)R. I myself checked the legislation directly and found it could have been clearer.
The number of hours is relevant for the purposes of RT(WT)R if the work done that wasn’t in scope is involved with transport (as above). The example that shows total hours worked in an out-of-scope week is good practice, but I take your point not strictly necessary at least in terms of what has to be produced at the roadside.
This is what I meant when I said working in an exempt occupation cannot be counted as rest for the Driver’s Hours requirements, so although these hours are not counted as WTD/RTD, they are not totally discounted when factoring for in-scope driving
So @zac_a you are saying 48 hrs of HGV work a week could be followed by 80 hrs of Event work a week and repeat ad infinitum without any problem? (So long as 45 hrs rest each weekend).
Jeezuz H Kericed NO! I would never propose, recommend or endorse anyone work such insane amounts of hours when it includes HGV work, even if it could potentially be squeezed through the tiniest crack of supposed legality.
What I actually said was: Exempt-from-WTD working hours CANNOT be counted as REST when there’s HGV driving involved at subsequent times.
The practical implications of that is the “exempt work” ends up in reality NOT being exempt. We have laws then we have the interpretation of these laws; that interpretation of the interplay of Law written for a standalone situation, and Real Life , has to be done by properly qualified professionals.
The bottom line is the rules are about road safety, anything which can be seen to compromise that in any way will be viewed in that light when stuff hits the fan.
When His Honour Judge Sir Clive Ponsenby-Smythe (KC) is about to send Dave Driver to jail (max sentence is now life) because of a road fatality caused by Dave falling asleep behind the wheel after working ridiculous amounts of hours, Sir Clive isn’t going to accept Dave’s claim that he believed it was legal to work ridiculous amounts of hours just because he was told by some person on TN it was legal.
Ok, well thanks for making your views clear.
But the laws are the laws, we can’t read into them what we wish. If WTD and WTD (RT) are different and can’t be added together then I think I’m right and the weekly rest should be sufficient to restore all vim and vigour. (but I have no wish personally to take advantage).
stu675, when someone says they have done 80-100 hours of work in a week, it possibly means that they were on duty for that time / getting paid / on call, but rarely is someone actually working for all the time they are at work. Firemen could say they are on duty for 12-15 hours on a night-shift, but more often than not they will have been asleep for a good quantity of that.
