scanny77:
Freight Dog:
Imagine this. On 14 hours duty after a heavy day of traffic with a thirty min drive left to a remote yard in a day cab. You breakdown in the hypothetical middle of nowhere. Even ringing for and WAITING for a TAXI would PUT YOU OVER FIFTEEN HOURS before arriving at any place of rest. Waiting for a lift, would put you over fifteen hours by the time you arrive to the yard. You can’t overnight in the day cab. Never mind personal feelings of “you should’ve left earlier, bla bla”. That’s all by the point, we’re taking the black and white of the law, and this example is perfectly legal.
So what are you supposed to do in the eyes of the TC, sleep in the bushes?
I’m not talking about extenuating circumstances “we’ll consider it in a case by case”. Not good enough. That’s all very vague. In this case, its black and white. You followed the law, the law left you lacking. You shouldn’t be left sitting in the unknown legally due to not fit for purpose regulations. What the hell would they have you do? I had a discussion with a vosa man over their phone about this hypothetical years ago and the answer was very uninspiring. Essentially the hgv regs lack a legal protection of “discretion” that exists in defined terms (2 hours for example in one other transport industry and it has to be reported) to define a barrier for these instances. Instead of the half baked waffle that exists in Eu driving regs.
A taxi is not a company vehicle so that would be ok. You cant be rescued as a passenger in a truck, van or pool car but private vehicles are fine.
My philosophy lecturer would have a field day finding any logic in that one
What you say actually furthers my point Scanny.
If you’re in the middle of deep north Scotland in a broken down day cab, waiting hours in a freezing lorry without rest facilities for a taxi. You can’t take rest in a day cab, so when you’re sitting in a day cab, legally on rest, on hour 15.5 waiting for a taxi that may or may not turn up, that’s not legal.
Taken to the extreme, waiting all night in the seat of a broken down day cab during your wait for a hypothetical taxi and then get the taxi in the 10th hour to home, wash teeth then go to work after the eleventh hour with the majority of the rest having been taken in a day cab, a vehicle they do not consider legal for rest.
No it’s not legal.
Equally they are also not happy for someone to be picked up in a company vehicle and driven to base beyond the duty limit if that means they can get to a place of rest quickly.
Instead of:-
1/ having a sensible period of defined discretion that allows drivers to be positioned back to base or B and B by company vehicle that is defined as a blanket 2 hours
2/ is followed up by simple brief report
3- entering into discretion requires a minimum time off of 11 hours or the length of the previous duty if longer.
4/ By its definition it allows the driver to know he has entered a legal protection to get himself home in exceptional circumstances rather than sit in the legal unknown that clearly is exemplified by the answers on here due to a very vague at best set of legislation that people have been prosecuted under.
5/ the use of discretion is monitored by reports to avoid temptation of misuse and any trend would attract study of the company planning practices, not solely the driver
Funnily enough, I’ve seen this system before 
