How many working periods can you have in a week?

ASK THE EXPERTS SAFETY, LAW AND WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE FORUM (INTE
1

This will sound like a strange question and if you don’t understand I’ll try and describe the situation again.

If you do 5 hours driving in the morning and then have a minimum of 9 hours rest and then another 2 hours driving and then a 9 off how many times can you do this in a working week?
I know you need to start a weekly rest period within 144 hours of finishing the previous weekly rest.

My mate thinks he can only do 6 work periods between weekly rests.
I think he can do as many work periods within that 144 hours as he likes as long as he doesn’t count a 9 rest as a reduced rest and count it towards another 9 to make a standard rest.

See, I said it wouldn’t make sense.

2

mucker85:
This will sound like a strange question and if you don’t understand I’ll try and describe the situation again.

If you do 5 hours driving in the morning and then have a minimum of 9 hours rest and then another 2 hours driving and then a 9 off how many times can you do this in a working week?
I know you need to start a weekly rest period within 144 hours of finishing the previous weekly rest.

My mate thinks he can only do 6 work periods between weekly rests.
I think he can do as many work periods within that 144 hours as he likes as long as he doesn’t count a 9 rest as a reduced rest and count it towards another 9 to make a standard rest.

See, I said it wouldn’t make sense.

As long as you have a weekly rest period no later than 144 hours from the end of the last weekly rest period, and as long as you have the required daily rest period between the shifts, you can do as many shifts between weekly rest periods as you like, or at-least as many as you can fit into the 144 hours.

If you’re talking specifically about having 9 hour rest periods then I think you’re wrong, I’m not sure if you are meaning specifically 9 hour rest periods but if you do then I assume that you’re thinking that two 9 hour rest periods can be used as a split daily rest period, but article 4 - (EC) 561/2006 says that any rest period of at-least 9 hours but less than 11 hours is a reduced daily rest period, if it’s a reduced daily rest period it cannot be a split daily rest period.

So whether you’re right or wrong depends on which way the question is meant, either way your mate is wrong though, because you can definitely do more than 6 shifts between weekly rest periods :wink:

We had a big debate about this a few years ago, but lets not go there :laughing:

‘daily rest period’ means the daily period during which a
driver may freely dispose of his time and covers a ‘regular
daily rest period’ and a ‘reduced daily rest period’:

– ‘regular daily rest period’ means any period of rest
of at least 11 hours. Alternatively, this regular daily
rest period may be taken in two periods, the first of
which must be an uninterrupted period of at least 3
hours and the second an uninterrupted period of at
least nine hours,

– ‘reduced daily rest period’ means any period of rest
of at least nine hours but less than 11 hours;

3

Come on then let’s have some Willy Waving, i once fitted 7 shifts into one 144 hr period when i done a day’s o/t on my 6th day and then got caught in loads of snow/chaos and ran back in on the 7th day but still just under the 144 hrs but i’m sure that’ll get trumped easy.

4

Willy waving on TN! … surely not ? :open_mouth: :wink:

5

I once worked 14 calendar days legally.

6

mucker85:
I once worked 14 calendar days legally.

I did 13 days a couple of weeks back - you win :slight_smile:

7

I did over 3 months without a day off driving buses in domestic regs fitting a 24 in every week to keep it legal.

8

m1cks:
I did over 3 months without a day off driving buses in domestic regs fitting a 24 in every week to keep it legal.

Isn’t 24 hrs a day were you come from?

9

weeto:

m1cks:
I did over 3 months without a day off driving buses in domestic regs fitting a 24 in every week to keep it legal.

Isn’t 24 hrs a day were you come from?

That’s precisely how you keep it legal finish at 19:59 one day and start at 20:00 the next = weekly rest period taken and able to work 7 days a week.

10

Sorry for the sidetrack. I know if you take a 9 day rest you can’t add it to another 9 overnight to make a non reduced rest.

Could you do 4 hours driving, have a 9 off, 4 hours driving, 9 off and keep going until 144 hours is up?

11

mucker85:
Sorry for the sidetrack. I know if you take a 9 day rest you can’t add it to another 9 overnight to make a non reduced rest.

Could you do 4 hours driving, have a 9 off, 4 hours driving, 9 off and keep going until 144 hours is up?

No, because you’re having all reduced daily rest periods and no regular daily rest periods.

You could drive 4 hours then have 7 hours off, drive another 4 hours and have 9 hours off, and do that until you’ve reached 144 hours.
That’s because the 7 hour rest and the 9 hour rest equal a split daily rest period.

12

tachograph:
You could drive 4 hours then have 7 hours off, drive another 4 hours and have 9 hours off, and do that until you’ve reached 144 hours.
That’s because the 7 hour rest and the 9 hour rest equal a split daily rest period.

But you couldn’t drive more than those 4 hours because that would take you over a maximum 15 hour spread?

13

mucker85:

tachograph:
You could drive 4 hours then have 7 hours off, drive another 4 hours and have 9 hours off, and do that until you’ve reached 144 hours.
That’s because the 7 hour rest and the 9 hour rest equal a split daily rest period.

But you couldn’t drive more than those 4 hours because that would take you over a maximum 15 hour spread?

That’s right, I was calculating it on the 4 hour drives you mention in your question, which is why I said 7 hour rest during the shift, the driving periods and rest periods amount to the 24 hours, and as you know everything has to fit into the 24 hour period from the start of the shift :wink: