One for the part timers / weekend drivers

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
61

waddy640:
If the regulations were made correctly in the first place, ie the loopholes were detected and removed, there would be no need for the courts to have to interpret what the EU or our own parliament meant. It should be clear, concise and unambiguous.

The more you try to make the law cover every possible scenario, the longer and more complex the law becomes. It is often this complexity that makes the law so opaque. Furthermore, there are always scenarios unforeseen by Parliament.

On the whole, those that draft UK legislation do a good job. However, there are some famously defective pieces of legislation, especially section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. This bans various actions to do with, amongst other breeds, “any dog of the type known as the pit bull terrier”. However, dogs do not come with neat labels saying “I’m a pit bull” and “I’m a Staffie”. It is a matter of expert opinion as to whether a dog is pit bull type - and experts can disagree over the same dog. Maybe more fundamental is the question of whether Parliament went for the wrong target in its anxiety to be seen to respond to the perceived problem of dangerous dogs. What matters more - the breed or the way an individual dog has been brought up and is handled?

It will never be possible to get away from the need to interpret legislation, especially as the law relating to a particular situation usually comes for a variety of sources that will conflict to some extent.

tallyman:
That’s being somewhat optimistic. I think you’ll find that the majority of laws produced by the EU are deliberately ambiguous, either because they want case-law to refine them or they have a lot of lawyer friends who need the work…

I don’t share your cynical belief that EU law is deliberately ambiguous to create work for lawyers.

As I explained in an earlier post, EU law follows a different philosophical approach to UK law. EU law follows the civil law system typical in much of Europe, by outlining principles and leaving it to the courts to mould those principles to the facts. As the original six countries involved in what is now the EU were all civil law systems, this adoption of a civil law approach is unsurprising.

62

djw:
…I don’t share your cynical belief that EU law is deliberately ambiguous to create work for lawyers…

One of my customers is a Barrister and tax law expert. He spends his whole time finding loopholes in existing tax/inheritance law which he freely admits should never have been there in the first place because the laws were badly written.

The majority of laws today have been drafted by civil/public servants and have then been ‘fine-tuned’ by underpaid (compared to private practice) government lawyers. I reserve judgement on whether there is a deliberate intention to make the laws open to interpretation, but the end result is that they are, and it is the legal system that benefits (I charge £30 an hour for my IT services, my barrister customer charges a minimum of £150 per hour - it’s a hell of an incentive…)

63

djw:
I try. It’s what I’m trained to do, and one day I hope to be able to pursue law as a career…
(post truncated to save space)
…Your losses by being prohibited for 45 hours are disproportionate to the court fees - this alone suggests that judicial review is pointless.

Thanks for your post djw. Fascinating subject, but I suspect “the man” is always going to win in the end…

64

Just following through what has been written here - does it mean that somebody who drives HGVs for a living can’t have any other work, including their own business (whatever that might be) at weekends, because it would disrupt their weekly rest. So this presumably excludes being an odd-job man, being a caretaker for the local village hall etc (all used as examples). Is this correct, or am I misreading it again?

Gary

65

scaniason:
Just following through what has been written here - does it mean that somebody who drives HGVs for a living can’t have any other work, including their own business (whatever that might be) at weekends, because it would disrupt their weekly rest. So this presumably excludes being an odd-job man, being a caretaker for the local village hall etc (all used as examples). Is this correct, or am I misreading it again?

Gary

Yep, you got it bang on there, if you do stuff by the book :wink:

66

So then… If I take my weekly rest between Friday morning, and Sunday morning, 48 hours of it, then work
(non driving) Sunday 0700-1900
Rest
(driving) Monday 0900-1700
(driving) Tuesday 0900-1700
(Non driving) Tuesday 1900-0700
(Non driving) Wednesday 1900-0700
(non driving) Thursday 1900-0700
Weekly rest Friday 0700- Sunday 0700

Would I be breaking the drivers hours regs as I worked a security shift after a day driving? Or not as my driving time was after the weekly rest period and not after the mad Tuesday shift… Bit confused here as from what I’ve seen I only need to log hours after the weekly rest period, which would be the Sunday day shift, and the Monday Tuesday driving hours ( which would be on digi card anyway…)

67

TokenYank:
So then… If I take my weekly rest between Friday morning, and Sunday morning, 48 hours of it, then work
(non driving) Sunday 0700-1900
Rest
(driving) Monday 0900-1700
(driving) Tuesday 0900-1700
(Non driving) Tuesday 1900-0700
(Non driving) Wednesday 1900-0700
(non driving) Thursday 1900-0700
Weekly rest Friday 0700- Sunday 0700

Would I be breaking the drivers hours regs as I worked a security shift after a day driving? Or not as my driving time was after the weekly rest period and not after the mad Tuesday shift… Bit confused here as from what I’ve seen I only need to log hours after the weekly rest period, which would be the Sunday day shift, and the Monday Tuesday driving hours ( which would be on digi card anyway…)

Youd be breaking the law on the wtd max 15hr spread, so by starting at 9am, you have to be done of ALL work by midnight. You’re working till 7am which is a no no.

68

Even though my time driving falls within the regs after my weekly rest? Does it really matter what I do after I finish my 2 days driving for the week? And how would they find out? I’ve done security for 3 years now… Done 90 hour weeks, 18hr shifts with 5 hours off and then back for another 18 hours… Are you saying I can’t do that now cause I’ve passed my hgv licence or just when I’m going to be driving that week?

69

TokenYank:
Even though my time driving falls within the regs after my weekly rest? Does it really matter what I do after I finish my 2 days driving for the week? And how would they find out? I’ve done security for 3 years now… Done 90 hour weeks, 18hr shifts with 5 hours off and then back for another 18 hours… Are you saying I can’t do that now cause I’ve passed my hgv licence or just when I’m going to be driving that week?

I’m not saying what you can and can’t do, just what you can and can’t do legally.

You’ve asked “how will they find out”, to be honest, 99% of the time, they won’t, if you don’t tell them. BUT, if there’s a reason for them to check, it’s not rocket science, your taxes being paid etc…

70

TokenYank:
So then… If I take my weekly rest between Friday morning, and Sunday morning, 48 hours of it, then work
(non driving) Sunday 0700-1900
Rest
(driving) Monday 0900-1700
(driving) Tuesday 0900-1700
(Non driving) Tuesday 1900-0700
(Non driving) Wednesday 1900-0700
(non driving) Thursday 1900-0700
Weekly rest Friday 0700- Sunday 0700

Would I be breaking the drivers hours regs as I worked a security shift after a day driving? Or not as my driving time was after the weekly rest period and not after the mad Tuesday shift… Bit confused here as from what I’ve seen I only need to log hours after the weekly rest period, which would be the Sunday day shift, and the Monday Tuesday driving hours ( which would be on digi card anyway…)

You’ve failed to have a proper daily rest period on Tuesday so it’s illegal, you finished on Tuesday at 17:00 so even with a reduced daily rest period you wouldn’t legally be able to start work again until 02:00 Wednesday.

You say you’ve been told you only have to log hours after the weekly rest period, you’ve been told wrong, you should manually record any none driving work days in the same week (Monday to Sunday) as you drive to EU regulations.

Whether you record none driving work days or not the none compliance of the daily rest period on Tuesday is enough to get you fined if you was caught so best not tell anyone :wink:

71

Gotcha… Well in my current role as security guard, I’m not allowed dinner hours or rest breaks… In between patrols I have to sit monitoring CCTV while I eat… So is my employer now breaking the law in not giving me my 45 minutes every 4.5 hrs worked?

72

TokenYank:
Gotcha… Well in my current role as security guard, I’m not allowed dinner hours or rest breaks… In between patrols I have to sit monitoring CCTV while I eat… So is my employer now breaking the law in not giving me my 45 minutes every 4.5 hrs worked?

Not unless you do your patrols in an HGV vehicle :stuck_out_tongue:

73

So why does one rule apply and not the other? I’m not messin around here… This is a genuine question (before the heckling starts)

74

You can see what the rules actually say here: direct.gov.uk/en/employment/ … g_10029451.

Note that there are differences for security staff and some other types of employment, and there are also a number of exemptions that would mean there’s little chance of the rules being enforced.

75

In the late 60’s there was a situation where on completion of your maximum daily driving hours it was perfectly legal to do minicabbing during your daily rest but not legal to drive a car-derived van home.

76

tachograph:

Andrejs:
under Eu rule the record must be either-
written manualy on a chart
wrutten manually on a printout from a digital taxo.
made by using the manual input facility of dig.tachograf or
for day where a driver has been subject to domestic drivers hours rules and a record is legally requared,recorded log book.full info in page 39

You’re right, I thought using charts ec’t was a VOSA requirement but after checking I see it’s specified in article 6 of (EC) 561/2006.

Which has nothing to do with BB or anyone else in the UK.

One thing to remember is the Traffic Commissioner is not employed by VOSA and VOSA is not involved in the ultimate decision making, they only gather evidence and work for the TC

77

you don t need record you break time at nonn driving job.you need record just start time-finish time,you weekly rest.and if you wont work you can record you non driving jobs,but "hided"thursday nights job.much more important keep corecct weekly rest and dayly rest before driving job.

78

tachograph:
You say you’ve been told you only have to log hours after the weekly rest period, you’ve been told wrong, you should manually record any none driving work days in the same week (Monday to Sunday) as you drive to EU regulations.

I tried to derive the legally required minimum records from the EU Regulations governing drivers’ hours and tachographs in one of my posts earlier in the thread.

The key question for an occasional driver is when you come into scope of EU hours regulations and when you go out of scope. For the sake of simplicity, I’m assuming that the driver is not doing any LGV or PCV driving on domestic hours or AETR rules - those drivers should be keeping continuous records anyway.

You must take a weekly rest period - a full one of 45 hours plus or a reduced one of 24 hours minimum in the week (00:00 Monday to 24:00 Sunday) that you start to drive on EU regulations. To my reading of the regulations (see that previous post), your records only need to start from the end of that weekly rest period, but it seems nonsensical not to log the start of that rest period so there is no argument about how long it lasted.

On a weekly rest basis that is clearly all the records you need - you need to keep records until the end of the weekly rest period after you last drove on EU regulations or when you compensated for any reduced weekly rest, whichever is the later.

There’s a daily driving limit and a weekly driving limit, but they only apply to driving, not to other work.

As such, I see no need for records from before the initial weekly rest period from an EU drivers’ hours rules point of view. Would you agree that far?

However, records from the beginning of the week (00:00 Monday) are needed to demonstrate compliance with the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations (SI 2005/639), which implements the EU Directive on the same subject.

Occasional drivers should therefore make tachograph records (manual entry on a digital tachograph, written on the back of a digital printout or written on the back of an analogue chart) before they start to drive to EU regulations from the earlier of:* the beginning of the weekly rest period before they drive, or
* 00:00 Monday
After a driver drives to EU regulations, they should keep manual records (manual entry on a digital tachograph, written on the back of a digital printout or written on the back of an analogue chart) until the latest of:* the end of the weekly rest period after they drive
* the end of the rest period where they compensate for the last of any reduced weekly rest periods, or
* 24:00 Sunday

Does anyone want to disagree?

Edit: one typo corrected
Edit 2: emboldened the important conclusions

79

Wheel Nut:

tachograph:

Andrejs:
under Eu rule the record must be either-
written manualy on a chart
wrutten manually on a printout from a digital taxo.
made by using the manual input facility of dig.tachograf or
for day where a driver has been subject to domestic drivers hours rules and a record is legally requared,recorded log book.full info in page 39

You’re right, I thought using charts ec’t was a VOSA requirement but after checking I see it’s specified in article 6 of (EC) 561/2006.

Which has nothing to do with BB or anyone else in the UK.

One thing to remember is the Traffic Commissioner is not employed by VOSA and VOSA is not involved in the ultimate decision making, they only gather evidence and work for the TC

I’m sorry I don’t understand what you’re getting at :confused:

We work to EU regulations ((EC) 561/2006) or domestic regulations (Transport Act 1968 - Part VI), amongst other responsibilities VOSA are charged with monitoring and enforcing the compliance of those regulations on behalf of the TC.

As such VOSA can use some discretion in the way the regulations are enforced.

Sorry if I’ve misunderstood your post :wink:

80

djw:
~snip~

Does anyone want to disagree?

No :smiley: