I use an agency. The organisation I drive for uses agencies to hire drivers.
Other than myself who should be keeping an eye on worked hours?
I don’t think anybody would flag it until it flagged up an infringement.
The Tachomaster app is a good way of keeping on top of it, if that’s something you can get your hands on. The agency may be able to help.
Im already using Tachomaster.
The issue isn’t mine. I was having a conversation with a new driver the other day who’s been doing 60 hour weeks for the last 6 weeks.
I explained the WTD situation as much as I knew but thought I’d google it today.
I suspect he is worried that the agency will drop him if he put’s his foot down and cuts his days- he can’t cut the hours- they are 12 hour days.
Oh, and if his agency is anything like mine, they’ll be ■■■■■■■ useless.
You say he’s been doing 60 hours a week but how much of that is actually working time?
Breaks and POA don’t count towards working time so don’t count towards the 48 hour average.
To answer your question, the company he drives for has a legal obligation to monitor the drivers hours, failure to do so could potentially see the DVSA asking questions about the way the company operates.
as said dont worry about it the company will manage it between themselves and the agency . there are lots of fiddles to get it down when your on agency like not using you for a week. your mate wont know anything about it all he will be told is oh work has slacked off they didnt need as many drivers this week or some other cobblers.
one i got caught with recently was i had 56 hours over 4 days including breaks and poa. when i raised it that i couldnt do my 5th shift they had a look and my actual working time was in the low 30’s because i had a day and a half where i didnt drive as i was used as a second man so i was on poa when the other guy was driving
Nothing to worry about for you as a driver, it is expected by the authorities that the Operator manages WTD (more accurately RTD, but let’s not complicate things).
Mostly it is the larger companies who worry most about WTD/RTD infringements. If it’s a smaller company worrying about it then they’ve probably had trouble with the TC.
If you’re working on agency then you won’t even know (unless you bother asking) whether that particular Operator is running on the 17 week or 26 week reference period, which obviously makes a difference when it comes to calculating the average.
As he’s a new driver I can’t imagine he’s been using POA. As the vast majority of the driving downtime can’t be specified I would doubt he’s used it at all. I’ve only used POA (single man) once in the 6 weeks I’ve been there.
On the subject of ‘don’t worry the agency/TO have your back’: nope, don’t think so and I would say, with all due respect, being of that opinion is a recipe for infringments.
I’ve had a run in with my agency regarding shifts allotted (vis the hours assigned). I put my foot down three weeks ago and have been doing 4 on, three on since then.
I did predict this situation weeks ago when I explained the pitfall of piling shifts on new drivers to the agent. They didn’t say a lot. Either they know the situation and don’t care or don’t know the situation and are, as an agent, clueless.
Been an interesting revision exercise for me. Thanks all for the enlightenment.