So does this statement by VOSA really reflect reality? Research shows that a considerable proportion of vehicle accidents, are sleep related, especially those on motorways. When drivers are fatigued, vigilance and alertness deteriorate. This results in adverse changes in performance, including increased line crossing and poor speed control. Driver fatigue can account for up to one in five serious crashes. The drivers’ hours rules are there to help ensure our roads are safe for people to use and reduce the many deaths and injuries which happen on the roads each year.
When legally you could be on duty for 90 hours over(using split breaks) 135 hours or even over 144 hours!
Is this acceptable to drivers?
Not really, no. It always makes me angry when I hear on the news about some poor sod being prosecuted because he’s fallen asleep at the wheel and caused an incident. Show me an industry where 15 hour working days are not only legal but common, and I’ll show you an industry in which people fall asleep at work.
chester:
We can do 15hrs duty (which I find bonkers)
Although no driver can be forced to work more than 13hrs!!!
Duty and rest must be taken in a 24hr period.
13hrs duty + 11hrs rest = 24hr period
Do many folks put this into practice! Probably not.
I always did … but we can still legally do two 15 hour days each week, when we can drop our daily rest down to nine hours. I know it’s at the driver’s discretion and yada yada yada, but it takes some strength of character to point that out to an irate transport manager!
EU tacho regs are a load of nonsense purely for the sake of complexity and the hordes of enforcement agencies required to police the ordinary man trying to make head or tail of it all.
Here in Canada I work longer hours than I ever did in the UK. Just today for example I did an 8 hour non-stop drive to get home, yet I’m actually less tired and stressed than in the UK because I’m not clock watching and fretting about trying to park the truck, when I don’t actually need to, in all of the non-existant parking spaces because an electronic machine is beeping and about to criminalise me for veering from robotic perfection that looks well and good on paper in Brussels or Vosa head office but has absolutely no bearing on reality at the coal face, or in this case the drivers seat.
We need basic rules but the current system is a bureaucratic nightmare and is not fit for use by the ordinary man, people are not machines with an on and off button. A much more relaxed version of very simple and easy rules are whats needed and I’d love to see the end of drivers being scared of being prosecuted for minor offences that amount to minutes, rather than hours.
As for the authorities in some EU countries who fine drivers thousands of Euro’s for the smallest of offences or technicalities such as not having a letter of attestation etc. They are bigger tyrants than the average SS man or Stasi operative. We’ve sleep walked in to the quintessential Orwellian utopia and most of us don’t even realise it.
chester:
We can do 15hrs duty (which I find bonkers)
Although no driver can be forced to work more than 13hrs!!!
Duty and rest must be taken in a 24hr period.
13hrs duty + 11hrs rest = 24hr period
Do many folks put this into practice! Probably not.
but it’s perfectly legal to reduce your rest from 11 hours to 9 hours 3 times between weekly rest periods, meaning a 15 hour working day still fits into the 24 hour period
You can only work a 15 hour shift if you’ve got a 9 hour rest available, if you work 15 hours and then have 11 hours off, you’ve still used a 9.
of course you can use a split shift to get to 15 hours without using a 9.
robinhood_1984:
EU tacho regs are a load of nonsense purely for the sake of complexity and the hordes of enforcement agencies required to police the ordinary man trying to make head or tail of it all.
Here in Canada I work longer hours than I ever did in the UK. Just today for example I did an 8 hour non-stop drive to get home, yet I’m actually less tired and stressed than in the UK because I’m not clock watching and fretting about trying to park the truck, when I don’t actually need to, in all of the non-existant parking spaces because an electronic machine is beeping and about to criminalise me for veering from robotic perfection that looks well and good on paper in Brussels or Vosa head office but has absolutely no bearing on reality at the coal face, or in this case the drivers seat.
We need basic rules but the current system is a bureaucratic nightmare and is not fit for use by the ordinary man, people are not machines with an on and off button. A much more relaxed version of very simple and easy rules are whats needed and I’d love to see the end of drivers being scared of being prosecuted for minor offences that amount to minutes, rather than hours.
As for the authorities in some EU countries who fine drivers thousands of Euro’s for the smallest of offences or technicalities such as not having a letter of attestation etc. They are bigger tyrants than the average SS man or Stasi operative. We’ve sleep walked in to the quintessential Orwellian utopia and most of us don’t even realise it.
Well said !
Sounds like common sense prevails in Canada.
stevieboy308:
but it’s perfectly legal to reduce your rest from 11 hours to 9 hours 3 times a week meaning a 15 hour working day still fits into the 24 hour period
3 times between weekly rests
I find that daftest bit is that a driver doing alternate days can only do that for so long before it becomes illegal due to the 45 hours off rule
stevieboy308:
but it’s perfectly legal to reduce your rest from 11 hours to 9 hours 3 times a week meaning a 15 hour working day still fits into the 24 hour period
3 times between weekly rests
I find that daftest bit is that a driver doing alternate days can only do that for so long before it becomes illegal due to the 45 hours off rule
Rhythm Thief:
Not really, no. It always makes me angry when I hear on the news about some poor sod being prosecuted because he’s fallen asleep at the wheel and caused an incident. Show me an industry where 15 hour working days are not only legal but common, and I’ll show you an industry in which people fall asleep at work.
Oh yeah … I was reading it with a “ch” sound rather than a “sh” sound.
Mind you, you’re unlikely to fall asleep while on your feet in a busy kitchen environment, and if you do the result will be no worse than a burnt souffle or an overcooked steak. Try falling asleep in a truck on the motorway and see if the results are any worse … of all the industries to have an ingrained and widely accepted long hours culture, it seems to me that trucking is one of the least obvious. We should really be like train drivers or airline pilots, with rigid 8 hour shift limits and 35 hour working weeks, or whatever the numbers are. But that’s not going to happen, sadly.
Rhythm Thief:
Oh yeah … I was reading it with a “ch” sound rather than a “sh” sound.
Mind you, you’re unlikely to fall asleep while on your feet in a busy kitchen environment, and if you do the result will be no worse than a burnt souffle or an overcooked steak. Try falling asleep in a truck on the motorway and see if the results are any worse … of all the industries to have an ingrained and widely accepted long hours culture, it seems to me that trucking is one of the least obvious. We should really be like train drivers or airline pilots, with rigid 8 hour shift limits and 35 hour working weeks, or whatever the numbers are. But that’s not going to happen, sadly.
a kitchen is a dangerous place fella, sharp knives, hot oil, hot surfaces, naked flames etc. I knew one chef who died at work in a kitchen. Granted chefs may not be falling asleep, but it’s the mistakes that happen when tired
I don’t get why trucking isn’t an obvious long hours gig, to travel long distance takes time!!
And anyway, an overcooked steak is a big deal to me!!
stevieboy308:
a kitchen is a dangerous place fella, sharp knives, hot oil, hot surfaces, naked flames etc. I knew one chef who died at work in a kitchen. Granted chefs may not be falling asleep, but it’s the mistakes that happen when tired
I don’t get why trucking isn’t an obvious long hours gig, to travel long distance takes time!!
And anyway, an overcooked steak is a big deal to me!!
Yes, point taken. I like my steaks rarer than rare, too. I don’t actually understand why anyone is putting in ridiculous hours at work these days, be they chefs, teachers, bankers, drivers or anyone else. Why we’re not all on a three day week, enjoying more leisure time and all the other things that 21st century society should deliver, I don’t know. But truck driving - or any other operating-heavy-machinery-in-a-public-environment job - you’d have thought it would be subject to much tighter controls on how tired the operator of that machine can be while at work. I know lorries have become easier to drive, but the guy behind the wheel hasn’t changed much for two million years.
Young doctors tend to do long shifts when they are starting out, I know they can ■■■■■■ a kip here & there but still, being worked on by a tired doctor is not my idea of fun. Also heard they are trying to change pilots hours to the extent that they may be required to land a plane full of passengers after 22 hours on shift, slightly harder than reversing onto a dock with a trailer full of toilet rolls I would say.
But that’s just my point. We have the capacity to cause some real carnage if we nod off at the wheel, yet it’s just accepted that lorry drivers work long hours. We’ve all seen those overhead signs on the motorway that say “Don’t Drive While Tired”, we’ve all seen the DVLA advice to have a break every two hours on a long journey and we all know that if no one drove while tired, very little would ever get delivered. I don’t deny that other professions also have their long hours cultures, but I do say that’s wrong too. No one - doctors, airline pilots, chefs, farmers, drivers, even MPs and bankers - should be working more than a civilised 8 hour day, and if I had my way it’d be rather less than that. But the culture in this country now is to expect more and more work for lower and lower rewards, in all professions, and the inevitable result of that is that more people are tired at work and more mistakes and accidents happen.
