Question about running out of hours?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

tachograph:

DickyNick:
In cpc they told us it’s legal if you’ve run out of duty time they can send a company car or van to you, then this is where we are splitting hairs, they CANT tell you have to bring the car back to the depot or anywhere else. You have to be free to go where you want ie home. You can go to the depot out of your choice and let’s its face your going to because that’s where your own car be. But as long as they don’t tell you to then it’s legal.

I wouldn’t agree with that, travelling to or from the lorry cannot be counted as rest.

If you go home and back in your daily rest period that’s your choice but if you travelled back to base or home then started the next shift from base it would be illegal.

Sent from my mobile.

So you go home legally in the vehicle provided, company then has the truck brought back to base by other drivers with out telling you, you wouldn’t have any choice but to go back to base to start your next shift, or would the company have to take the truck back to the original stopping place.
I’ve never heard of anyone getting done for this offence, maybe they have, but there seems to a few ways to get around the legalities of it all.

22

weeto:

tachograph:

DickyNick:
In cpc they told us it’s legal if you’ve run out of duty time they can send a company car or van to you, then this is where we are splitting hairs, they CANT tell you have to bring the car back to the depot or anywhere else. You have to be free to go where you want ie home. You can go to the depot out of your choice and let’s its face your going to because that’s where your own car be. But as long as they don’t tell you to then it’s legal.

I wouldn’t agree with that, travelling to or from the lorry cannot be counted as rest.

If you go home and back in your daily rest period that’s your choice but if you travelled back to base or home then started the next shift from base it would be illegal.

So you go home legally in the vehicle provided, company then has the truck brought back to base by other drivers with out telling you, you wouldn’t have any choice but to go back to base to start your next shift, or would the company have to take the truck back to the original stopping place.
I’ve never heard of anyone getting done for this offence, maybe they have, but there seems to a few ways to get around the legalities of it all.

Travelling home in a vehicle supplied by the company after you’ve run out of working time is not “going home legally” the DCPC instructor who said that was talking out of his arse :unamused:
If you’ve run out of driving time but still have enough working time to get back to base or home you can legally be recovered but not if you’ve run out of working time.

People have been prosecuted for travelling to or from their vehicles without booking the time as other work, look up the Skills Coaches case.

I’m sure people get recovered back to base when they’ve run out of working time, in fact I know they do because I’ve done it myself, but it is an offence and certainly not something you should shout about doing.

23

What if…

They come out to you in your own car which you have given them a spare set of keys to?

24

yourhavingalarf:
What if…

They come out to you in your own car which you have given them a spare set of keys to?

Makes no difference

25

stevieboy308:

yourhavingalarf:
What if…

They come out to you in your own car which you have given them a spare set of keys to?

Makes no difference

But…

It’s my own car. I’m able to drive it home legally from the yard after my shift has finished. Surely, if it’s bought to me wherever I’ve run out of time then I can drive it?

26

yourhavingalarf:

stevieboy308:

yourhavingalarf:
What if…

They come out to you in your own car which you have given them a spare set of keys to?

Makes no difference

But…

It’s my own car. I’m able to drive it home legally from the yard after my shift has finished. Surely, if it’s bought to me wherever I’ve run out of time then I can drive it?

Yeah, perfectly legal from the yard, but not legal if brought out to you so you can drive home then start at the yard for the next shift.

Read the screenshot I posted up

27

yourhavingalarf:

stevieboy308:

yourhavingalarf:
What if…

They come out to you in your own car which you have given them a spare set of keys to?

Makes no difference

But…

It’s my own car. I’m able to drive it home legally from the yard after my shift has finished. Surely, if it’s bought to me wherever I’ve run out of time then I can drive it?

Apart from anything else.
What about your insurance?
Matey driving it out to is using it as part of his work isn’t he? So it’ll need business insurance, sooo it’s now a works vehicle too.

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk

28

To be honest, if I ran out of time like this I’d be giving my middle finger to the rules because one way or another I’m going home :laughing:

29

So let’s get this right…

The rules say, if your not a tramper and you’ve no night out gear, or in a unit covered in ■■■■ that you wouldn’t let your dog sleep in, or if your in a day cab, then your not allowed to legally get home? Where does it end? Is your wife or a mate even allowed to come and pick you up?

If it went to court and you explained the option was you drive the works van back for a half hour drive, or the other option was you sit upright all night in the drivers seat with no food and no change of clothes I’m sure the magistrate would be on your side.

It’s never happened to me, but like I said my middle finger would be going straight up to the rules if thats how it is. Telling you can’t go home…pffffft yeah right

30

DickyNick:
So let’s get this right…

The rules say, if your not a tramper and you’ve no night out gear, or in a unit covered in [zb] that you wouldn’t let your dog sleep in, or if your in a day cab, then your not allowed to legally get home? Where does it end? Is your wife or a mate even allowed to come and pick you up?

If it went to court and you explained the option was you drive the works van back for a half hour drive, or the other option was you sit upright all night in the drivers seat with no food and no change of clothes I’m sure the magistrate would be on your side.

It’s never happened to me, but like I said my middle finger would be going straight up to the rules if thats how it is. Telling you can’t go home…pffffft yeah right

Why would the court let you off?

Where do you draw the line? 30min, 1 hour, 2, 3, 4?

Then if you’re in a day cab, as the rules!! Don’t allow you to take a rest period in one, then once it started looking like it might be going wrong, then you need to start planning on a hotel for the night, same goes if you’re not happy about sleeping in the sleeper cab for whatever reason.

There’s a tolerance on 15 mins the dvsa will let you off with going over, so long as it’s not a regular occurrence, they’re also quite limited on what they can bust you for with a fixed penalty, if it’s not on that current day they catch you, they can always choose court, but that’s extremely unlikely for one offs.

If your misses picks you up and returns you to the same place to start the next day then I don’t see a problem.

31

stevieboy308:

DickyNick:
So let’s get this right…

The rules say, if your not a tramper and you’ve no night out gear, or in a unit covered in [zb] that you wouldn’t let your dog sleep in, or if your in a day cab, then your not allowed to legally get home? Where does it end? Is your wife or a mate even allowed to come and pick you up?

If it went to court and you explained the option was you drive the works van back for a half hour drive, or the other option was you sit upright all night in the drivers seat with no food and no change of clothes I’m sure the magistrate would be on your side.

It’s never happened to me, but like I said my middle finger would be going straight up to the rules if thats how it is. Telling you can’t go home…pffffft yeah right

Why would the court let you off?

Where do you draw the line? 30min, 1 hour, 2, 3, 4?

Then if you’re in a day cab, as the rules!! Don’t allow you to take a rest period in one, then once it started looking like it might be going wrong, then you need to start planning on a hotel for the night, same goes if you’re not happy about sleeping in the sleeper cab for whatever reason.

There’s a tolerance on 15 mins the dvsa will let you off with going over, so long as it’s not a regular occurrence, they’re also quite limited on what they can bust you for with a fixed penalty, if it’s not on that current day they catch you, they can always choose court, but that’s extremely unlikely for one offs.

If your misses picks you up and returns you to the same place to start the next day then I don’t see a problem.

What about picking me up from one location then taking me to the depot in the morning? Because that’s 100% what I’d be doing in this hypothetical situation.

If it’s a one off and you explained to the court that I just think they would be a bit more forgiving. But if it’s a one off it wouldn’t be goinnto court would it? It would be going to court if you and or your employee and totally taken the ■■■■ time after time.

32

I don’t see the issue here, if your Mrs picks you up get her to drop you back off next morning, night out pay will exceed whatever the take home after tax was for the time taken to get back to the yard then still have to pick you car up and drive home.

This dodgy dealing is all for the benefit of the operator who is going to throw the driver to the wolves if the crap hits the fan, OK it’s going to happen once in a blue moon even to the best of operations, so the vehicle stops out, it doesn’t matter if the driver is asleep in the heap or in his own bed, driver gets a night out allowance, lorry gets started 11 hours later (in my case) and completes the journey, far as the company knows the driver is asleep in the cab.
If it’s a shed or day cab, then as said by Stevieboy, if no lift from Mrs/dad/mate available don’t even think of driving up till the last minute, arrange accommodation so it suits you, a few £50/70 hotel bills will focus the TM’s mind on their job a bit more.

If it’s happening once or twice a week, then obviously the job is being planned far too tight for a day man and should be a tramper’s job.

33

This is probably the simplest regulation to understand in 561/2006 and was well publicised by Skills Motor Coaches who demonstrated perfectly how it was done.

Driver C has come back from Spain on Saturday morning and he is told he is doing a trip on Tuesday evening. His coach will be parked in Dover. Two choices, he can go with Driver A in Tuesday morning or he can take Driver B in his own car on Monday and stay in the hotel that night.

Nothing difficult about any of that apart from the fact they were being planned and paid for it.

Its part of the unfair competition that the TC is paid to alleviate

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

34

Wheel Nut:
This is probably the simplest regulation to understand in 561/2006 and was well publicised by Skills Motor Coaches who demonstrated perfectly how it was done.

Driver C has come back from Spain on Saturday morning and he is told he is doing a trip on Tuesday evening. His coach will be parked in Dover. Two choices, he can go with Driver A in Tuesday morning or he can take Driver B in his own car on Monday and stay in the hotel that night.

Nothing difficult about any of that apart from the fact they were being planned and paid for it.

Its part of the unfair competition that the TC is paid to alleviate

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It still goes on anyway. Hotels are booked but not used.

35

Back in the nineties, depending on traffic, we occasionally ran out of driving time on a certain run (usually about 40 minutes from base, if all went well it was still a 10 hour trip give or take a few minutes! :wink: ) and a fitter came out in a van, he drove the truck back and we drove the van. Probably not doable these days though.

Pete.

36

I think if it’s planned like that then it’s different and I appreciate the rules in that case, but if it’s due to an accident or whatever then I really would have no issue breaking the rules and just driving works van back so I can go home.

37

DickyNick:
I think if it’s planned like that then it’s different and I appreciate the rules in that case, but if it’s due to an accident or whatever then I really would have no issue breaking the rules and just driving works van back so I can go home.

So that’s an exceptional circumstance. And so long as a correct break is taken (without travelling time being counted as break) I would think that’d be OK.

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk

38

Franglais:

DickyNick:
I think if it’s planned like that then it’s different and I appreciate the rules in that case, but if it’s due to an accident or whatever then I really would have no issue breaking the rules and just driving works van back so I can go home.

So that’s an exceptional circumstance. And so long as a correct break is taken (without travelling time being counted as break) I would think that’d be OK.

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk

Legally you can only go to the 1st suitable place to park when going over, not complete your journey

39

What would the outcome be if you had been planned a day that would be well within your driving and duty times but due to a breakdown you run out of duty time an hour from home and can’t park as you have livestock on and are controlled by veterinary regulations,
You are now faced with a 16-17 hour shift as the livestock has to come off ,to comply with vet regulations,
No relief available as your at the busy time of the year ,
These are the kind of problems that a driver can face and can’t do right for doing wrong ,no wonder there is a national shortage of drivers when we can’t even answer our own questions without a debate ,

40

stevieboy308:

Franglais:

DickyNick:
I think if it’s planned like that then it’s different and I appreciate the rules in that case, but if it’s due to an accident or whatever then I really would have no issue breaking the rules and just driving works van back so I can go home.

So that’s an exceptional circumstance. And so long as a correct break is taken (without travelling time being counted as break) I would think that’d be OK.

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk

Legally you can only go to the 1st suitable place to park when going over, not complete your journey

Yes. And if there is no accomodation?
No sleeper cab and no hotel, then a taxi, car or van is surely OK?
If it’s a sleeper cab. And it’s merely a convenience to the employer, then it’s wrong to prolong the driver’s day. If it’s to get them to a bed surely that’s OK?

Edit to add.
Any travelling time is not part of rest time whether as driver or passenger.

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk