Have I Gone Over WTD on Tacho?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

I know this is bare basics, but I’m quite fresh to this and this is bugging me badly, and can’t get a straight answer online looking at the rules. Please shed some light on my issue and ease my worry.
The story going like this -

I started at 1630, drove for 3 hours, waited outside depo for my booking, so break for 3 hours and turned up at the depo, disconnected and break in the cab for 5 hours, drove back 3 hours, so ended up taking Tacho out 0900 and combined it’s 16.5 hours. Went home.
I took a 9 hour continuous break before putting Tacho on again at 1830.

Is there a problem here. I am thinking I’ve gone over Working Time Directive by doing 16.5 hours before a continuous break, but it all mainly consisted of rest periods?

2

I THINK (and I may be wrong) you got the infringment for doing over 15 hrs from duty start to taking your minimum 9 hours.
I dont fully understand the whole split daily rest thing so I may be wrong but I think after the 15 hr working day was up you needed your minimum 9 hrs then. One of your first 3 hrs counted as daily break but when it got to 0730 you needed to take another 9 hours there.

3

The-Snowman:
I THINK (and I may be wrong) you got the infringment for doing over 15 hrs from duty start to taking your minimum 9 hours.
I dont fully understand the whole split daily rest thing so I may be wrong but I think after the 15 hr working day was up you needed your minimum 9 hrs then. One of your first 3 hrs counted as daily break but when it got to 0730 you needed to take another 9 hours there.

I haven’t got an official infringement, this only happened a few days ago and I’ve been rattling the Internet to see if I have actually done anything wrong?

4

Working time directive is ok, but you’ve had insufficient daily rest.
If you started at 16:30 then you should finish at 07:30 at the latest. By finishing at 09:00 as you say you’ve done 16.5 hours so 24 minus 16.5 means you’ve only had 7.5 hours daily rest

5

wing-nut:
Working time directive is ok, but you’ve had insufficient daily rest.
If you started at 16:30 then you should finish at 07:30 at the latest. By finishing at 09:00 as you say you’ve done 16.5 hours so 24 minus 16.5 means you’ve only had 7.5 hours daily rest

On the mentioned day I finished at 0900 and returned to work inserting my Tacho @ 1830. This is 9.5 hours surely? I’d had a 3 hour rest during the working day, so this covers me for the 12 hours daily rest? Or have I made a mistake?

Is doing 16.5 hours not an issue for the WTD?

6

daily rest should be taken within 24 hours, yours is out so yes looks like an infringement for not taking your daily rest

7

Priest:
daily rest should be taken within 24 hours, yours is out so yes looks like an infringement for not taking your daily rest

Yeah just clicked. So what happens? I get fined, go court?

8

In each rolling period of 24 hours you have to have 11 hours daily rest, but 3 times a week you can reduce it to 9 hours so if you take the 9 hours from 24 it leaves 15 hours that you can work.

Have a read through this from governments website
gov.uk/government/uploads/s … europe.pdf

or this may make it easier to understand
transportsfriend.org/hours/rest.html

Best to do 4 tacho print outs, 2 from start day, 2 from finish day, write explanation on backs and give copy of each to boss and keep copies for yourself in case you get stopped.

9

Shellshocker:
I know this is bare basics, but I’m quite fresh to this and this is bugging me badly, and can’t get a straight answer online looking at the rules. Please shed some light on my issue and ease my worry.
The story going like this -

I started at 1630, drove for 3 hours, waited outside depo for my booking, so break for 3 hours and turned up at the depo, disconnected and break in the cab for 5 hours, drove back 3 hours, so ended up taking Tacho out 0900 and combined it’s 16.5 hours. Went home.
I took a 9 hour continuous break before putting Tacho on again at 1830.

Is there a problem here. I am thinking I’ve gone over Working Time Directive by doing 16.5 hours before a continuous break, but it all mainly consisted of rest periods?

I’m assuming this was a single manned journey not multi-manned ?

If that’s the case then it’s an offence under the drivers hours regulations not the WTD (Working Time Directive).

For a single manned journey the daily rest period must be completed within the period of 24 hours from the start of the shift, as you started at 16:30 then did a total shift of 16.5 hours that only leaves 7.5 hours daily rest within the 24 hour period.

Because you had a rest period of 3 or more hours during the shift you had a split daily rest period, however it makes no difference because the second part of a split daily rest period has to be at-least 9 consecutive hours rest which must be completed within the 24 hour period.

If you work directly for a company I’m afraid you will get an infringement for insufficient daily rest, if you get stopped by the DVSA and you’re a new driver hopefully they should be understanding if you explain that you wasn’t aware that the daily rest period has to be completed within the 24 hour period from the start of the shift.

In the unlikely event that you was multi-manning there has been no offence committed.

Rules on Drivers Hours and Tachographs

10

Shellshocker:
So what happens? I get fined, go court?

You definitely won’t be taken to court, I know this will be a disappointment but you won’t even get coffee and biscuits with the TC :wink:

The worst case scenario would be a fine but if you’re a new driver I would hope you’d get no more than a verbal warning, can’t guarantee it though I’m afraid :wink:

11

Shellshocker:

Priest:
daily rest should be taken within 24 hours, yours is out so yes looks like an infringement for not taking your daily rest

Yeah just clicked. So what happens? I get fined, go court?

Well if you listen to some of the “squeaky clean never do anything wrong” types on this forum then you’ll be flogged and be doing hard labour after they burn your license and should never get behind the wheel of an hgv ever again since you are now an absolute menace to the profession and have a total disregard for the law and obviously feel the rules dont apply to you :laughing:
In reality however,its extremelly unlikely that anything will come of it. It’ll drop off your card in about 28 days and if you ARE stopped (Ive been stopped twice in 6 years) then as long as its a once off then you should get off with a warning. You might get a fine for being over your working day but you might not. Your company might issue a “heres an infringment on your card, sign to say you know what you did wrong” letter but I doubt anything more will come of it.
Dont worry about it

12

The-Snowman:
(Ive been stopped twice in 6 years)

Twice in 6 years?? Think they’ve got there eye on you. I’ve been stopped 4 times in 37 years :laughing: :laughing:

13

wing-nut:

The-Snowman:
(Ive been stopped twice in 6 years)

Twice in 6 years?? Think they’ve got there eye on you. I’ve been stopped 4 times in 37 years :laughing: :laughing:

Bit of a habit there Wingnut, I reckon you should consider going to Vosastop Anonymous Meetings to get it out of your system [emoji1]

I’ve been stopped 3 times (that I can remember) in 30 years, all whilst driving for waste companies (bit of a target for Vosa) only got 1 warning for running with a defective speed limiter/no speed limiter on a Volvo Roll On, she used to do 65, (I felt like a Paddy pulling 50 tons of Hanging Beef from Stranraer to Dover in 6 hours) we used to race down to Luton on a Saturday morning to be first in the queue, the rest of the boys used to wonder how I kept winning [emoji6] until I got found out [emoji57]

14

Shellshocker:

Priest:
daily rest should be taken within 24 hours, yours is out so yes looks like an infringement for not taking your daily rest

Yeah just clicked. So what happens? I get fined, go court?

In my experience nothing will happen just sign the infringement sheet when you get it from your gaffer…

15

I think the important bit you missed is, as Tachograph said, you nine hours daily rest must be taken within twenty four hours from the START of your shift. I only mention this because many years ago I made the same mistake and people explained it to me but I kept missing the start of the shift bit.

16

wing-nut:

The-Snowman:
(Ive been stopped twice in 6 years)

Twice in 6 years?? Think they’ve got there eye on you. I’ve been stopped 4 times in 37 years :laughing: :laughing:

:laughing:
First time was my own fault coming up the M6 and I missed the “hgvs stay in left lane” sign and pulled out to overtake. Second time was near Stirling and I was driving a beat up Merc rigid. I knew Id get stopped cause I was around 45 minutes up on the usual time for that run and looking at a 4pm finish rather than the usual 6 oclock so an hours roadside check was on the flippin cards! :laughing:

17

You are right bare basics,15 hrs max is 15hrs

18

yorkshire terrier:

Shellshocker:

Priest:
daily rest should be taken within 24 hours, yours is out so yes looks like an infringement for not taking your daily rest

Yeah just clicked. So what happens? I get fined, go court?

In my experience nothing will happen just sign the infringement sheet when you get it from your gaffer…

I got distracted at the end of shift a few backs and left my card in all night, ofcourse it was on ‘other work’.
About the second time ive done it in 4 years.
The ensuing fuss and bollox from my firm when the infringement came through was beyond belief.
You’d think I’d just driven for 10 hours straight without a break, had 2 hours daily rest and then driven another 10 hours straight. Funny thing is, by the “systems” reckoning, I would have had to of worked for 31 hours straight with just two 30 minute breaks. Richard heads. :unamused:

19

Everyone has already pointed out what you have done wrong - and I’ll be condescending and say you really should have known better - this is basic stuff.

With regard to what will happen - very little. DVSA can only issue a fixed penalty (and this is a £200 offence) for an offence detected on that day and cannot issue a penalty for a historic offence. So no fixed penalty.

If you are stopped within 28 days the DVSA will take great delight in pointing the offence out to you even though they can’t do anything about it - call it a verbal warning. As long as you have no other offences in your 28 days don’t worry. If you have 4 or more offences then you may be off to court.

After 28 days I doubt it’ll ever be an issue even if DVSA carry out a site visit

I’ll finish by saying you really do need to have a read of the rules and at least try to comply.

20

shep532:
DVSA can only issue a fixed penalty (and this is a £200 offence) for an offence detected on that day and cannot issue a penalty for a historic offence

I thought they could do up to 6 months ?