Weekly rest compensation topic

Hi, I’m trying to arrange my Christmas working days.
As I’m having say Christmas Day and Boxing Day off, I can do 6 day weeks the 2 weeks prior to the 25 th and 26th.
So I’ll be doing 6 days, 6 days then 2 days off to compensate, then do a reduced weekly rest on the same week.
Is that poss? Or shall I keep it simple?

This is what confused me:

In any two consecutive ‘fixed’ weeks a driver must take at least:

two regular weekly rests; or
one regular weekly rest and one reduced weekly rest.
The following tables are examples of how a driver’s duties might be organised in compliance with the rules on weekly rest, which allow two reduced weekly rest periods to be taken consecutively. This complies with the rules because at least one regular and one reduced weekly rest period have been taken in two consecutive ‘fixed’ weeks.

The following table is an example of how the driver’s duties might be organised in compliance with the rules on weekly rest, whereby one reduced weekly rest period may be taken in any period of two consecutive weeks under ‘normal’ circumstances.

A weekly rest period that falls in two weeks may be counted in either week but not in both. However, a rest period of at least 69 hours in total may be counted as two back-to-back weekly rests (e.g. a 45-hour weekly rest followed by 24 hours), provided that the driver does not exceed 144 hours’ work either before or after the rest period in question.

m3cab:
Hi, I’m trying to arrange my Christmas working days.
As I’m having say Christmas Day and Boxing Day off, I can do 6 day weeks the 2 weeks prior to the 25 th and 26th.
So I’ll be doing 6 days, 6 days then 2 days off to compensate, then do a reduced weekly rest on the same week.
Is that poss? Or shall I keep it simple?

This is what confused me:

In any two consecutive ‘fixed’ weeks a driver must take at least:

two regular weekly rests; or
one regular weekly rest and one reduced weekly rest.
The following tables are examples of how a driver’s duties might be organised in compliance with the rules on weekly rest, which allow two reduced weekly rest periods to be taken consecutively. This complies with the rules because at least one regular and one reduced weekly rest period have been taken in two consecutive ‘fixed’ weeks.

The following table is an example of how the driver’s duties might be organised in compliance with the rules on weekly rest, whereby one reduced weekly rest period may be taken in any period of two consecutive weeks under ‘normal’ circumstances.

A weekly rest period that falls in two weeks may be counted in either week but not in both. However, a rest period of at least 69 hours in total may be counted as two back-to-back weekly rests (e.g. a 45-hour weekly rest followed by 24 hours), provided that the driver does not exceed 144 hours’ work either before or after the rest period in question.

You say you can do six day weeks this week and next week, but can you do it legally ?

The regulations that you’ve quoted basically mean that you must have a regular 45 hour weekly rest period at-least every second week.

There are situations where you can have reduced weekly rest periods on two consecutive weeks but it’s not a simple as just saying it.

In order to know if you can legally have reduced weekly rest periods on two consecutive weeks you would need to trace your weekly rest periods back a bit.

I’ve not kept track of my weekly rests, best to be safe.
For future reference, I presume it is legal to treat any time off of 24hrs or more as weekly rests?

m3cab:
For future reference, I presume it is legal to treat any time off of 24hrs or more as weekly rests?

YES unless you have reduced the rest to less than 24 by using some of it as payback

m3cab:
Hi, I’m trying to arrange my Christmas working days.
As I’m having say Christmas Day and Boxing Day off, I can do 6 day weeks the 2 weeks prior to the 25 th and 26th.
So I’ll be doing 6 days, 6 days then 2 days off to compensate, then do a reduced weekly rest on the same week.
Is that poss? Or shall I keep it simple?

The fixed week from 23/12 to 29/12 will have a regular weekly rest on 25/12 + 26/12

That means the fixed week 30/12 to 05/01 can be a reduced

You now have to determine what sort of weekly rests you will have for the fixed week 16/12 to 22/12 and for the fixed week 09/12 to 15/12

Without going back over your weekly rests for many weeks or months it will not be possible to give a definitive for your question to do a one-off back to back reduced weekly rests so the safest answer to give is to say take alternative regular and reduced weekly rests for the recent fixed weeks

A fixed week is sunday midnight to sunday midnight
A weekly rest can be used for a fixed week if it is at least 1 minute into that fixed week
A weekly rest can only be used once
If more than one weekly rest is in a fixed week then the driver can choose which one to use for it
Any weekly rest not used as a weekly rest for any fixed week does not need compensating for but will reset the 144 hours max between weekly rests clock
A regular weekly rest (at least 45 hours off in one go) must be used for at least every other fixed week
A reduced weekly rest (at least 24 hours off in one go) must not be reduced to less than 24 by using part of it as payback

Is it also true that one can attach compensation to daily rests.
e.g. If I need to payback 9 hours…
Finish Monday 1700, regular 11 hours rest tues 4am+ 9 hours compensation = tues 1300, I can start ( if I decide that that time off is compensation.

I’m trying to do a spreadsheet, incorporating rules ( where possible) as I find weekly rests can be confusing.

m3cab:
Is it also true that one can attach compensation to daily rests.
e.g. If I need to payback 9 hours…
Finish Monday 1700, regular 11 hours rest tues 4am+ 9 hours compensation = tues 1300, I can start ( if I decide that that time off is compensation.

I’m trying to do a spreadsheet, incorporating rules ( where possible) as I find weekly rests can be confusing.

Yes compensation for a reduced weekly rest period can be paid back by adding it onto any rest period of at-least 9 hours.

So you can add it onto a reduced daily rest period, a regular daily rest period, or a weekly rest period.

The compensation does have to be paid back in one lump though.