m_attt:
Yes 13+ can be planned an expected for drivers to do it. I work for a supermarket and most of the Cornwall runs take at least 13 hours. Some ask for short runs most just crack on an get on with it.
But can the employer legally enforce their expectations, if the driver refuses on the grounds he would suffer excessive fatigue? What system for monitoring and controlling fatigue does your employer implement?
Why do they suddenly become excessivly fatigued at 13 hours? Surley if driving makes them tired it will be at 8 or 9 hours maybe less.
End of the day if driving makes you to tired to do the job, find another one.
m_attt:
Yes 13+ can be planned an expected for drivers to do it. I work for a supermarket and most of the Cornwall runs take at least 13 hours. Some ask for short runs most just crack on an get on with it.
But can the employer legally enforce their expectations, if the driver refuses on the grounds he would suffer excessive fatigue? What system for monitoring and controlling fatigue does your employer implement?
Why do they suddenly become excessivly fatigued at 13 hours? Surley if driving makes them tired it will be at 8 or 9 hours maybe less.
End of the day if driving makes you to tired to do the job, find another one.
Depends if while he’s sat on a bay, he’s have a kip or browsing XHamster!
m_attt:
Yes 13+ can be planned an expected for drivers to do it. I work for a supermarket and most of the Cornwall runs take at least 13 hours. Some ask for short runs most just crack on an get on with it.
But can the employer legally enforce their expectations, if the driver refuses on the grounds he would suffer excessive fatigue? What system for monitoring and controlling fatigue does your employer implement?
Why do they suddenly become excessivly fatigued at 13 hours? Surley if driving makes them tired it will be at 8 or 9 hours maybe less.
End of the day if driving makes you to tired to do the job, find another one.
Perfect example of why we need flexibility. m-attt is obviously able to run max hours and stay alert, not everbody can. Obviously you can’t make a tired driver work beyond the limits of safety, but why punish the driver that is willing and able to do so safely?
Kerragy:
Perfect example of why we need flexibility. m-attt is obviously able to run max hours and stay alert, not everbody can. Obviously you can’t make a tired driver work beyond the limits of safety, but why punish the driver that is willing and able to do so safely?
Because we need to protect heroes,who think that the laws of biology,which shut down the human brain,effectively without warning,when it’s not had enough sleep,from themselves and more importantly the general public.IE driving even potentially while tired is at least as serious as driving while drunk.In which case no one is exempt from the risks contained within the EU reduced daily rest regime.While even compliance with any stated specific hours regs limits is still no defence against driving while tired.Which is why the wording contained within the domestic regs,as they stand in that regard,is more or less as good as it gets.
Half the problem is the fact everyone is different and need different amounts of sleep. I get by comfortably on 5 or 6 hours a night every night apart from one lie in a week, some need much more, some less. The chap who himself came up with the 8 hours figure admitted himself a while back that he plucked 8 hours sleep out of thin air when the government wanted a recommended amount of sleep, it wasn’t based on anything scientific. Obviously set rules and laws regarding working time are necessary but they can never be ideal for everyone
switchlogic:
Half the problem is the fact everyone is different and need different amounts of sleep. I get by comfortably on 5 or 6 hours a night every night apart from one lie in a week, some need much more, some less. The chap who himself came up with the 8 hours figure admitted himself a while back that he plucked 8 hours sleep out of thin air when the government wanted a recommended amount of sleep, it wasn’t based on anything scientific. Obviously set rules and laws regarding working time are necessary but they can never be ideal for everyone
A regime which says that driving for more than 4.5 or 9 hours total,is supposedly more of a risk than pandering to the heroes who think that 5-6 hours sleep between shifts is enough,isn’t fit for purpose.Bearing in mind that the sleep switch is an involuntary,reflex action that arbitrarily decides for itself what is/was enough sleep often based on a retrospectively applied compensatory threshold.Which no one has any control over,or any actual knowledge of where that biological threshold for triggering it,actually is.The idea of a 9 hour daily rest regime being an unacceptable risk in that regard especially if it’s applied to commuting type jobs as opposed to away from base night out operations.
m_attt:
Yes 13+ can be planned an expected for drivers to do it. I work for a supermarket and most of the Cornwall runs take at least 13 hours. Some ask for short runs most just crack on an get on with it.
But can the employer legally enforce their expectations, if the driver refuses on the grounds he would suffer excessive fatigue? What system for monitoring and controlling fatigue does your employer implement?
Why do they suddenly become excessivly fatigued at 13 hours? Surley if driving makes them tired it will be at 8 or 9 hours maybe less.
Your reasoning is impeccable.
The question is whether a driver is particularly prone to become exhausted at anything beyond 13 hours, and that the risk of this occurring is so great that no real reliance can be put on scheduling a driver for more than 13 hours (without the risk of a driver either having to abridge the planned schedule due to exhaustion, or, if the employer exerts pressure, then the risk that the driver will inappropriately continue to work).
The accepted research on fatigue shows, if I remember correctly, that performance degrades consistently beyond 6 hours work, and dramatically after 12.
It also shows that the average response of a large sample of workers can probably give reasonable feedback about fatigue, but single individuals are not the best judges of the effects of fatigue on their own performance - the same as how a large group of drivers can normally give a good judgment about the effects of drink on their driving performance, but some individuals are totally unable to make appropriate judgments.
End of the day if driving makes you to tired to do the job, find another one.
The law places the same obligation on the employer: if the scheduling makes drivers tired (to an excessive degree), then they must take steps to manage the risk.
switchlogic:
Half the problem is the fact everyone is different and need different amounts of sleep. I get by comfortably on 5 or 6 hours a night every night apart from one lie in a week, some need much more, some less. The chap who himself came up with the 8 hours figure admitted himself a while back that he plucked 8 hours sleep out of thin air when the government wanted a recommended amount of sleep, it wasn’t based on anything scientific. Obviously set rules and laws regarding working time are necessary but they can never be ideal for everyone
Actually the “8 hours sleep” rule, as a folk judgment about what is normally necessary, goes back long before living memory - not something recently invented by some chap with a wild imagination.
Research tends to show people can indeed “get by” on 6 hours (but no less) a night, and report little subjective discomfort from it, but it does have an impact on measured performance.
And perhaps more to the point, employers are not entitled to run their operation in general as if they employed only Stakhanovites - particularly if the driver himself is saying he is exhausted, they are not entitled to ignore that.
The law is that employers need to consider fatigue issues caused by their scheduling, it’s as simple as that.
You’re boringly relentless aren’t you. My post referred to not wishing to enter further into this debate. It was a hint…
Take my hint then, you don’t need to tell us when you’re intending to discuss the matter no further.
I’ve had this argument here several times now (I’m sure three times in the past couple of weeks), where people each time claim, in a boringly relentless fashion, that the employer is entitled to schedule work however they please within the EU drivers’ hours rules, as if no other safety or employment law applies.
If these posters were not so boringly relentless in the rubbish they keep trying to assert (none of it for the benefit of drivers in general), I would not have to keep rebutting it at such length, which consumes my time too but is necessary to show evidence and hammer home that my opponents do not know what they are talking about at all.
Trucknet and the transport industry survived just fine before you popped your wordy head above the parapet and it’ll survive just fine once you’ve suffered the inevitable Trucknet burnout. Thanks for trying to save the industry and this forum though, I’m sure at least one person is grateful.
‘My opponents’ was though, do you think you’re at a university debating society?
Rjan:
I’ve had this argument here several times now (I’m sure three times in the past couple of weeks), where people each time claim, in a boringly relentless fashion, that the employer is entitled to schedule work however they please within the EU drivers’ hours rules, as if no other safety or employment law applies.
I’d also like to point out for the record, as it seems to have passed you by in your eagerness to mount this crusade, that I’ve not disagreed with or posted anything to contradict what you’ve said on this thread.
switchlogic:
I’d also like to point out for the record, as it seems to have passed you by in your eagerness to mount this crusade, that I’ve not disagreed with or posted anything to contradict what you’ve said on this thread.
I had noticed, which is why I thought your response was odd.
If people want to keep posting tosh, then I may well tell them it’s tosh, perhaps even many times over, and on a series of threads.
though, do you think you’re at a university debating society?