Rules on Drivers’ Hours
and Tachographs
Goods vehicles in the UK and Europe (Revised 2009 GV262 — 02)
PAGE 43 ANNEX2 states as follows:-
Breaks:
— Mobile workers must not work more than 6 consecutive hours without taking a break.
— If your working hours total between 6 and 9 hours, working time should be interrupted by
a break or breaks totalling at least 30 minutes.
— If your working hours total more than 9 hours, working time should be interrupted by a break
or breaks totalling at least 45 minutes.
— Breaks should be of at least 15 minutes’ duration.
Exactly it does not say that you must have a 30 minute break before exceeding 6 hours working time, in fact it does not say how long the break before exceeding 6 hours must be it just says that you should not exceed 6 hours working time without having a break.
The shortest break that counts for the WTD is 15 minutes as it states in your quote so this is the break that’s required before exceeding 6 hours working time.
You need a total of 30 minutes break/breaks if you are working between 6 and 9 hours but the 30 minutes can be split into parts of at least 15 minutes and one of these 15 minute breaks should be taken before exceeding 6 hours working time.
If your working time exceeds 9 hours you should have a total of 45 minutes break/breaks and again you need 15 minutes of this before exceeding 6 hours working time.
edit: You posted to say you can see it now whilst I was posting
Mala99:
Also if you work over 13hrs in one day it is classed as a reduced daily rest even if you have say 12hrs off and you can only do this 3 times in any week
No, you can only do it three times between weekly rest periods, not per week.
Paul
I’d just finished typing out a post pointing out that depending on when your weekly rest falls you could legally reduce 6 times a week and when I went to submit it I found you had beaten me to it.
Mala99:
if you look at my quote as it was i showed 2hr drive 3hrs other work 1hr drive hence before anymore work or driving 30min break must be taken
We did all look at your quote and you can repeat it as many times as you like but it doesn’t make it correct.
If you do 2h drive, 3h other work and then 1h drive then the WTD only requires you to take a 15min break at that point. If the shift as a whole has under 9h of working time then you need to take at least another 15min break before the end of the shift, if the shift is over 9h you need to take another 30min (or 2 x 15min) to make up the 45min requirement.
Mala99:
Its just i keep getting tacho fault sheets to sign at work for not taking 30mins after 6hrs i will argue this at work now
Print off THIS THREAD, especially the post from nick2008, which contains an email from the DfT confirming that it is 15 minutes at 6 hours and not 30 That might help you with your argument with the trumpets at your work.
Mala99:
yes i see that now i could do 6hrs then 15min break but would have to have another 15min before 9hrs are up
Getting closer but you don’t need to have another 15min before the 9h are up. If the shift total working time is 9h or less than you need to take another 15min before the end of the shift. If the shift total working time is over 9h then you need to take another 30min (or 2 x 15min) before the end of the shift.
You can , for example, legally work 6h, take 15min break, work 4h, take 30min break, work 2h and in that example only 15min is in the first 9h.
No you don’t. You get either 9h or 10h driving in the day (depending on if you have one of your 10h drives left or not) and you can split that up into as many segments as you like seperated by 45min breaks as long as none of the segments are over 4h30min. Every time you take a 45 (or a 15+30 if you want to split it up) the clock for that segment resets back to zero. So you can do 3h, take a 45, another 3h, take a 45 and then 4h to make your 10h day. You never “lose” driving time at any point in any day by taking your break “early”.
Mala99:
Also working time states you must must show 30min break after a 6 hour period so if you drive 2 hrs do other work for 3hrs then drive 1hr you must take a 30min break
No it doesn’t. As others have already pointed out you only need to take 15min after 6h of working as long as you have 30min in total during the shift.
Mala99:
Also if you work over 13hrs in one day it is classed as a reduced daily rest even if you have say 12hrs off and you can only do this 3 times in any week
No, you can only do it three times between weekly rest periods, not per week.
Mala99:
Hope this helps but if you are a HGV driver you should know it. I suspect you are driving 7.5t and passed your test before 1996
People in glass houses and all that…
Paul
by saying in any week i ment as you have said between weekly rest periods
I stand corrected yet again and take your point and apologise to all
Coffeeholic:
I’d just finished typing out a post pointing out that depending on when your weekly rest falls you could legally reduce 6 times a week and when I went to submit it I found you had beaten me to it.
The worrying thing is that at a recent VOSA New Operator Seminar I went to it took me a while to convince the chap from VOSA about that. They are still handing out bits of paper to new operators with the old rules on.
repton:
The worrying thing is that at a recent VOSA New Operator Seminar I went to it took me a while to convince the chap from VOSA about that. They are still handing out bits of paper to new operators with the old rules on.
Paul
Do you mean the old rules 3820/85 or do you mean some new rules to 561/2006?
I ask because my “new” rules from 2006 which commenced on 11th April 2007 always said that.
Wheel Nut:
Do you mean the old rules 3820/85 or do you mean some new rules to 561/2006?
I don’t know which specific rules number it is but they handed out a bit of paper which was a summary of the tacho rules which said something along the lines of “daily rest can be reduced to 9h 3 times a week” instead of “3 times between weekly rest periods”.
Getting the length of break required after 6h wrong isn’t anything to be worried about, I think more drivers have this wrong than have it right and it certainly wasn’t helped by some of the early guidance from VOSA and the DfT being incorrect. As has already been mentioned on this thread many firms use tacho analysis software that gets it wrong which doesn’t help either…
Wheel Nut:
Do you mean the old rules 3820/85 or do you mean some new rules to 561/2006?
I don’t know which specific rules number it is but they handed out a bit of paper which was a summary of the tacho rules which said something along the lines of “daily rest can be reduced to 9h 3 times a week” instead of “3 times between weekly rest periods”.
Paul
I was told you could reduce the daily rest 3 time in a week on a driver CPC training course, we were also told that you had to have a 30 minute break after working for 6 hours and a further 15 minutes after working 9 hours.
It’s no wonder that people get these things wrong with the amount of misinformation being dished out
It’s no wonder that so many drivers get it wrong… This is the information given on roadtransport.com under the heading: “The EU drivers’ hours rules explained” -
“A driver must take 11 hours’ daily rest in 24 hours which can be reduced to nine hours three times a week. Again the week commences at 00:00 Monday.”
I’ve been shot! 
