Today I learnt something new, getting an infringement for 4h30 driving. I (wrongly) assumed that as long as I didn’t exceed 4h30 then I could continue with other work and then take a 45 minute rest to reset the driving time.
Am I right in thinking that if I immediately set the tacho to rest and took a 45 minute break, then I would have been OK? The video I watched before signing for the infringement seemed to suggest this, but the person doing the debrief seemed to think that either way, 4h30 driving time would flag up an infringement.
Amazing how fast that tachograph counts down when you get into London!
Just do a printout and write on the back the details, saying it was a genuine mistake, (which it obviously was,) and move on…nothing to see here.
The fact that your firm does ‘debriefs’ and backs them up with vids ffs , shows them up as to the type of outfit they are, so do not take it as seriously as they apparentlly do.
It’s a one off…a triviality.
Dont believe the hype, and … ‘Nothing to.get hung about’…as John Lennon once said.
You’re welcome.
The way it has got now is that on the whole many firms lead you to believe that getting an infringement is a deadly sin…for whatever reason best known to themselves,…not to mention trying to get you to believe that tacho rules are targets, not limits…to get you to max out as a routine.
As long as you do not take the pi55, and break the rules on a regular basis, and for the reason of doing illegal hours, DVSA will not give a flying one…trust me.
The only ones who will try and blow it all out of proportion, are the type of outfits that you apparentlly work for.
I’m assuming you are a new driver, so that will make them even worse.
In the rare event of me getting an infringement, I just sign the note in a matter of fact/could not gaf type of way, just to annoy them.
The regulations state that you must have a 45 minute break or the second part of a split driving break immediately after accumulating 4.5 hours driving time.
I’ve always thought it to be a bit of a weird rule but that’s the way it is I’m afraid.
Just for clarity, you wouldn’t have got the infringement for driving 4.5 hours you got it for not immediately having a break.
As long as you don’t have lots of infringements on your card it shouldn’t be a big deal so learn from it and move on
It is agency work with RM that I started doing last week, so still getting to grips with it. They have been great with me so far, but compared to my usual work (Tesco), their timeframes are a lot stricter.
That combined with their preference that breaks are taken on the their sites (for security reasons) mean that in 4 shifts of working for a them I have now hit 4h29 and 4h30 driving time. I’m enjoying the work and the pay is good, but am not a fan of running that close to the limits.
I may have to start taking breaks earlier as I would usually do to avoid any more mishaps, as their planned times don’t seem to factor in traffic or the lovely weather we had today on the M4 for example.
So basically it is down to tight (and bad) planning by them, rather than you the driver doing anything wrong, as you are complying.
I as a driver fully understand sometimes it won’t be possible to have your break in time on their sites down to traffic and unforseens etc,.and you would think a competent planner would also understand that and take it into account.
So it’s for you to decide mate,…
Do you keep rushing to get your break in on their site, (rushing aint good, bad things can, and do happen) and risk habitual and regular infringements, …in which case draw attention to yourself from DVSA (not good)
Or…
Play it by ear each shift, when it is comfortably possible to get to site for your break, do so, and when it gets either too tight or impossible, take your break somewhere reasonably secure off site (it is YOUR licence not theirs) …but make sure you ring in and explain prior to stopping.
Again a competent planner should get that and be ok with it.
Prrsonally I think it is wrong for them to tell you when and where to take breaks.
Breaks are to prevent driver fatigue, not there to fit in with their operations.
I mean basically if you feel tired beforehand and just carry on…again not good, bad things can happen.
As for the minor infringement now and again,.I still think they are making mountains out of molehills, but I suppose they call the shots, and if they pay well, and the job is otherwise good, then just try and deal with it all as above.
This sounds like RM are relying upon historic evidence that the tacho more or less consistently records short periods of other work for scheduling so that start engine to stop engine time maybe 4 hrs 50 minutes but the tacho only records 4 hrs 20 minutes driving.
So maybe ask in advance for the preferred locations to take a break since you have found that you are getting too close to 4.5 hrs driving when going to A, B and C? and write down your start engine to stop engine times and rely on those.
Seems to me, that if a run often takes 4hr25 or similar, then if (when) it does take 4hrs35, it is not a valid excuse to say that a delay, making the drive time exceed the legal 4hr30, was an unforeseen event.
Surely we can all see that a ten minute delay on a 4hrs plus run is foreseeable?
The way modern tachographs operate, if any mode is selected for longer than 30 seconds of a minute, the whole minute is recorded as that activity. So, it sounds as if the tachograph may have still been displaying 4h30m, but when the minute completes, it will tick over to 4h31m if you have driven for more than 30 seconds.
With some older tachographs if any driving occurred within a minute it would be recorded as driving, but this was updated because drivers were accumulating too much driving sitting in traffic jams when they weren’t driving most of the time.
It was on 4h29 as I stopped but then ticked over to 4h30. If I had immediately taken a 45 minute break, I’m confident I would have been OK. The below seems to confirm this although I’ll be doing my best not to have to test the theory in future.
Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 Article 7: 'After a driving period of four and a half hours a driver shall take an uninterrupted break of not less than 45 minutes, unless he takes a rest period.
Yep, totally agree. From the RM shifts I have done so far, it seems that runs are often planned for around 4h15 driving time before a 45 minute break is scheduled in. A little bit tight compared to what I’m used to.
I’d be interested to hear from any RM drivers or drivers who have worked for them to see if I’m missing something, or am just driving too slow.
Careful.
“After a driving period of no more than 4.5 hours, a driver must immediately take a break of at least 45 minutes unless they take a rest period.”
Agreed.
Weird, but that is the way it is written and it is the way infringements are thrown up. It has come up on another thread previously.
Okay, but the actual legislation doesn’t say ‘immediately’. In any case, I don’t think it actually means immediately, it just means before doing any more driving.
They were both showing 4h29 as I stopped but then the tacho head was showing 4h30 driving time once the engine was off. I wrongly thought that as I didn’t exceed 4h30 I was OK to carry on working (as long as I didn’t exceed 6hrs working time). That’s where I went wrong.
That and getting so close to the limit in the first place!
That was my thinking until yesterday, but it seems not. If you do 4hr 29 driving time you can then continue working, but if you do 4h30, you must then immediately take 45 minutes break.
, shows them up as to the type of outfit they are, so do not take it as seriously as they apparentlly do.
