9 hour rule help!

Hello fellow truckers!

I’m new to the forum, and only driving for a few months, thought I was doing really well with everything until…

I was chatting with a few other drivers about infringements and the amount of infringements they were getting sounded very high for, I assume experienced drivers.

Now the confusion arose around the 9 hour rule. I thought I could start work at 6am, work for say 5 hours 45 then have a 15 minute break, then work on for another 6 hours providing my driving time never went above 4.5 hours. These old hands, shall we say, told me if I start at 6am, and work until 11.45 and have a 15 minute break until 12 noon, then I have to have another 30 mins by 3pm for my 9 hours. Is this correct?

I have been in my current job now for about 9 weeks. I regularly start at 6am, have a 15 around 11:30-12 noon, then have my further 30 around 5-530pm (usually when my driving time reaches 4.5 hours) and have yet to have any infingments.

Guidance or help please?

Thank you.

RonnieJ:
Hello fellow truckers!

I’m new to the forum, and only driving for a few months, thought I was doing really well with everything until…

I was chatting with a few other drivers about infringements and the amount of infringements they were getting sounded very high for, I assume experienced drivers.

Now the confusion arose around the 9 hour rule. I thought I could start work at 6am, work for say 5 hours 45 then have a 15 minute break, then work on for another 6 hours providing my driving time never went above 4.5 hours. These old hands, shall we say, told me if I start at 6am, and work until 11.45 and have a 15 minute break until 12 noon, then I have to have another 30 mins by 3pm for my 9 hours. Is this correct?

I have been in my current job now for about 9 weeks. I regularly start at 6am, have a 15 around 11:30-12 noon, then have my further 30 around 5-530pm (usually when my driving time reaches 4.5 hours) and have yet to have any infingments.

Guidance or help please?

Thank you.

You know about the 45 min or 15 +30 min driving time break rule so all good there :smiley:

The WTD break rules are also very simple -
Do not work/drive a total of more than 6 hours without a 15 min break - that applies to the whole shift not just the first 6 hours
There is no 9 hour break rule
Breaks can count for both driving time and WTD at the same time but the driving time breaks have more rules
If you have a total of 45 mins of breaks then the WTD total shift break time will always be covered

Welcome to the forum Ronnie…

Soon there will be a posse of drivers explaining the rules involving breaks. It’ll probably complicate things even more for you.

Here’s my tuppence worth.

Just take the breaks you need and not what the old hands do. Why work so long with so little time off?

If you’ve done let’s say 2 hours worth of duty and one hour of driving, have 45 minutes off.

Breaks are there for your benefit and not to be shoehorned round what the gaffers want or old drivers do, so take them when you want to take them.

There is a thread here today involving a driver who allegedly fell asleep at the wheel. Luckily no one was injured but it’s an example of what happens if you drive tired.

In your case I’d do something like:

6 to 11.45 then 15 break.
12 to 2.45 then 15 break
3 to 6 then 15 break if you got that far.

The mon breaks are 15 mins not 30 although you can have say a 45 break first and that effectively counts as WTD breaks covered for the full day.

This is WTD breaks and not the more important EU driving breaks which you can get fined for exceeding. There was talk of VOSA taking notice of WTD but not heard any evidence that they actually do. WTD wont show as infringments on tacho download software usually.

Oh and welcome to stupid confusing EU regulations, or “what have the EU ever done for us” as Monty Python would say. :slight_smile:

yourhavingalarf:
Breaks are there for YOUR BENEFITand not to be shoehorned round what the gaffers want or old drivers do, so take them when you want to take them.

.

This^^^^^

Most of those drivers getting infringements will be the ones that moan the most about how much a waste of time DCPC courses are . They totally ignore what people are telling them , none so deaf as those that won’t listen .
If you continue as you have done so far you won’t go far wrong with your hours , keep it simple and its far better to go over on your length of breaks , that way the chances of you getting infringements are very low .

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You need help driver , on so many levels . Never in my working life have I done 5 hr 45 before having a break.
The way your post reads is that you are disappointed to have to stop for FIFTEEN minutes after so small a session.
WTD is insignificant compared to EU drivers hours , don’t let any gaffers tether you to it .

Jim

you cant work over 6 hours without a 15 min break. if you take a 15 min break you can then work upto 9 hours from when your shift started
then you need to take another break of 30 mins which will reset your hours and the process starts again.

ie you start at 6 .00 do 4 hours take a 15 min break you can then carry on working until 15.00 before another break is required. ie 9 hours from your 6 am start

if you start at 6.00 take 15 mins at 8.00 you need to stop by 14.15 as 8.15 to 14.15 is 6 hours. as you cant work more than 6 hours with out a break

JFC999:
You need help driver , on so many levels . Never in my working life have I done 5 hr 45 before having a break.
The way your post reads is that you are disappointed to have to stop for FIFTEEN minutes after so small a session.
WTD is insignificant compared to EU drivers hours , don’t let any gaffers tether you to it .

Jim

Big +1…

edd1974:
you cant work over 6 hours without a 15 min break. if you take a 15 min break you can then work upto 9 hours from when your shift started
then you need to take another break of 30 mins which will reset your hours and the process starts again.

ie you start at 6 .00 do 4 hours take a 15 min break you can then carry on working until 15.00 before another break is required. ie 9 hours from your 6 am start

if you start at 6.00 take 15 mins at 8.00 you need to stop by 14.15 as 8.15 to 14.15 is 6 hours. as you cant work more than 6 hours with out a break

How can you misunderstand something so simple as the WTD rules?

edd1974:
you cant work over 6 hours without a 15 min break. if you take a 15 min break you can then work upto 9 hours from when your shift started
then you need to take another break of 30 mins which will reset your hours and the process starts again.

ie you start at 6 .00 do 4 hours take a 15 min break you can then carry on working until 15.00 before another break is required. ie 9 hours from your 6 am start

if you start at 6.00 take 15 mins at 8.00 you need to stop by 14.15 as 8.15 to 14.15 is 6 hours. as you cant work more than 6 hours with out a break

You get it wrong in your first example, but correct it in your second example

Working Time Breaks
It is important to note that EU driver’s hours break requirements take precedence over these breaks when driving, so be sure you are taking the correct break periods when combing driving with other work.

Cannot work for more than 6 hours without a break. A break should last a minimum of 15 minutes
30 minute break if working between 6 and 9 hours in total.

After working for 6 hours a mobile worker must take a break of 15 minutes. However, if working between 6 and up to 9 hours in a shift a mobile worker must take a break totalling a minimum of 30 minutes, this can be made up of two breaks of 15 minutes.

45 minute break if working more than 9 hours in total. If a shift contains more than 9 hours of working time a break period totalling 45 minutes is required.

Thanks for the advice gentlemen…

As a few of you have said about when I take my breaks, the routine I’m in suits me down to a T to be honest. Start at 6am a tea break at 11:30-12, a sandwich and cuppa. Then later on a 30 min break for a power nap, recharge the batteries before I go home.

I don’t grudge having my breaks, I feel as if if I had them to early into my shift I wouldn’t benefit from them.

So, how long does it take for an infringement to come through? As if I don’t get any my method must be legal/within the R&R of the road.

My boss isn’t bothered about my breaks, if I don’t damage anything he says he will be happy as Larry :smiley:

You’re…

Happy with your routine, haven’t had any infringements and it’s your colleagues that are getting infringements.

Perhaps you should have titled the thread ‘how long do infringements take to show up?’

The answer to that is, there isn’t a set time. Every office does things at their own pace. Some firms might sort things in a couple of days, others might take a week or two and some others might not ever bother at all.

I don’t think it’s a very good policy to slag the old hands off , as the saying goes they’ll have forgot more than you know :exclamation: :exclamation:

dozy:
I don’t think it’s a very good policy to slag the old hands off , as the saying goes they’ll have forgot more than you know :exclamation: :exclamation:

Yeh, but some of the ‘‘Older hands’’ are ■■■■ worse than some of the inexperienced lads for treating the job as some kind of endurance excercise, and allowing themselves to be run ragged. :unamused:
You would think they would know better.

trevHCS:
In your case I’d do something like:

6 to 11.45 then 15 break.
12 to 2.45 then 15 break
3 to 6 then 15 break if you got that far.

Thats fine providing he is driving less than 4.5 hrs per shift. If so you need the last break to be a continuous 30 minutes, or the second one.

It just seems rather pointless to me, given that the whole point of tachograph rules is to ensure that the driver has sufficient break periods to mitigate the effects of fatigue, to then superimpose another, entirely different set of rules designed to mitigate the effects of fatigue on top of those.

Harry Monk:
It just seems rather pointless to me, given that the whole point of tachograph rules is to ensure that the driver has sufficient break periods to mitigate the effects of fatigue, to then superimpose another, entirely different set of rules designed to mitigate the effects of fatigue on top of those.

The whole Driver’s hours rules layout is one big over complicated cluster ■■■■ Harry that needs simplified and sorted.

/\ /\ This is so true Domestic rules / EU rules or WTD .tachos or log books .
It should be one set of simple rules .

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