Daily rest (spead-over) infringement

ASK THE EXPERTS SAFETY, LAW AND WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE FORUM (INTE
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New class 1 driver doing evening shifts 6pm-2am five days a week. Yesterday i did some extra work in the morning in addition to my normal shift, as follows:

9:00-12:00 work
break for 3 hours
15:00-1:20 more work
Length of the shift = 16h20

Mitigating circumstances:

  1. The last 2h30 of the shift were return to base. VOSA could argue that I knew full well I will be running out of hours half way into the journey back to base, so should NOT have left what was essentially a safe place (another yard 120 miles away from base). So should have slept in the cab for 9 hours. Or pull over at the services, but I’m not tramping with this wagon so it wasn’t equipped with locks at the back.
  2. Driving amounted to a total of 8 hours, other work 3 hours. Rest of 5 hours were breaks.
  3. One-off deal, I never do long shifts like that
  4. I’ve only got two infringements ever- both in the last month, both WTD breaks. Worked 6h06 (6 minute over) and 6h01 (1 minute over) without break.

I know the regs (now!), but would be interested to hear the likely outcome - both within the company and if VOSA stops me - based on your experience. I won’t get the sack, but the gaffer won’t take this lightly. I was allowed to do it (good money), but was told to watch it, so not their fault. I actually thought I was going to make it, but everything that could go wrong went wrong inside that shift - gridlocked traffic, taking the wrong bloody turn, waiting unusually long to get tipped mid-day, trailers hidden behind other trailers so had to do shunting etc. Ultimately my own fault, that’s for sure. Didn’t quite realise how serious this was.

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First of all welcome to the forum, never be afraid to ask any questions, it’s much better to ask then have any issues later on that could have been fixed on here.

How do you find sleeping in day in this heat, hopefully there is an air conditioning at home, which is not expensive to buy, I found Argos to have the best choice, especially the Princess 9 k model?

VOSA do not exist anymore, they are now called DVSA, and will not be remotely interested that your vehicle didn’t come equipped with locks for the back door.

It’s 1.20 hours over a 15 hour duty time limit, what your describing is what would happen regularly when I was doing overnight hub to hub pallet trunking runs when I should have been rescued, which means when I informed the planners or manager that my time will be running out,that can be either the driving time or the duty time, whichever ever one comes first, they must send out to you, wherever you are, two people from the company, one should be the driver of the work’s or company vehicle or private vehicle, then the driver who will be driving your lorry back to base.

You would not be allowed to drive the work vehicle back such as their van or car to get home as the staff member should be driving you back to base.

How the law works by driving a private car back I have no idea?

The other case to think of, legally you may have not been abled to be rescued as once the 15 hours was up, that’s the end of the shift and the daily rest must be taken wherever you were at the time.

DVSA do allow a discretion on exceeding driving hours or working time if they were caused by unforeseen circumstances that were beyond your control, these details would be required to be recorded on two digital tachograph print out’s, one you hand in to the office, the other one you keep for so many days in case you are stopped by DVSA or the CVU of the police RPU.

The situations they allow are scenarios such as being trapped on a road or motorway due to a fatal RTC, heavy congestion, weather problems such as floods, icy or snowy roads and motorways, but they don’t allow getting the lorry back to base.

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My theory is, if DVSA did stop you one day they could make an allowance for being a new driver, and they know we are all humans who make mistakes and essentially they are only after persistent offenders of the tachograph regulations and drivers who commit tachograph fraud, it’s never a good idea to try and hide or cover up what damage has been committed on hours, they certainly don’t like that and in the most severe cases can result in a custodial sentence and the dreaded meeting with the Traffic Commissioner as he or she removes the vocational licence.

I would assume they would say, you should have parked up when the 15 hours was up, if the place to park was full up, you are permitted to carry on driving to the next available secure parking area, then record that on the print out.

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I do not quite understand what you are saying…
At the end of your long shift you would have had a daily rest of 7hr40min within the 24 day? But before the start of your long shift you only had daily rest from 02hr00 until 09hr00 ? Is that correct?

So you started on Thursday at 18hr00 and did not have a daily rest period until…? When?
Maybe I have misunderstood, but it looks like a 28hr20min period with no daily rest period!

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Im confused at the OPs comments, saying “I never do long shifts like that”, then proceeds to do exactly that, a long shift!!!

What happened when you called the office to say you were going to be over or likely to be over the 15hrs?

Had you been stopped 5mins from the base, would you have been happy to accept the fine and PG9 to be parked up?

Perhaps as a new driver, this is an opportunity to have a chat with the Tm to understand what your options are for this type of events.

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assuming you didnt do your usual shift before starting the one you describe then there seems to be some misunderstanding. The spread over rest is if you have 3 hours solid break you can then have a shift length of 13h01 to 15h which would normally result in a reduced daily rest (less than 11h) but because you had a 3 hour + break in the middle of the shift it doesnt count as a reduced so there for doesnt count against the limit of three reduced rests between weekly rests.

however you went over your max 15 hour shift limit which i think you knew was wrong from your comments of mitigating circumstances of which there are unfortunately none. i assume from your comment that you didnt want to get as far as you reasonably could and park up because you couldnt lock the back doors you were loaded with something valuable and portable, Yet you say the place you left was secure. You should of called into the office and said i dont have time to get back to the base what do you want me to do and left it squarely in their laps. If they told you to get as far as you can then if anything happens to the load its not your issue. Im afraid vosa wont care if you didnt want to park up because of the load you still left a safe place.

If you did as has been suggested ie worked from 6pm to 2 am then come in again at 9am and done the shift described who ever asked you to do that wants shot as it is far far worse in terms of infringements. If they told you that you can do it because of the spread over rule then the tm wants a strong word with them. The planners should know the rules just as well as the drivers. Unfortunately it doesnt get you out the sticky stuff

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I had the required 9h rest before this long shift (work finishes at 2am on average, but got off earlier the day before). Also, the long shift started at 9:00am and ended at 1:20am the next day. Then 60 hours rest.

I didn’t call the tm when the time was up, I just drove on. I remember reading somewhere that if the overrun was less than 1h and you were returning to base, DVSA would not look upon it too harshly.

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thanks for the clarification.

Your assuming a lot there. they may or may not fine you it depends on all sorts of things. broadly never assume it doesnt matter that attitude while i understand it as a newbie will get you into trouble in the future. By all means be helpful if you wish to be but always make sure the work can be done easily with in 12 hours max then you have a three hour window for delays etc. At the end of the day if something goes wrong you can bet your bottom dollar the company wont thank you.

Thing is when you left the safe site for a collection i assume you had already done aprox 13h 50 so only had an hour to get back to the yard apparently 120 miles away. Even if you decided to risk it because you believe the dvsa give you an hours leeway thats still an average speed of 60mph. All lorries are governed to 56 so you couldnt make it even if you could do 56 the entire way and im sure you didnt attempt to do that

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I know, it’s all these assumptions that got me this infringement. When I was on site, I was frantically trying to hook up my last trailer, and what with having to shunt another trailer out of the way, I didn’t quite calculated the return journey properly. But yeah, it’s a strict offence, nothing I can do now but deal with the fallout.

As for consequences, there is DVSA, tm office and, let’s say, future employement. Again, newbie questions, so please don’t shut me down.

DVSA, if outside the 28 days window, won’t be looking at it unless they have a specific reason for it (pattern etc.). If inside the 28 days, and no leniency, would it be fine + points?

TM office, verbal/written warning? This shift shouldn’t have spilled over, so it’s on my head for not calling in.

Future employement. Let’s say I move jobs in 3 months time. They’ll be having a look at my card and see this infringement. They’re not DVSA, so I could explain it with more ‘flair’, but it’s still an infringement. How much of an issue is this, typically?

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thats a little bit of a ball of string question. it all depends. The thing is you are new you have made a mistake you have admitted the mistake. dont try and blag it. hold your hands up to whom ever is asking as you have done on here.

certain companies may want a clean record for x period of time. others may say no more than x number of infringements. The dvsa dont go past 28 days as far as fines go. however they look at the whole record. if there is a pattern of it then they are more likly to look harder and for the want of a better word be less understanding.

Im sure you have done this do a print out and write the explanation on the back keep that with you. from what you have said you made a mistake calculating the travel time and ended up going over the 15h. You have tried to rectify the extra long shift by booking off for more than the minimum time. Just try not to make a habit of it.

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Thanks Stuart, house (old mill) is like an oven these days. 28 degrees of sticky heat, no aircon of course. But not worried, decent British wet weather never too far way.

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DVSA do not allow running back to the yard or operating base if the driving hours or duty hours have been exceeded, the problem is they don’t want drivers falling asleep at the wheel from fatigue then kill innocent motorists to wipe out a whole family in a car.
There are no unwritten rules for the government authorities or what Dave the forklift driver in the yard said 50 years ago.

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Yeah, I’ll do the printout before my next shift.

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Ok, thanks for clarifying that.

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i think the issue is that someone doesnt get fined by the dvsa for x infringement and takes the reason given as gospel but either neglects to give or deliberately leaves out all the mitigating circumstances . it then gets bandied about and becomes truth.

of course there is the jelousy factor as well of i got done for x but he didnt because he lied and said x y z.

the whole thing becomes a giant game of chinese whispers that the traffic office gets to hear and repeats willy nilly to persuade drivers to break the rules.