When to use POA?

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

I have read that it’s a “grey area”. When I did CPC it was not made clear. My understanding was that it was only used when a period of waiting was known about in advance. e.g. One is required to take a truck to the workshop to have work done and wait there. POA does not contribute to working time.

I’d be grateful for comments on the following uses.

a) vehicle checks. DVSA expect to see 10-15 mins on working time for vehicle checks before driving off. I’ve had a couple of interviews now and they expect to see the vehicle checks as POA which I don’t agree with. Presumably just to make difference from working time. Of course POA can be ‘working time’ (as one is paid) although not contributing to WTD.

b) Over the last month I have been visiting loading bays. When one goes there one cannot be sure how long they will take e.g for me it’s been 30 mins to 3.5 hours. One can also have a 10-30 min wait in a parking area before being directed to a loading bay. Again a pallet freight hub one can be unloaded in one place and then loaded in another. Certainly neither place can be considered for a break whilst loading as waiting time is so variable. I get a 45 min break in before arriving. But then can be waiting almost four hours and needing a break fairly soon into the return journey. So it would seem an appropriate time to take POA.

I would be grateful for some examples of when you use POA? So far b) is the only sort of use for POA in my experience.

2

unless it suits you and your wage structure then theres no reason legally or otherwise to use poa apart from your pointy shoe hair gel divvy office wallahs opinion that you should.
theres plenty on here including myself that have never used a poa as there really is no need as it usually means your working for nothing to max your hours out elsewhere.
no doubt there will be someone else along to tell you otherwise,but at the end of the day…its night time… :slight_smile:

3

If you get paid for recording break then forget poa
poa upsets the tacho driving time because the tacho sees poa as break

4

I worried about stuff like this at first, you’ll soon realise it’s nowt to sweat over.

Actually first few times I used POA I regretted it, because on older tachographs (I was in a 2008 cab) if you clocked 45 mins POA it would register as a normal break and reset your driving hours to zero , not used it since does nothing a break can’t do for you.

5

The best time to use POA is…never.

I’m 2 years into my trade now and do 50 - 60 hours a week. I have no use for POA.

6

So if you’re sitting in your cab waiting to get loaded, literally doing absolutely nothing, it’s still recommended to set your mode to other work?

What if your employer asks what other work you were doing for that 1 hour period or whatever?

7

TruckerWannabe123:
So if you’re sitting in your cab waiting to get loaded, literally doing absolutely nothing, it’s still recommended to set your mode to other work?

What if your employer asks what other work you were doing for that 1 hour period or whatever?

Depends on whether you get paid for breaks

If yes put it on break

If no put on other work if you want. Asked just say you were waiting and they don’t pay breaks so it’s staying on work !

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8

TruckerWannabe123:
So if you’re sitting in your cab waiting to get loaded, literally doing absolutely nothing, it’s still recommended to set your mode to other work?

What if your employer asks what other work you were doing for that 1 hour period or whatever?

As said, if you get paid for breaks put the tachograph on break, if you aren’t paid for breaks and you have some idea how long you’ll be waiting you can use POA, otherwise use other work.

Be aware that digital tachographs wrongly count POA as break so you’ll need to keep an eye on your driving time.

Sent from my mobile.

9

if your not having a break which you cant be because your waiting to load or tip then its other work.
if your wanting to crack on,or are on trip money or some form of actually trying to get a good days work in then your on a break to help you utilise the rest of your working day to your best advantage.
if its a small company then you would be on a break assuming your on good terms with the company and like to come and go with them if theyre fair with you.
if its a plobber hiviz cabbage type employer then other work to the letter of the law so you can do as little as possible for the most wages.
theres no need apart from the above posts to use other work…ever.

10

TruckerWannabe123:
So if you’re sitting in your cab waiting to get loaded, literally doing absolutely nothing, it’s still recommended to set your mode to other work?

What if your employer asks what other work you were doing for that 1 hour period or whatever?

Cleaning your mirrors :smiley:

11

POA I think it is used for ■■?if you are at work your at work it should count and it should be paid as such .why are we all ways trying to work longer the job is long enough without trying .

12

jessejazza:
I have read that it’s a “grey area”. When I did CPC it was not made clear. My understanding was that it was only used when a period of waiting was known about in advance. e.g. One is required to take a truck to the workshop to have work done and wait there. POA does not contribute to working time.

I’d be grateful for comments on the following uses.

a) vehicle checks. DVSA expect to see 10-15 mins on working time for vehicle checks before driving off. I’ve had a couple of interviews now and they expect to see the vehicle checks as POA which I don’t agree with. Presumably just to make difference from working time. Of course POA can be ‘working time’ (as one is paid) although not contributing to WTD.

Vehicle Checks as POA, no chance vehicle checks are work therefore should be done as Other Work, I also doubt DVSA would be too impressed if they saw 15 minutes of POA each morning.
Many people have never needed to use a POA’s because they’ll put it on break instead, but if you work for one of those tight arsed companies who don’t pay breaks then POA’s are useful as like break they don’t count towards WTD hours, they also don’t count as break.

jessejazza:
b) Over the last month I have been visiting loading bays. When one goes there one cannot be sure how long they will take e.g for me it’s been 30 mins to 3.5 hours. One can also have a 10-30 min wait in a parking area before being directed to a loading bay. Again a pallet freight hub one can be unloaded in one place and then loaded in another. Certainly neither place can be considered for a break whilst loading as waiting time is so variable. I get a 45 min break in before arriving. But then can be waiting almost four hours and needing a break fairly soon into the return journey. So it would seem an appropriate time to take POA.

I would be grateful for some examples of when you use POA? So far b) is the only sort of use for POA in my experience.

This is from Croners.

Although the law states that the driver is not required to remain at his workstation, there are three accepted occasions when a driver can take a PoA, within the cab of the vehicle, providing one of the following criteria can be met.

  1. It is the choice of the driver to remain within the vehicle.
  2. The length of the waiting time is known in advance but the driver considers, in the interests of personal safety, that he or she should stay within the cab.
  3. The length of the waiting time is known in advance but it is considered, for the security of the load, either due to value or load type, that the driver should stay with the vehicle.

As previously stated, for the PoA to be valid, the driver must know of the waiting time before the period of time commences starts, but the driver does not need to be notified specifically. It is enough to know about the waiting time, and its duration, in advance, and therefore the knowledge could be by:
• being told
• arriving early for a timed delivery
• always experiencing a wait at a specific location.

Example 1
A driver arrives at a site where a delay of one hour is normal. However, on this occasion, the delay totals two hours.
The first hour is available as PoA as there is always a delay, and is therefore known. However, as the driver was not notified of the second-hour delay, this one-hour period is classed as “other work” and the crossed hammers mode should be used. Therefore, the first hour is PoA and the second is “other work”.

Example 2
A driver arrives at a site where a delay of one hour is normal. However, on this occasion, either part way through the first hour or at the end of the first hour, the driver is notified of a further delay of one hour.
As both one-hour periods are known and/or notified in advance, the driver can consider both one-hour periods as PoA.

Example 3
The driver arrives at work, but his vehicle is not ready. He is told that he cannot undertake his regular duties for two hours while he waits for the vehicle to become ready. However, after half an hour, the driver is asked to do yard duties for one hour, before waiting again for the final half-hour period.
The driver knows of the delay so the first half an hour is PoA but, when he begins the work in the yard, this is “other work”, which is recorded by the driver as such before returning to PoA for the final half an hour

13

muckles:

jessejazza:
I have read that it’s a “grey area”. When I did CPC it was not made clear. My understanding was that it was only used when a period of waiting was known about in advance. e.g. One is required to take a truck to the workshop to have work done and wait there. POA does not contribute to working time.

I’d be grateful for comments on the following uses.

a) vehicle checks. DVSA expect to see 10-15 mins on working time for vehicle checks before driving off. I’ve had a couple of interviews now and they expect to see the vehicle checks as POA which I don’t agree with. Presumably just to make difference from working time. Of course POA can be ‘working time’ (as one is paid) although not contributing to WTD.

Vehicle Checks as POA, no chance vehicle checks are work therefore should be done as Other Work, I also doubt DVSA would be too impressed if they saw 15 minutes of POA each morning.
Many people have never needed to use a POA’s because they’ll put it on break instead, but if you work for one of those tight arsed companies who don’t pay breaks then POA’s are useful as like break they don’t count towards WTD hours, they also don’t count as break.

jessejazza:
b) Over the last month I have been visiting loading bays. When one goes there one cannot be sure how long they will take e.g for me it’s been 30 mins to 3.5 hours. One can also have a 10-30 min wait in a parking area before being directed to a loading bay. Again a pallet freight hub one can be unloaded in one place and then loaded in another. Certainly neither place can be considered for a break whilst loading as waiting time is so variable. I get a 45 min break in before arriving. But then can be waiting almost four hours and needing a break fairly soon into the return journey. So it would seem an appropriate time to take POA.

I would be grateful for some examples of when you use POA? So far b) is the only sort of use for POA in my experience.

This is from Croners.

Although the law states that the driver is not required to remain at his workstation, there are three accepted occasions when a driver can take a PoA, within the cab of the vehicle, providing one of the following criteria can be met.

  1. It is the choice of the driver to remain within the vehicle.
  2. The length of the waiting time is known in advance but the driver considers, in the interests of personal safety, that he or she should stay within the cab.
  3. The length of the waiting time is known in advance but it is considered, for the security of the load, either due to value or load type, that the driver should stay with the vehicle.

As previously stated, for the PoA to be valid, the driver must know of the waiting time before the period of time commences starts, but the driver does not need to be notified specifically. It is enough to know about the waiting time, and its duration, in advance, and therefore the knowledge could be by:
• being told
• arriving early for a timed delivery
• always experiencing a wait at a specific location.

Example 1
A driver arrives at a site where a delay of one hour is normal. However, on this occasion, the delay totals two hours.
The first hour is available as PoA as there is always a delay, and is therefore known. However, as the driver was not notified of the second-hour delay, this one-hour period is classed as “other work” and the crossed hammers mode should be used. Therefore, the first hour is PoA and the second is “other work”.

Example 2
A driver arrives at a site where a delay of one hour is normal. However, on this occasion, either part way through the first hour or at the end of the first hour, the driver is notified of a further delay of one hour.
As both one-hour periods are known and/or notified in advance, the driver can consider both one-hour periods as PoA.

Example 3
The driver arrives at work, but his vehicle is not ready. He is told that he cannot undertake his regular duties for two hours while he waits for the vehicle to become ready. However, after half an hour, the driver is asked to do yard duties for one hour, before waiting again for the final half-hour period.
The driver knows of the delay so the first half an hour is PoA but, when he begins the work in the yard, this is “other work”, which is recorded by the driver as such before returning to PoA for the final half an hour

Thank you for your responses.

It seems I am the only one that has found trouble when visiting RDCs. Tesco certainly do not like taking break in the parking area although once on a bay that’s fine. [Doing nights In the south East finding a layby for break is not so easy as trampers will also be using them]. BUT with this work one just doesn’t know beforehand in one will be parked up for an hour or straight onto a bay (depends how busy they are on your arrival) which was the reason for my post. If one arrives at an RDC with a spare hour of driving time and working time - that’s fine (most of the time but one can still be caught out). The one’s that I have been visiting means one has to get a break in beforehand to avoid a possible risk of infringement.

It seems one can use PoA as you know in advance you can be waiting between 1-4 hours.

Some have stated PoA can interrupt driving time and switch to break.
“Be aware that digital tachographs wrongly count POA as break”. I have not heard this before and phoned my local tacho centre and the guy told me that’s not the case. If PoA is selected it will stay on PoA unless the truck is moved forward in which case it automatically switches to drive.

Regarding break - I agree if one’s employer pays for breaks after the first one then fine no problem putting on break whilst on the bay. PoA is paid time whereas break may or may not be. Mostly the firms I have worked for use the tacho as one’s timesheet. Until I started this job I had not needed to use PoA but I cannot see a way round it visiting RDCs.

On the

14

jessejazza:
Some have stated PoA can interrupt driving time and switch to break.

Please point to a post where anyone has said that “PoA can interrupt driving time and switch to break”.

jessejazza:
“Be aware that digital tachographs wrongly count POA as break”. I have not heard this before and phoned my local tacho centre and the guy told me that’s not the case. If PoA is selected it will stay on PoA unless the truck is moved forward in which case it automatically switches to drive.

No-one has suggested that if you select POA it will somehow change to break, what the [zb] are you talking about :confused:

Most of the people on this board know that if you select POA on the tachograph it will stay on POA until you either change it or the vehicle starts moving.

If you put the tachograph on POA the tachograph will count the POA as break and after 45 minutes of POA will wrongly reset the driving time on the tachograph display, you obviously never correctly explained what was said to the bod in the tachograph centre because I’ve never said that if you select POA it will not stay on POA, nor do I recall ever seeing anyone else say it.

Several people on this board have been caught out by the tachograph counting POA break and wrongly resetting the driving time on the tachograph display.

15

tachograph:

jessejazza:
Some have stated PoA can interrupt driving time and switch to break.

Please point to a post where anyone has said that “PoA can interrupt driving time and switch to break”.

jessejazza:
“Be aware that digital tachographs wrongly count POA as break”. I have not heard this before and phoned my local tacho centre and the guy told me that’s not the case. If PoA is selected it will stay on PoA unless the truck is moved forward in which case it automatically switches to drive.

No-one has suggested that if you select POA it will somehow change to break, what the [zb] are you talking about :confused:

Most of the people on this board know that if you select POA on the tachograph it will stay on POA until you either change it or the vehicle starts moving.

If you put the tachograph on POA the tachograph will count the POA as break and after 45 minutes of POA will wrongly reset the driving time on the tachograph display, you obviously never correctly explained what was said to the bod in the tachograph centre because I’ve never said that if you select POA it will not stay on POA, nor do I recall ever seeing anyone else say it.

Several people on this board have been caught out by the tachograph counting POA break and wrongly resetting the driving time on the tachograph display.

I think they mean on trucks that have the information about breaks and driving time displayed on the dash, if you have enough POA they will clear the driving time and start at 4.5 hours again, but obviously this doesn’t happen with the tachograph, so if you not aware you can end up going over your 4.5 hours driving.
I think they do this because of double driving in slot 2 showing up as POA and the authorities accepting the first 45 as a break.

16

muckles:
I think they mean on trucks that have the information about breaks and driving time displayed on the dash, if you have enough POA they will clear the driving time and start at 4.5 hours again, but obviously this doesn’t happen with the tachograph, so if you not aware you can end up going over your 4.5 hours driving.
I think they do this because of double driving in slot 2 showing up as POA and the authorities accepting the first 45 as a break.

Sorry bud but if you mean the tachograph itself doesn’t wrongly count POA as break I have to disagree, the digital tachograph specifications as laid out by the EU specify continuous driving time as:
“the continuous driving time is computed as the current accumulated driving times of a particular driver, since the end of his last AVAILABILITY or BREAK/REST or UNKNOWN period of 45 minutes or more”.

More importantly the same regulations state that:
“the ■■■■■■■■■■ break from driving time is computed as the current accumulated AVAILABILITY or BREAK/REST or UNKNOWN times of 15 minutes or more of a particular driver, since the end of his last AVAILABILITY or BREAK/REST or UNKNOWN period of 45 minutes or more (this period may have been split according to Regulation (EC) No 561/2006).”

We know this is not correct and the regulations even go on to say:
“This way of computing the continuous driving time and the ■■■■■■■■■■ break time serves in the recording equipment for computing the continuous driving time warning. It does not prejudge the legal interpretation to be made of these times.”

So I would say the tachograph itself should wrongly reset the accumulated driving time when you’ve accumulated 45 minutes of POA :smiley: :wink:

17

tachograph:

muckles:
I think they mean on trucks that have the information about breaks and driving time displayed on the dash, if you have enough POA they will clear the driving time and start at 4.5 hours again, but obviously this doesn’t happen with the tachograph, so if you not aware you can end up going over your 4.5 hours driving.
I think they do this because of double driving in slot 2 showing up as POA and the authorities accepting the first 45 as a break.

Sorry bud but if you mean the tachograph itself doesn’t wrongly count POA as break I have to disagree, the digital tachograph specifications as laid out by the EU specify continuous driving time as:
“the continuous driving time is computed as the current accumulated driving times of a particular driver, since the end of his last AVAILABILITY or BREAK/REST or UNKNOWN period of 45 minutes or more”.

More importantly the same regulations state that:
“the ■■■■■■■■■■ break from driving time is computed as the current accumulated AVAILABILITY or BREAK/REST or UNKNOWN times of 15 minutes or more of a particular driver, since the end of his last AVAILABILITY or BREAK/REST or UNKNOWN period of 45 minutes or more (this period may have been split according to Regulation (EC) No 561/2006).”

We know this is not correct and the regulations even go on to say:
“This way of computing the continuous driving time and the ■■■■■■■■■■ break time serves in the recording equipment for computing the continuous driving time warning. It does not prejudge the legal interpretation to be made of these times.”

So I would say the tachograph itself should wrongly reset the accumulated driving time when you’ve accumulated 45 minutes of POA :smiley: :wink:

Now you’ve confused me, my understanding if the regs is that you have to have a break or a rest before you’ve completed 4.5 hours of driving. POA don’t count as break or rest, just stops you accumulating WTD hours.

18

The whole thing is ■■■■■■■■…
IMO [emoji849]

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19

muckles:
Now you’ve confused me, my understanding if the regs is that you have to have a break or a rest before you’ve completed 4.5 hours of driving. POA don’t count as break or rest

That’s correct, it’s a shame that when they wrote the specifications for digital tachograph they didn’t make the specifications fit the drivers regulations and the WTD.

Bear in mind that in my previous post I quoted the tachograph specification regulations not the drivers regulations.

For the drivers hours regulations POA doesn’t count as break, that’s why I said it wrongly resets the driving time on the tachograph display.

Sent from my mobile.

20

Legally POA doesn’t count as break, that’s why I said it wrongly resets the driving time.

Sent from my mobile.

I spoke to a Scania depo manager about this… He didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Nobody he knew used poa anyway”
What chance do we have■■? [emoji34]

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