This is from the Finnish represents for hauling companies and drivers.
It’s a study done on the most stressful elements as a driver and what to change. skal.fi/en/news_and_updates/ … 10225.news
This is what they are thinking about to change and has been sent in to EU a motion and i AGREE WITH THEM TO 100% and hope it goes through That a driver’s daily rest period can be reduced to at least nine hours once a week and at least seven hours twice a week. The unreduced daily rest period should continue to be 11 hours. That the daily driving time can be extended by two hours when the driving period is immediately followed or preceded by a rest period of not less than 24 consecutive hours. Such extensions to daily driving time should be within the framework of the current maximum driving times (56 hours in one week and 90 hours in two weeks). That there should be additional flexibility in exceptions to the 12-day regulations applicable to international coach travel in the European Union. That in both passenger and goods traffic, the 45-minute break that must be taken after driving for 4.5 hours can be split into three 15-minute breaks.
They call it home to the night. Meaning you be able to spend as short time as possible in the truck. As it’s now a lot of Finnish truck drivers, estimated 1 out of 3!!! have to spend 9h on a empty ■■■■■■■■■■■■ in the middle of the forest a lot of times. Something they want to change with reducing the daily rest to 7h. There is no reason to sit on that ■■■■■■■■■■■■ for 9h, since not a single human being will sleep the full 9h
iguana:
Will no doubt be many different views & answers to this, owner drivers & employees with no doubt differ, but interested to them all.
Most of us are under eu regs, however what could you cope with & prefer? pal of mine, owner driver reckons 10dt with 9 rest tramping 11 at base. 45 break up’d to an hr
I would be tempted to agree, but often on a busy day feel really shot after just 9hr rests sometimes so am ok with the present 9 & 11 set up.
I have done 12dt for a couple of days but do feel pretty knackered, only feel ok with it after relaxing wk end off, yet thats the normal regs in Oz, Nz & usa/Canada- well 11 usa 12 oz, 13 canada
/nz & some as little as 7 hrs rest, blimey how do you expat truckers cope with that one?
So my owner driver thoughts-
I’d allow one 12dt in a wk, but only with an 11 break before & after & 2 1 hr stops in that, happy with breaks but would push it to 5 hrs dt & up break to 1 hr or 30 + 30
I would rather drive 13 hrs a day in Canada than 5hrs a day in the UK, 99% of the driving is stress free open road.
I’ve spent longer in queues in a day in the UK than 3 years long haul here.
The speed limit here is generally the same for all vehicles on all roads and IMHO,more tolerance for speeding.
We are only allowed to work 48 hrs per week on average during your reference period, after POAs and breaks are deducted.
There are gonna be plenty of transport managers and company owners active on this forum trying to convince you if you don’t work more hours and brake the law you are not going to be earning good money.
Maxing hours is what is causing carp wages in this industry, if there were no truck drivers working max hours, there would be more more work available, companies would need to attract more people to become drivers from outside of the industry which wouldn’t be easy unless they raised wages. Wages would need to be raised to keep drivers already working in this industry to keep working as drivers otherwise many would be leaving do to low pay for 48 hrs per week.
Unfortunately this forum is over run by transport managers and company owners, posting under as if they were drivers and trying to convince everyone that if you do not max your hours every week, you will never earn good wage.
Drivers are too stupid to understand this simple fact.
Icee:
This is from the Finnish represents for hauling companies and drivers.
It’s a study done on the most stressful elements as a driver and what to change. skal.fi/en/news_and_updates/ … 10225.news
This is what they are thinking about to change and has been sent in to EU a motion and i AGREE WITH THEM TO 100% and hope it goes through That a driver’s daily rest period can be reduced to at least nine hours once a week and at least seven hours twice a week. The unreduced daily rest period should continue to be 11 hours. That the daily driving time can be extended by two hours when the driving period is immediately followed or preceded by a rest period of not less than 24 consecutive hours. Such extensions to daily driving time should be within the framework of the current maximum driving times (56 hours in one week and 90 hours in two weeks). That there should be additional flexibility in exceptions to the 12-day regulations applicable to international coach travel in the European Union. That in both passenger and goods traffic, the 45-minute break that must be taken after driving for 4.5 hours can be split into three 15-minute breaks.
They call it home to the night. Meaning you be able to spend as short time as possible in the truck. As it’s now a lot of Finnish truck drivers, estimated 1 out of 3!!! have to spend 9h on a empty ■■■■■■■■■■■■ in the middle of the forest a lot of times. Something they want to change with reducing the daily rest to 7h. There is no reason to sit on that ■■■■■■■■■■■■ for 9h, since not a single human being will sleep the full 9h
I see what you’re saying about the Finnish drivers but if they even sniffed around trying to reduce daily rest to 7 hours I’d campaign against it. Ive known plenty of human beings who’ll sleep the full 9 but you’re missing the point, daily rest is about resting, not just sleeping. For that handful of Finnish forestry men that will get home more you’d have thousands of sleep deprived drivers on the road. As fir the 12 days like coach drivers, I think that’s a good idea. 12 days on and four off is how I used to work on the coaches.
10 hours a day work/drive maximum, no restrictions on longer but ONLY with my full agreement. Rest/break when I want it with no restrictions.
Finish the job properly, working as needed to achieve this.
Paul
(Company owner…)
anon84679660:
We are only allowed to work 48 hrs per week on average during your reference period, after POAs and breaks are deducted.
There are gonna be plenty of transport managers and company owners active on this forum trying to convince you if you don’t work more hours and brake the law you are not going to be earning good money.
Maxing hours is what is causing carp wages in this industry, if there were no truck drivers working max hours, there would be more more work available, companies would need to attract more people to become drivers from outside of the industry which wouldn’t be easy unless they raised wages. Wages would need to be raised to keep drivers already working in this industry to keep working as drivers otherwise many would be leaving do to low pay for 48 hrs per week.
Unfortunately this forum is over run by transport managers and company owners, posting under as if they were drivers and trying to convince everyone that if you do not max your hours every week, you will never earn good wage.
Drivers are too stupid to understand this simple fact.
CORRECT! YOU’RE ON MY WAVELENGTH. start at 12, finish at 13:00hrs, an hour for lunch and £50,000 for turning in.
Icee:
This is from the Finnish represents for hauling companies and drivers.
It’s a study done on the most stressful elements as a driver and what to change. skal.fi/en/news_and_updates/ … 10225.news
This is what they are thinking about to change and has been sent in to EU a motion and i AGREE WITH THEM TO 100% and hope it goes through That a driver’s daily rest period can be reduced to at least nine hours once a week and at least seven hours twice a week. The unreduced daily rest period should continue to be 11 hours. That the daily driving time can be extended by two hours when the driving period is immediately followed or preceded by a rest period of not less than 24 consecutive hours. Such extensions to daily driving time should be within the framework of the current maximum driving times (56 hours in one week and 90 hours in two weeks). That there should be additional flexibility in exceptions to the 12-day regulations applicable to international coach travel in the European Union. That in both passenger and goods traffic, the 45-minute break that must be taken after driving for 4.5 hours can be split into three 15-minute breaks.
They call it home to the night. Meaning you be able to spend as short time as possible in the truck. As it’s now a lot of Finnish truck drivers, estimated 1 out of 3!!! have to spend 9h on a empty ■■■■■■■■■■■■ in the middle of the forest a lot of times. Something they want to change with reducing the daily rest to 7h. There is no reason to sit on that ■■■■■■■■■■■■ for 9h, since not a single human being will sleep the full 9h
I see what you’re saying about the Finnish drivers but if they even sniffed around trying to reduce daily rest to 7 hours I’d campaign against it. Ive known plenty of human beings who’ll sleep the full 9 but you’re missing the point, daily rest is about resting, not just sleeping. For that handful of Finnish forestry men that will get home more you’d have thousands of sleep deprived drivers on the road. As fir the 12 days like coach drivers, I think that’s a good idea. 12 days on and four off is how I used to work on the coaches.
They still won’t change the max week hours so I can’t see the problem. The system is designed for small sized euro countries. That’s what really bothers me about this euro rules. Right now I spend the 4night a week in the truck. Even as a local driver you will spend at least 1 night a week out. A 9h rest could as well be shortened to seven by that even if you are local you would probably not stress home for 4h sleep but rather spend it in the truck getting the full 6-7h rest. If you max out system you will be able to have longer weekly rests instead and more quality time with your family.
Other possibility would be to have a special Nordic model, not a problem if you ask me because today’s system is so idiotic designed it needs to be changed.
12 hours total including 1 hour compulsory break in the middle of the shift with no seperate driving time limits and log books not tachos. 60 hours per week limit.
I admire your desire to work but 7 hours rest would be nuts. You seem to forget the fact that in our daily rest we do a lot more than sleep, eat, shower, chill out and wind down. You may get home for your weekly rest earlier but for many that wouldn’t mean longer weekly rest, the boss would still expect them yo be back in 45 hours later. I dont see how they are designed for small countries, I tramp round Europe and make pretty good progress. 9 really is the minimum you need to rest properly in my opinion. Your time at home wouldn’t be very high quality if you came home exhausted and sleep deprived!
If I went on holiday and found out that the aeroplane driver had worked 17 hours yesterday, had seven hours off, and was 14 hours into another 17 hour shift, I don’t think I’d be too happy about getting on his aeroplane.
What is it about this industry? Why do drivers not seem able to grasp the simple laws of supply and demand- that the more hours you are allowed to work, the less each of those hours becomes worth?
i would like the shortest hours possible for the max pay say 8 hours a day for 20 quid an hour would do for a start and maybe overtime paid at time and half like the good old days
switchlogic:
I admire your desire to work but 7 hours rest would be nuts. You seem to forget the fact that in our daily rest we do a lot more than sleep, eat, shower, chill out and wind down. You may get home for your weekly rest earlier but for many that wouldn’t mean longer weekly rest, the boss would still expect them yo be back in 45 hours later. I dont see how they are designed for small countries, I tramp round Europe and make pretty good progress. 9 really is the minimum you need to rest properly in my opinion. Your time at home wouldn’t be very high quality if you came home exhausted and sleep deprived!
Sure you do in Europe, that’s what the laws a designed for. But I guess you don’t have around 1200km loading and unloading destinations. Had a discussion at the ferry today about the 7h rest and not a single one thought it was a bad ide’a, everyone loved it. I had to mention about you guys that don’t even want to work 8h and want over 12h rest. The anger around older guys hasn’t even ended yet since the French got introduced this idiotic system. When you tell them you guys want to reduce driving time even more the words coming out of there mouth will not pass through this boards filter. I drive a truck to make money and if the first number doesn’t begin on a 4k€ monthly I got nothing to do in this businesses
Older guys still remember when you could pay of a house in 2 years time, something that will never happen with this kind of rules
ideally id like to be able to work more than what I do. im normally around 40 hours drive time in a week 65 total duty 15 hours break ( I so love sleeping in my cab while sat in a rdc or sat playing games or facebook and getting paid for it ) leaving about 50 hours for WTD. iv been told iv got to stop doing extra shifts every other weekend so I drop under the 48 WTD but that’s a bummer.
saying all this I have only been driving a year and im single, got no kids or anything n need beer money for weekends out with the lads. in time I guess ill get tired n cut down but right now has anyone got a digi card I could use■■?
switchlogic:
I admire your desire to work but 7 hours rest would be nuts. You seem to forget the fact that in our daily rest we do a lot more than sleep, eat, shower, chill out and wind down. You may get home for your weekly rest earlier but for many that wouldn’t mean longer weekly rest, the boss would still expect them yo be back in 45 hours later. I dont see how they are designed for small countries, I tramp round Europe and make pretty good progress. 9 really is the minimum you need to rest properly in my opinion. Your time at home wouldn’t be very high quality if you came home exhausted and sleep deprived!
Sure you do in Europe, that’s what the laws a designed for. But I guess you don’t have around 1200km loading and unloading destinations. Had a discussion at the ferry today about the 7h rest and not a single one thought it was a bad ide’a, everyone loved it. I had to mention about you guys that don’t even want to work 8h and want over 12h rest. The anger around older guys hasn’t even ended yet since the French got introduced this idiotic system. When you tell them you guys want to reduce driving time even more the words coming out of there mouth will not pass through this boards filter. I drive a truck to make money and if the first number doesn’t begin on a 4k€ monthly I got nothing to do in this businesses
Older guys still remember when you could pay of a house in 2 years time, something that will never happen with this kind of rules
Ha, you guess I dont have 1,200 between loading and unloading address do you mean?! No, I often have much more, from the far West of Ireland to Budapest for instance, not far off 3,000km, 2 ferries across 8 countries…and you think I dont want to work more than 8 hours. 1,200km is ■■■■ easy, a day and a half driving what’s the problem? Southern Spain, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Austria ,Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden and now Finland, all regular runs for us from one small island on the far edge of Europe. So dont tell me that I don’t like hard work. I just dont want every waking hour of every day consumed by work, and if that makes you and your big men on the ferry angry then so be it. I also remember when there was money in it, I ran day and night non stop across Europe for very very good money and saw many men who did the same die in their 40s and 50s because of the lives they led and the work they did. I wouldn’t go back to those times, my health is more important than money. I pay into a pension, I’d like the chance to actually claim it one day.
YOU’RE ON MY WAVELENGTH. 
start at 12, finish at 13:00hrs, an hour for lunch and £50,000 for turning in. 
