Hours clarity

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
21

You need to understand that you’re mixing up three different pieces of legislation here:

Your Carer work comes under Working Time Directive, link 1. There is no mention of POA being applicable

As far as I can see, all the time you spend on shift as a Carer, except for the 20 minute rest periods (WTD has different rest requirements to RTD), will be considered “work” as (i) you are paid for this time and (ii) you cannot “freely dispose” of your time to do something else, like leave your client in bed with his movie while you to go out to a pub, cinema or restaurant. Link 2 discusses care work (albeit though the authors of that link don’t understand the difference between “affect” and “effect” :roll_eyes:)

POA applies only to “in scope” work, ie being “in scope of EU Drivers Hours (aka 561/2006)” . Road Transport Directive is the applicable working time rules here, for what is termed “mobile workers”.
The document in link 3 is old, but it should help you understand things a bit better

  1. Working Time Directive
    The Working Time Regulations 1998

  2. Working Time re social care
    https://activesocialcare.com/handbook/employment-law/working-time-regulations-hours-of-work-and-rest-breaks/

  3. Road Transport Directive
    https://downloads.tachomaster.co.uk/docs/Dft-RTD-download.pdf

2 Likes
22

That’s really helpful, thanks.
It looks like I have to give up one.
As the work’s only available in Dec, it’ll be the driving.
It’s gonna be a “thin” xmas.

23

Thanks EVERYONE!
Issues addressed.
I also called the DVSA yesterday.
In simple terms, care work is incompatible with driving as soon as you introduce a sleep in element.
As it is, I’ve suspended sleeps, but I’m not getting enough in return to make it worthwhile.
My hope was to get perm 7.5T work out of it.

24

Good that DVSA removed any doubt about the legality of it.
I can see it isn’t good news about what you would like to do, and that it is unlikely to have been a genuine safety issue, but the rules (like 'em or not) are there.

Good luck with finding a perm driving job if that is what you are after. :smiley:

On the chance that anyone knows of a perm job where are you?

25

why does it matter where the op is sleeping. is there a law that says unless your driving a truck you must sleep in your own bed? If that is the case how do people go away for work.

only issue i can see is that the op may be woken in the night to deal with the client and because he is being paid he would then have to restart his 9/11 hours which could potentially cause issue with the start time for the driving gig