Kerragy:
Have a word with yourself will you?
I think you should. There were guys in the camps who refused to run, trustees habituated to their misery. Same on here, some guys outraged at the thought of spending just 11 hours outside their workplace! “Nine’s enough”, they scream, “I only use six of 'em for sleeping”.
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
So, how long is the average nights sleep in Chez Carryfast?
[/quoteSeriously as in your case sleep patterns generally seem to be a case of what will power has created through necessity.
On that note I’ve rarely been asked or needed to work more than a 12 hour shift other than exceptional circumstances and told the guvnor to shove it on the only job I can remember where he tried.Which by definition means no way would I do any job involving less than around 8 hours sleep between shifts especially if it involves driving anything or operating machinery.
Not wishing to cause a rent here between you two. I see Luke’s thinking in his personal choice. I also see what Carryfast is referring to which I think is a different point. Limited sleep may work for some but it shouldn’t be forced upon people. I regularly have 6 hour sleep forced on me by 24 hour (in my book down right Dickensian) rest periods. Through time difference the second sleep period is 4-6 hours long. I don’t function anywhere near normally. Adrenaline gets me through a stage but I’m destroyed by the time I’m home 15 -20 hours later.
Rjan:
Kerragy:
Have a word with yourself will you?I think you should. There were guys in the camps who refused to run, trustees habituated to their misery. Same on here, some guys outraged at the thought of spending just 11 hours outside their workplace! “Nine’s enough”, they scream, “I only use six of 'em for sleeping”.
You need to get some perspective pal. If you think that driving a lorry bears even the vaguest similarity to life in a concentration camp then you are damaged. If you think that it is in any way an appropriate comparison for comedic effect, you are wrong.
If you’re Carryfast and think that having two accounts is a jolly jape, you could spare the rest of us and just email yourself your thoughts back and forth.
In any case, don’t presume to tell me how much sleep I need or want. Just because you appear to want the Road Freight industry to become as reactionary and uncompetitive as the railways made themselves, it doesn’t mean we have to join in. I am quite capable of staying safe, enjoying the job and earning a living for the company and myself without being exploited.
Anyway I always the Union to fall back on if I need to, n’est pas?
Freight Dog:
I regularly have 6 hour sleep forced on me by 24 hour (in my book down right Dickensian) rest periods.
I may be being a bit naïve, but how are these 6 hour sleep periods FORCED on you by 24 hour rest periods?
Surely they are FORCED on you by your employer or yourself by accepting it?
I get the impression some posts on here seem to suggest the Drivers Hours rules mean you HAVE to work to the limits, which is where Rjan for all his typing is offering a valid point.
shep532:
Freight Dog:
I regularly have 6 hour sleep forced on me by 24 hour (in my book down right Dickensian) rest periods.I may be being a bit naïve, but how are these 6 hour sleep periods FORCED on you by 24 hour rest periods?
Surely they are FORCED on you by your employer or yourself by accepting it?
I get the impression some posts on here seem to suggest the Drivers Hours rules mean you HAVE to work to the limits, which is where Rjan for all his typing is offering a valid point.
Because 24 hours rest is a reversal. 15 Hours rest is less fatiguing, so is 36. They’re not reversals.
You can’t obtain 2 decent rest periods within 24 hours. The body clock refuses to do it. For instance I arrive at X at 2100 UK time/ 1600 place X time. I leave 2100 the following night.
You have some dinner, wind down and go to bed at 1800/1900. You wake up at 0100 place X time. You then mess around in the small hours, go to the gym, watch a movie and finally have breakfast. You are wide awake. Around 11am/12pm you know you need to sleep again. The body isn’t ready to go to sleep again. The most anyone says they get is 5 hours after lying wide awake. Quite often it’s less and consists of naps by waking up, reading a book. You then start in the evening for work. By the next day you’re missing a whole nights proper sleep and completely frazzled.
Rest, back to days, rinse and repeat.
You say accepting it, but there’s no alternative unless you wish to jack in the whole field. It’s the legal hours applied industry wide and are standardly adopted now, whereas some years ago they weren’t targets.
Freight Dog:
shep532:
Freight Dog:
I regularly have 6 hour sleep forced on me by 24 hour (in my book down right Dickensian) rest periods.I may be being a bit naïve, but how are these 6 hour sleep periods FORCED on you by 24 hour rest periods?
Surely they are FORCED on you by your employer or yourself by accepting it?
I get the impression some posts on here seem to suggest the Drivers Hours rules mean you HAVE to work to the limits, which is where Rjan for all his typing is offering a valid point.
Because 24 hours rest is a reversal. 15 Hours rest is less fatiguing, so is 36. They’re not reversals.
You can’t obtain 2 decent rest periods within 24 hours. The body clock refuses to do it. For instance I arrive at X at 2100 UK time/ 1600 place X time. I leave 2100 the following night.
You have some dinner, wind down and go to bed at 1800/1900. You wake up at 0100 place X time. You then mess around in the small hours, go to the gym, watch a movie and finally have breakfast. You are wide awake. Around 11am/12pm you know you need to sleep again. The body isn’t ready to go to sleep again. The most anyone says they get is 5 hours after lying wide awake. Quite often it’s less and consists of naps by waking up, reading a book. You then start in the evening for work. By the next day you’re missing a whole nights proper sleep and completely frazzled.
Rest, back to days, rinse and repeat.
You say accepting it, but there’s no alternative unless you wish to jack in the whole field. It’s the legal hours applied industry wide and are standardly adopted now, whereas some years ago they weren’t targets.
I’m with Freight Dog. 24s and to a slightly lesser extent the 45 are crap. 36 was so much better, one day off, two decent nights sleep and be back at work at your usual shift time.
Rjan:
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?
If you suffer from excessive fatigue then from being planned a 15 hr day you shouldn’t be driving a truck if its a one off.
I max my hours every week and am I tired no. Unfortunately operational requirements require a drivers to work there max hours each week.
What other laws are being broken by planned a driver for 15 day. I think your either trolling or an armchair lawer trying to clutch at straws to make your point, as harry posted earlier your trying to confuse people in to thinking that they will be breaking some law or another if they do over 13 hrs shift in a 24 hr working period. Which they wouldn’t break any laws what so ever so to answer the OPs question yes its perfectly legal to be planned for 15 hr shift
alix776:
I max my hours every week and am I tired no. Unfortunately operational requirements require a drivers to work there max hours each week.What other laws are being broken by planned a driver for 15 day. I think your either trolling or an armchair lawer trying to clutch at straws to make your point, as harry posted earlier your trying to confuse people in to thinking that they will be breaking some law or another if they do over 13 hrs shift in a 24 hr working period. Which they wouldn’t break any laws what so ever so to answer the OPs question yes its perfectly legal to be planned for 15 hr shift
Until,like anyone else,biology potentially and arbitrarily decides otherwise.In which case feel free to use compliance with EU hours regs as a defence against a charge up to and including causing death by dangerous driving.In which case hopefully Rjan would be working for the prosecution. 
Kerragy:
You need to get some perspective pal. If you think that driving a lorry bears even the vaguest similarity to life in a concentration camp then you are damaged. If you think that it is in any way an appropriate comparison for comedic effect, you are wrong.
Gallows humour I suppose.
If you’re Carryfast and think that having two accounts is a jolly jape, you could spare the rest of us and just email yourself your thoughts back and forth.
This old canard. 
In any case, don’t presume to tell me how much sleep I need or want. Just because you appear to want the Road Freight industry to become as reactionary and uncompetitive as the railways made themselves, it doesn’t mean we have to join in. I am quite capable of staying safe, enjoying the job and earning a living for the company and myself without being exploited.
Anyway I always the Union to fall back on if I need to, n’est pas?
Oh no! Competitiveness! That means crap hourly rates, poor conditions, and no pension. 
Rjan:
Kerragy:
You need to get some perspective pal. If you think that driving a lorry bears even the vaguest similarity to life in a concentration camp then you are damaged. If you think that it is in any way an appropriate comparison for comedic effect, you are wrong.Gallows humour I suppose.
If you’re Carryfast and think that having two accounts is a jolly jape, you could spare the rest of us and just email yourself your thoughts back and forth.
This old canard.
In any case, don’t presume to tell me how much sleep I need or want. Just because you appear to want the Road Freight industry to become as reactionary and uncompetitive as the railways made themselves, it doesn’t mean we have to join in. I am quite capable of staying safe, enjoying the job and earning a living for the company and myself without being exploited.
Anyway I always the Union to fall back on if I need to, n’est pas?Oh no! Competitiveness! That means crap hourly rates, poor conditions, and no pension.
You’ve talked me around actually.
I agree with what you said now.
alix776:
Which they wouldn’t break any laws what so ever so to answer the OPs question yes its perfectly legal to be planned for 15 hr shift
But I never said it wasn’t. There’s nothing to stop an employer booking you for 15 hours on call at home, or even a few hours work in the morning and a few in the evening, with a siesta between. Both would technically be a case of work spread over 15 hours, but the fatigue index of such imaginary luxury is quite different from my normal experience of haulage.
What I have said is that if you’re talking about 15 hour shifts, on top of an unusually early start, without any opportunity to relax for a siesta, and your work is all a bit ragged and lacking rhythm in general, then it may well be possible for employees to make the case that H&S is being breached.
And even when 15 hour shifts are planned, that doesn’t mean the vagaries of life don’t mean that an employee wouldn’t be entitled to refuse it on occasion when it turns out they’d just be too tired to do it safely. And the implication of this is that a firm would, generally, find it pointless to plan for something they weren’t able to rely on the employee carrying out.
Many larger firms, though by no means all, have apparently accepted this, and formalised it into a rule that plans are for only 13 hours max, and that any more is entirely at the employee’s discretion.
Carryfast:
alix776:
I max my hours every week and am I tired no. Unfortunately operational requirements require a drivers to work there max hours each week.What other laws are being broken by planned a driver for 15 day. I think your either trolling or an armchair lawer trying to clutch at straws to make your point, as harry posted earlier your trying to confuse people in to thinking that they will be breaking some law or another if they do over 13 hrs shift in a 24 hr working period. Which they wouldn’t break any laws what so ever so to answer the OPs question yes its perfectly legal to be planned for 15 hr shift
Until,like anyone else,biology potentially and arbitrarily decides otherwise.In which case feel free to use compliance with EU hours regs as a defence against a charge up to and including causing death by dangerous driving.In which case hopefully Rjan would be working for the prosecution.
Sorry wrong again you wouldn’t work to that level you’d stop before and take a rest stop if you we’re dropping asleep at the wheel then you’d be an idiot and asking to get the book thrown at you as usual carryfast taking things to extreme you can take a break at any time a call to the office stating I’m feeling a bit tired stopping for x amount of time for an extra break would sort the situation. Drivers days are more fluid by most of the tosh that’s in this thread
alix776:
Carryfast:
Until,like anyone else,biology potentially and arbitrarily decides otherwise.In which case feel free to use compliance with EU hours regs as a defence against a charge up to and including causing death by dangerous driving.In which case hopefully Rjan would be working for the prosecution.Sorry wrong again you wouldn’t work to that level you’d stop before and take a rest stop if you we’re dropping asleep at the wheel then you’d be an idiot
You do know that by definition many/most of the different types of symptoms caused by driving tired won’t tell you that you’re ‘falling asleep at the wheel’.In which case as I said you won’t even notice the slowed reaction times or micro sleep issues or even possibly just outright falling asleep.Nor would stopping for a break help in the case of the body applying that type of reflex action to compensate for lack of sleep even if you knew it was happening.On that note anyone doing the hero act of maxing out the stupid EU hours regs isn’t that bright.Bearing in mind that compliance with the letter of the regs,especially using the limits as a target,is absolutely no defence if/when the zb hits the fan as a result of driving tired.
switchlogic:
Freight Dog:
shep532:
Freight Dog:
I regularly have 6 hour sleep forced on me by 24 hour (in my book down right Dickensian) rest periods.I may be being a bit naïve, but how are these 6 hour sleep periods FORCED on you by 24 hour rest periods?
Surely they are FORCED on you by your employer or yourself by accepting it?
I get the impression some posts on here seem to suggest the Drivers Hours rules mean you HAVE to work to the limits, which is where Rjan for all his typing is offering a valid point.
Because 24 hours rest is a reversal. 15 Hours rest is less fatiguing, so is 36. They’re not reversals.
You can’t obtain 2 decent rest periods within 24 hours. The body clock refuses to do it. For instance I arrive at X at 2100 UK time/ 1600 place X time. I leave 2100 the following night.
You have some dinner, wind down and go to bed at 1800/1900. You wake up at 0100 place X time. You then mess around in the small hours, go to the gym, watch a movie and finally have breakfast. You are wide awake. Around 11am/12pm you know you need to sleep again. The body isn’t ready to go to sleep again. The most anyone says they get is 5 hours after lying wide awake. Quite often it’s less and consists of naps by waking up, reading a book. You then start in the evening for work. By the next day you’re missing a whole nights proper sleep and completely frazzled.
Rest, back to days, rinse and repeat.
You say accepting it, but there’s no alternative unless you wish to jack in the whole field. It’s the legal hours applied industry wide and are standardly adopted now, whereas some years ago they weren’t targets.
I’m with Freight Dog. 24s and to a slightly lesser extent the 45 are crap. 36 was so much better, one day off, two decent nights sleep and be back at work at your usual shift time.
Well put Luke. I too find 45-48 bad too, like you say less so as you’re giving the body 24 hours more to reverse. Still tough depending on what youre doing. With jet lag it goes bananas. We do, but rarely, a 2 day New York. It’s something like 15 hours off, so about 12 hours in the hotel. You come back and are tired for sure as its a lot of work in 2 days, but tired is not ruined, tired is normal after a days work. Missing a nights sleep plus jet lag is something else. A 3 day New York is hideous. That has 24 hours rest in a 3 day NY. You are ruined after that. Most blokes say they need 6 days to recover from the jet lag properly. We normally get 2 days, by law it’s 1 day then out again on a day cycle then a reversal again.
On the face of it 24 hours sounds fantastic, but is crap. Id rather have 13-15 or 36. It doesnt matter if the rest period is shorter. It’s the planning within the body clock. No use working 4 hours. 9 off, 4 hours, 9 off. That will ruin you too. People find this hard to grasp. It’s not the time off length that combats fatigue, it’s respecting the body clock. Body clock shifts are bad for you, end of. Tiredness from a long day is nothing compared to fatigue from a disturbed sleep cycle. Asking for shorter days in transport is fine. A sensible man would require rest periods that match the shorter days and respect the body’s capability to adjust slowly.
Freight Dog:
On the face of it 24 hours sounds fantastic, but is crap. Id rather have 13-15 or 36. It doesnt matter if the rest period is shorter. It’s the planning within the body clock. No use working 4 hours. 9 off, 4 hours, 9 off. That will ruin you too. People find this hard to grasp. It’s not the time off length that combats fatigue, it’s respecting the body clock. Body clock shifts are bad for you, end of. Tiredness from a long day is nothing compared to fatigue from a disturbed sleep cycle. Asking for shorter days in transport is fine. A sensible man would require rest periods that match the shorter days and respect the body’s capability to adjust slowly.
Firstly I’d guess that your sleep cycle isn’t governed by the local time applying in any of your destination points.
While what you’ve described regards body clock issues is more an issue of large changes in shift times over a short period.IE having to start a new shift at the time when you would normally have been finishing work or going to sleep.That would apply to driving just the same such as in the case of changing from nights to days over a weekend.In which case the ‘shorter’ the ‘changeover’ period the worse it is.While 4 on 4 off would obviously be easier in providing more time to get used to the switch before having to drive a truck or fly a plane.On that note I found a similar situation as you’ve described when working permanent nights when switching to/from holiday periods.In which the shorter that change between switching back to/from a daytime sleep pattern the worse it was.Especially in the case of returning from holiday over a weekend having got used to sleeping at night and starting back on nights on Monday night.While weekends were a case of not altering sleep patterns at all being that two days off just isn’t long enough to safely reverse the body clock.
While ironically holidays in the the US are good for permanent night workers in that regard.Because the time difference is actually beneficial in being able to go from night work here to daytime holiday mode there and back again with little if any body clock changes needed.
In which case the conclusion would be that potential lack of sleep between shifts,caused by the ridiculous reduced daily rest provision,is a totally different issue to that of sleep pattern disturbance caused by large changes in shift times over short periods.Both being as dangerous as each other.
Stand by everyone! He’s shoehorned the good old U. S of A in! Stand by for WWII, Hitlers sleep patterns and 6X4 units 
switchlogic:
Stand by everyone! He’s shoehorned the good old U. S of A in! Stand by for WWII, Hitlers sleep patterns and 6X4 units
To be fair I think FD might have been talking about the effects of a day return trip to NY and having to fly the plane as part of the trip. 
Carryfast:
switchlogic:
Stand by everyone! He’s shoehorned the good old U. S of A in! Stand by for WWII, Hitlers sleep patterns and 6X4 unitsTo be fair I think FD might have been talking about the effects of a day return trip to NY and having to fly the plane as part of the trip.
Ha, yeah it is my fault . What you say about short time to change the body clock is spot on though. 4 on 4 off sounds much better in lorries to do a shift change. I’ve never worked in any job doing 4/4, apart from the weekends (I work the buggers anyway) it sounds like a nice work balance that.
Freight Dog:
What you say about short time to change the body clock is spot on though. 4 on 4 off sounds much better in lorries to do a shift change. I’ve never worked in any job doing 4/4, apart from the weekends (I work the buggers anyway) it sounds like a nice work balance that.
I think in the case of having to do large shift changes between nights days 4 on 4 off would be essential at least between the points when the change has to be made assuming it’s more than a week on each.
As for permanent nights 4 on 4 off would probably be counterproductive in terms of just creating more of an incentive to try to keep changing the body clock from nights to days and longer shifts to maintain the hours.When realistically longer daily rest periods and the usual two day weekend would probably work better in that case.On that note many of the direct link pre limiter job and finish night shifts I did were ideal in that regard.In providing plenty of time to sleep and enjoy summer afternoons before starting in the late evening and finished very early hours of the next morning.While two day weekends just helped the situation regards not bothering to alter the body clock.
On balance I’d say that 4 on 4 off permanent days based on a 48-50 hour maximum week would be ideal.Although the traffic situation makes the decision between that and 5 on 2 off permanent nights based on a similar 50 hour,preferably less,max week,a close second if not a tie.
While reduced daily rest periods and/or large changes in shift times,or regular short term changes in shifts between nights to days,really need to be stamped out as a health and safety hazard in regards to either lack of sleep or body clock confusion issues.
Nothing wrong with a reduced daily rest period providing the individual can manage his or her time to cope.
Admittedly more suitable to those nighting out rather than having to incorporate a commute into that time period.
E.g. I’m fed, washed etc in working time and a reducer is used for a relaxing sleep rather than having to worry about time limits.