My understanding is i can drive for 4 1/2 hours then must have 45 min break.
Or 2 hours then 15 min break then 2 1/2 hours then 30 min break.
What if im doing short journeys say 1hr a time with 20 mins waiting to swap trailers
geoffwales:
My understanding is i can drive for 4 1/2 hours then must have 45 min break.Or 2 hours then 15 min break then 2 1/2 hours then 30 min break.
What if im doing short journeys say 1hr a time with 20 mins waiting to swap trailers
I’m not sure what your question is, the driving time doesn’t have to be split into a two hour drive followed by a 2½ hour drive if that’s what you mean.
The 45 minute driving break can be split into two parts the first of which must be at-least 15 minutes, the second part of a split driving break must be at-least 30 minutes and they must be taken in that order, the first part of a split driving break can be taken at any time as long as you’ve done some driving.
For instance if you drove for one hour and had to wait for 20 minutes to swap a trailer you could have a 15 minute break while waiting, you could then have the second part of the split driving break (30 minutes) at any-time before exceeding a total of 4½ hours driving.
geoffwales:
My understanding is i can drive for 4 1/2 hours then must have 45 min break.Or 2 hours then 15 min break then 2 1/2 hours then 30 min break.
What if im doing short journeys say 1hr a time with 20 mins waiting to swap trailers
If doing…
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
At his point you have 30 mins drive left before a 30 min break must be taken
Ok, i think i understand. Im sure as time goes on it will become more clearer. Many thanks
An agency I spoke to said if not driving just log it as poa, does this also count the same as rest. I thought it wouldn’t but they said I was wrong
geoffwales:
An agency I spoke to said if not driving just log it as poa, does this also count the same as rest. I thought it wouldn’t but they said I was wrong
POA does not count as rest or break.
If you’re working but not driving your tachograph should be on other work, when you’re on break the tachograph should be on break/rest.
So sat waiting to tip should be on working ?
geoffwales:
So sat waiting to tip should be on working ?
NO
If you are not working then = break
If you are actually working then = other work
You can use POA if not working but it will ■■■■ up the driving time breaks
geoffwales:
So sat waiting to tip should be on working ?
If you’re sat doing nothing you can book it as break or POA, legally you need to know how long you’ll be waiting to book POA but…
Either way POA will not count as break or rest.
Be careful when using POA, a digital tachograph wrongly counts POA as break and will reset the driving time on the tachograph display after 45 minutes of POA or a mixture of POA and break, a few people have been caught out by this.
How do you do a print out at end of shift
geoffwales:
How do you do a print out at end of shift
When you eject your driver card you are given the option to do a 24 hour printout, just select yes and press OK.
The 24 hour printout prompt looks like this:
Cheers, do I need two, one for me one for transport office
geoffwales:
Cheers, do I need two, one for me one for transport office
Depends what the printout is for, legally you only need to do printouts to explain a deviation from the regulations, if that’s the reason for the printout I usually say do 2 and hand one in when your card is downloaded.
If the printout is for any other purpose you don’t need 2.
Either way you can only do 1 printout during the card ejection process, if you want 2 printouts you’ll need to do one before ejecting the driver card.
ROG:
geoffwales:
My understanding is i can drive for 4 1/2 hours then must have 45 min break.Or 2 hours then 15 min break then 2 1/2 hours then 30 min break.
What if im doing short journeys say 1hr a time with 20 mins waiting to swap trailers
If doing…
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
At his point you have 30 mins drive left before a 30 min break must be taken
Timing of this thread couldn’t be better. I did my licence and CPC 4 years ago and have been driving private tacho exempt HGV for all that time until last month starting on commercial lorries.
The driving hours rules and tacho use are giving me endless headaches and I’m getting told different things by everyone and even reading the Working Time Directive myself it sounds contradictive.
ROG seems to have answered a lot of my questions in one swoop. But I need a bit more detail….
(i) I’m assuming that those 20min wait/breaks you put in the example ROG only help if they are set as on ‘rest’ or ‘POA’ on the tachograph?
(ii) If POA does not count towards your daily driving hours, then is it right to assume that POA and rest are both treated basically the same as each other if you get pulled up by VOSA? Except obviously you need to have 45mins ‘rest’ in there after 4.5 hours of combined ‘driving’ and ‘cross-hammers’. Is that right? If I understand right, then the driver needs to be doing running calculations on a piece of paper summing up his ‘driving’ + ‘cross-hammer’ time to know when he is due rest and up on hours… Either that or calculating total time minus ‘POA’ minus ‘rest’…
(iii) If I put my digicard in at 6am and it goes on the cross-hammers and then I do my inspections and leave the depot at 6.30am am I right in thinking that in the eyes of the law I have already done 30mins of driving and so only have 4 hours left until I have to take my 45min break?
Cheers,
Dan
pork_chop:
ROG:
geoffwales:
My understanding is i can drive for 4 1/2 hours then must have 45 min break.Or 2 hours then 15 min break then 2 1/2 hours then 30 min break.
What if im doing short journeys say 1hr a time with 20 mins waiting to swap trailers
If doing…
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
At his point you have 30 mins drive left before a 30 min break must be taken
pork_chop:
pork_chop:
ROG:
geoffwales:
My understanding is i can drive for 4 1/2 hours then must have 45 min break.Or 2 hours then 15 min break then 2 1/2 hours then 30 min break.
What if im doing short journeys say 1hr a time with 20 mins waiting to swap trailers
If doing…
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
1 hour drive
20 mins wait/break
At his point you have 30 mins drive left before a 30 min break must be taken
Timing of this thread couldn’t be better. I did my licence and CPC 4 years ago and have been driving private tacho exempt HGV for all that time until last month starting on commercial lorries.
The driving hours rules and tacho use are giving me endless headaches and I’m getting told different things by everyone and even reading the Working Time Directive myself it sounds contradictive.
ROG seems to have answered a lot of my questions in one swoop. But I need a bit more detail….
(i) I’m assuming that those 20min wait/breaks you put in the example ROG only help if they are set as on ‘rest’ or ‘POA’ on the tachograph?
(ii) If POA does not count towards your daily driving hours, then is it right to assume that POA and rest are both treated basically the same as each other if you get pulled up by VOSA? Except obviously you need to have 45mins ‘rest’ in there after 4.5 hours of combined ‘driving’ and ‘cross-hammers’. Is that right? If I understand right, then the driver needs to be doing running calculations on a piece of paper summing up his ‘driving’ + ‘cross-hammer’ time to know when he is due rest and up on hours… Either that or calculating total time minus ‘POA’ minus ‘rest’…
(iii) If I put my digicard in at 6am and it goes on the cross-hammers and then I do my inspections and leave the depot at 6.30am am I right in thinking that in the eyes of the law I have already done 30mins of driving and so only have 4 hours left until I have to take my 45min break?
Cheers,
Dan
pork_chop:
(i) I’m assuming that those 20min wait/breaks you put in the example ROG only help if they are set as on ‘rest’ or ‘POA’ on the tachograph?
In the example you mentioned only 1 of the 20 minute breaks count towards the 45 minute driving break.
Before exceeding 4.5 hours driving time you need to have a 45 minute break, the break can be taken in 2 separate parts the first of which must be at-least 15 minutes and the second part must be at-least 30 minutes.
pork_chop:
(ii) If POA does not count towards your daily driving hours, then is it right to assume that POA and rest are both treated basically the same as each other if you get pulled up by VOSA? Except obviously you need to have 45mins ‘rest’ in there after 4.5 hours…
POA, Rest and break are entirely diferent activities.
- POA is a period of availability. (you’re not working and not necessarily at your workstation but can start work when required to do so)
- Break is time that can be used exclusively for recuperation. (you’re at work but relaxing and not working)
- Rest is time that you’re not at work and can freely dispose of your time. (you’re not working or taking instructions from your employer, basically the time before you start a shift and after you finish a shift)
pork_chop:
(iii) If I put my digicard in at 6am and it goes on the cross-hammers and then I do my inspections and leave the depot at 6.30am am I right in thinking that in the eyes of the law I have already done 30mins of driving and so only have 4 hours left until I have to take my 45min break?
The time you spend doing vehicle checks is other work not driving time, driving time is time recorded by the tachograph as “Driving” which is basically when the wheels are turning.
You must have a 45 minute break before exceeding 4.5 hours driving time, neither other work, break or POA count towards driving time.
tachograph:
pork_chop:
(i) I’m assuming that those 20min wait/breaks you put in the example ROG only help if they are set as on ‘rest’ or ‘POA’ on the tachograph?In the example you mentioned only 1 of the 20 minute breaks count towards the 45 minute driving break.
Before exceeding 4.5 hours driving time you need to have a 45 minute break, the break can be taken in 2 separate parts the first of which must be at-least 15 minutes and the second part must be at-least 30 minutes.
pork_chop:
(ii) If POA does not count towards your daily driving hours, then is it right to assume that POA and rest are both treated basically the same as each other if you get pulled up by VOSA? Except obviously you need to have 45mins ‘rest’ in there after 4.5 hours…POA, Rest and break are entirely diferent activities.
- POA is a period of availability. (you’re not working and not necessarily at your workstation but can start work when required to do so)
- Break is time that can be used exclusively for recuperation. (you’re at work but relaxing and not working)
- Rest is time that you’re not at work and can freely dispose of your time. (you’re not working or taking instructions from your employer, basically the time before you start a shift and after you finish a shift)
pork_chop:
(iii) If I put my digicard in at 6am and it goes on the cross-hammers and then I do my inspections and leave the depot at 6.30am am I right in thinking that in the eyes of the law I have already done 30mins of driving and so only have 4 hours left until I have to take my 45min break?The time you spend doing vehicle checks is other work not driving time, driving time is time recorded by the tachograph as “Driving” which is basically when the wheels are turning.
You must have a 45 minute break before exceeding 4.5 hours driving time, neither other work, break or POA count towards driving time.
So if I understand right, then the driver needs to be doing running calculations on a piece of paper summing up his ‘driving’ time to know when he is due rest and up on hours… Either that or calculating total time minus ‘POA’ minus ‘other work’ minus ‘rest’… Per your explanation if I’m in London and stop-starting all day in traffic then I could actually be at the wheel for easily 6 or 7 hours before needing a 45min break as I’d be on ‘cross-hammers’ for half the time stopped in traffic
pork_chop:
So if I understand right, then the driver needs to be doing running calculations on a piece of paper summing up his ‘driving’ time to know when he is due rest and up on hours… Either that or calculating total time minus ‘POA’ minus ‘other work’ minus ‘rest’… Per your explanation if I’m in London and stop-starting all day in traffic then I could actually be at the wheel for easily 6 or 7 hours before needing a 45min break as I’d be on ‘cross-hammers’ for half the time stopped in traffic
Modern tachographs automatically change to driving when the vehicle moves and automatically change back to other work when the vehicle stops moving, a digital tachograph displays how much driving time you’ve done since the last 45 minute break so there’s no need to calculate anything.
When using an analogue tachograph you will have an idea of how many hours driving you’ve done and be able to stop and have a break before reaching 4.5 hours driving time, if in doubt either check the tachograph chart or have a break.
Apart from the drivers hours regulations we also work to the working time regulations for mobile workers which prevent you working more than 6 hours without a break, in my experience it would be unusual to drive around London for 6 or 7 hours without stopping to do a delivery/collection where if necessary you would also have a break.
tachograph:
pork_chop:
So if I understand right, then the driver needs to be doing running calculations on a piece of paper summing up his ‘driving’ time to know when he is due rest and up on hours… Either that or calculating total time minus ‘POA’ minus ‘other work’ minus ‘rest’… Per your explanation if I’m in London and stop-starting all day in traffic then I could actually be at the wheel for easily 6 or 7 hours before needing a 45min break as I’d be on ‘cross-hammers’ for half the time stopped in trafficModern tachographs automatically change to driving when the vehicle moves and automatically change back to other work when the vehicle stops moving, a digital tachograph displays how much driving time you’ve done since the last 45 minute break so there’s no need to calculate anything.
When using an analogue tachograph you will have an idea of how many hours driving you’ve done and be able to stop and have a break before reaching 4.5 hours driving time, if in doubt either check the tachograph chart or have a break.Apart from the drivers hours regulations we also work to the working time regulations for mobile workers which prevent you working more than 6 hours without a break, in my experience it would be unusual to drive around London for 6 or 7 hours without stopping to do a delivery/collection where if necessary you would also have a break.
Alright ta mate. So taking a realistic example, I put my digicard in at 6am, do my walkaround, leave the yard at 6.30am, then hit traffic in London on and off from 8am through til 9am (so that between 8am and 9am I am on ‘driving’ for 30mins and ‘cross-hammers’ for 30mins). I then spend 20mins unloading at 9.30am through to 9.50am. Based on this I can drive for another 2 hours before I need to take a 45min break (so at 11.50am). (?)