A few questions

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
41

In answer to the original questions - yes they can plan more than 13 and no there are no laws say they can’t.

In the same way, dependant on your contract of employment there is nothing to stop the boss only planning you a 6 hour day and 18 hours off.

Having been involved in running a fleet, we planned for what we needed doing for the good of the company and within EU Drivers Hours rules. If a driver couldn’t or wouldn’t do what we planned, we changed the job and didn’t force anyone. If it was occasional and seemed genuine then no problem. If - as happened - it was the same guy every time and he seemed to think he made the rules then it would be treated differently.

If a driver constantly pulled the “I’m tired card” we would question his health and suitability for the role. This would mean a “welfare interview” to discuss his health and work life balance. The end result might mean we feel we could only give the driver 8 hour days or maybe 10 hour days as we ‘care about his health’. Ultimately I would win, within the law, and the driver would move on and be a pain somewhere else because his earnings were down. I would be able to fully justify my actions and show in any court I was a caring sharing employer.

Employment is a two way street. Give and take. Swings and roundabouts.

The answer to this thread has been given many times. There’s no actual laws, just common sense. If you don’t like the job - go find one that suits you.

42

shep532:
If a driver constantly pulled the “I’m tired card” we would question his health and suitability for the role. This would mean a “welfare interview” to discuss his health and work life balance.

What is there to discuss if the operator must know the driver can’t physically get home and get a night’s sleep?

That’s the elephant in the room here - at the extreme it’s not about drivers being subjectively tired, it’s a simple time-and-motion issue that it is physically impossible to commute and get enough sleep (before you even talk about the arguable amount of time that should be allowed at home for eating, washing, using the toilet, making the next day’s sandwiches, and so on).

The end result might mean we feel we could only give the driver 8 hour days or maybe 10 hour days as we ‘care about his health’. Ultimately I would win, within the law, and the driver would move on and be a pain somewhere else because his earnings were down. I would be able to fully justify my actions and show in any court I was a caring sharing employer.

On this I agree with you. A driver can’t ask to be a bit lame in one leg during the middle of the week. Although if you were lowering hours purely to be vindictive, and by corollary incentivising excessive working hours, that could undermine your argument in court.

In terms of the employee’s private remedies, it could also make you liable for a breach of “trust and confidence”, or for “retaliation against a whistleblower” (if your actions are calculated to punish a complaint, or reinforce an illegal mode of working by making an example of somebody or threatening to make an example of them, rather than merely to address the subject of the complaint within your means).

This latter protection is particularly powerful for ensuring legal compliance, because it can be used directly against almost any entity that retaliates against a worker (including directly against the customers of haulage operators, if the customer influences the operator’s treatment of the worker), and the penalties if victimisation is found to have occurred are swingeing.

The answer to this thread has been given many times. There’s no actual laws, just common sense. If you don’t like the job - go find one that suits you.

This thread alone has already quoted chapter and verse - do people need to actually eat and swallow the paper the law is written on before they’ll acknowledge there is law?

43

That’s the elephant in the room here - at the extreme it’s not about drivers being subjectively tired, it’s a simple time-and-motion issue that it is physically impossible to commute and get enough sleep (before you even talk about the arguable amount of time that should be allowed at home for eating, washing, using the toilet, making the next day’s sandwiches, and so on).

That’s an argument against having just 9 hours off, not against working 15. If I ever do a 15 there is no chance that I would just have 9 hours off if I was commuting to home and back (unless it suited me to do so).

44

Rjan:
This thread alone has already quoted chapter and verse - do people need to actually eat and swallow the paper the law is written on before they’ll acknowledge there is law?

We could discuss these matters for days to come and still not have a black & white written down in law answer.

All situations vary but I will agree that any employer seen to ‘force’ and employee to work hours where the employee has refused on grounds of tiredness or that is seen to take some form of ‘I’ll get you back’ action against an employee or simply does not allow sufficient rest periods that are practicable taking into account commuting etc has indeed fallen foul of various bits of legislation.