Yes they can, They sent out another driver to take the truck back and I was given a lift in a car home therefore I am not driving and am legally resting … what is failed about that?
discoman:
Yes they can, They sent out another driver to take the truck back and I was given a lift in a car home therefore I am not driving and am legally resting … what is failed about that?
Travelling to or from a vehicle not at base or the drivers home cannot legally be counted as rest.
(EC) 561/2006 article 9
Any time spent travelling to a location to take charge of a
vehicle falling within the scope of this Regulation, or to return
from that location, when the vehicle is neither at the driver’s
home nor at the employer’s operational centre where the
driver is normally based, shall not be counted as a rest or
break unless the driver is on a ferry or train and has access to a
bunk or couchette.Any time spent by a driver driving a vehicle which falls
outside the scope of this Regulation to or from a vehicle
which falls within the scope of this Regulation, which is not at
the driver’s home or at the employer’s operational centre
where the driver is normally based, shall count as other work.
Wrong wording, RESTING … Fact remains I was not legally allowed to stay behind the wheel as I had exceeded 15 hours on duty therefore was not legal to drive it back … therefore they were required to get a driver to get the vehicle back to there depot and due to having no kit they were obliged to get me back to the depot… I was off next day therefor rest was not an issue.
Worded wrongly agreed, but point is you still have to remember the 13/15 hour working rule.
Well I’m being a bit pedantic because most drivers would probably do what you did, but to be legal in those circumstances you had two choices:
-
Have a night out.
-
Get the company to send someone out to get you back to base in time for you to finish work and have your 9 hours reduced daily rest within the 24 hour period from start of shift.
discoman:
Wrong wording, RESTING … Fact remains I was not legally allowed to stay behind the wheel as I had exceeded 15 hours on duty therefore was not legal to drive it back … therefore they were required to get a driver to get the vehicle back to there depot and due to having no kit they were obliged to get me back to the depot… I was off next day therefor rest was not an issue.Worded wrongly agreed, but point is you still have to remember the 13/15 hour working rule.
What I am saying is that drivers speak of spreadovers which is an oldword like HGV
You say you are aware of the rest periods, but your post suggests otherwise. You must take 11hrs rest in any 24 hours,
The problem with talking about 13/15 hour spreads is when a driver starts at 6am, works until 20.00, has 11 hours off and starts at 7am.
0600 - 2000 = 14 + 11 = 25 
Would I be right in saying that if it was your last legally allowed shift before a weekly rest, you were out of working time, and could not take a reduced weekly rest, you would have no legal options left?
You cannot night out as you have no time available to work the following day
You cannot take a full weekly rest as you are away from base
You cannot be picked up as you cannot start your rest until back at base
Of course, most of us either don’t get into that situation, or bend the rules a little to get back, but strictly speaking, you’re stuffed?
grumpybum:
Would I be right in saying that if it was your last legally allowed shift before a weekly rest, you were out of working time, and could not take a reduced weekly rest, you would have no legal options left?You cannot night out as you have no time available to work the following day
You cannot take a full weekly rest as you are away from base
You cannot be picked up as you cannot start your rest until back at baseOf course, most of us either don’t get into that situation, or bend the rules a little to get back, but strictly speaking, you’re stuffed?
thats about the size of it 
grumpybum:
Would I be right in saying that if it was your last legally allowed shift before a weekly rest, you were out of working time, and could not take a reduced weekly rest, you would have no legal options left?You cannot night out as you have no time available to work the following day
You cannot take a full weekly rest as you are away from base
You cannot be picked up as you cannot start your rest until back at baseOf course, most of us either don’t get into that situation, or bend the rules a little to get back, but strictly speaking, you’re stuffed?
You would have a legal option left 
There’s nothing to stop you legally having a weekly rest away from base, you just can’t legally have it in the cab, so it’s B&B/Hotel or a park bench.
discoman:
Wrong wording, RESTING … Fact remains I was not legally allowed to stay behind the wheel as I had exceeded 15 hours on duty therefore was not legal to drive it back … therefore they were required to get a driver to get the vehicle back to there depot and due to having no kit they were obliged to get me back to the depot… I was off next day therefor rest was not an issue.
Illegal, and has been since 2001.
lex.unict.it/eurolabor/en/do … 7-99en.htm
discoman:
Worded wrongly agreed, but point is you still have to remember the 13/15 hour working rule.
There is no 13/15 hour working rule to remember and it is drivers inventing this rule that gets them into bother, as is the case with the scenario you describe above. You didn’t get a minimum of 89 hours rest in the 24-hour period, which is a rule.
grumpybum:
Would I be right in saying that if it was your last legally allowed shift before a weekly rest, you were out of working time, and could not take a reduced weekly rest, you would have no legal options left?You cannot night out as you have no time available to work the following day
You cannot take a full weekly rest as you are away from base
You cannot be picked up as you cannot start your rest until back at baseOf course, most of us either don’t get into that situation, or bend the rules a little to get back, but strictly speaking, you’re stuffed?
That would only be an issue if it was a Sunday, any other day of the week and it’s not such a problem.
If it was say a Friday or Saturday, you could take a reduced 24-hour weekly rest then drive back to base, arriving before midnight Sunday, and commence a full weekly rest period at that point.
If you had only had a reduced weekly rest the previous week that would be okay as you would be starting a weekly rest for the week you require it. I have done that on several occasions within the last couple of years. It works out well for the driver, or it did for me, as it can mean Monday, or a usually worked day, off on pay.
That would only be an issue if it was a Sunday, any other day of the week and it’s not such a problem
The rule states that after six consecutive 24 hour periods after the end of the last weekly rest period, a driver must take a weekly rest period.
This is the rolling week, quite different to the fixed week, which does refer to individual days of the week.
There is no rule limiting a driver to six periods of duty.
Depending on what time of day the rolling week started, it might well be possible to take a break and legally return to base using another daily driving period to reach home inside the 6x24 hours.
The only time I can think of where the day of the week would be relevant would be the extraordinary situation in which a driver had used all 56 hours of driving in the fixed week but had enough hours in his rolling week to get home.
In that case, if it were a Sunday, at midnight, a new fixed week would start and he could then start driving again.
The scenario described by grumpybum, where the driver has used up all his working hours, driving hours and cannot take a reduced weekly rest would indeed result in him being stranded with no legal way out, except a break in a B&B/park bench or whatever.
I couldn’t have much sympathy for someone in that position, as he or his boss would have had 144 hours to work out a way to avoid it.
As far as I can tell, although it isn’t legal, the practice of taking a full weekly rest in a cab is widespread. You can see them in laybys all over this country, never mind Europe and by no means are all of them foreign registered.
Regards,
Nick
And there was me thinking I was asking a simple question with a simple answer !!! 
ncooper:
That would only be an issue if it was a Sunday, any other day of the week and it’s not such a problem
The rule states that after six consecutive 24 hour periods after the end of the last weekly rest period, a driver must take a weekly rest period.
This is the rolling week, quite different to the fixed week, which does refer to individual days of the week.
There is no rule limiting a driver to six periods of duty.
I never said there was.
ncooper:
Depending on what time of day the rolling week started, it might well be possible to take a break and legally return to base using another daily driving period to reach home inside the 6x24 hours.
Indeed, but for the scenario grumpybum came up with I was answering based on the fact the driver had hit the 144 hour limit, which is the way the scenario was presented.
ncooper:
The only time I can think of where the day of the week would be relevant would be the extraordinary situation in which a driver had used all 56 hours of driving in the fixed week but had enough hours in his rolling week to get home.
In that case, if it were a Sunday, at midnight, a new fixed week would start and he could then start driving again.
You aren’t thinking this through then. The day of the week would be relevant in whether my solution would be legal or not.
ncooper:
The scenario described by grumpybum, where the driver has used up all his working hours, driving hours and cannot take a reduced weekly rest would indeed result in him being stranded with no legal way out, except a break in a B&B/park bench or whatever.
The only way the driver cannot take a reduced work would be if the day in question was a Sunday, any other day of the week there would be nothing to stop them taking a reduced weekly rest and cracking on.
Example 1.
Week 1.
Full weekly rest taken
Week 2
Reduced weekly rest taken
Week 3
Driver finishes Friday evening at 20:00 a few hours short of 144 hours since his last weekly rest ended and 8 hours driving from his base.
Driver takes 24 hour reduced weekly rest and resumes at 20:00 Saturday evening.
Driver finishes back at base at 05:30 Sunday morning and begins his required full weekly rest period this week which means he can resume no earlier than 02:30 Tuesday.
============================================================
Example 2.
Week 1.
Full weekly rest taken
Week 2
Reduced weekly rest taken
Week 3
Driver finishes Sunday afternoon at 14:00 a few hours short of 144 hours since his last weekly rest ended and 8 hours driving from his base.
Driver begins his required full weekly rest period for this week, which means he can resume no earlier than 11:00 Tuesday.
Oh, and he books into a nice hotel with a gym, a day spa and free Wi-Fi for guests just to remain 100% legal.
There you go, the day of the week in which grumpybum’s scenario happens is relevant regarding a solution to get home. Sunday, no good, other days good.
ncooper:
As far as I can tell, although it isn’t legal, the practice of taking a full weekly rest in a cab is widespread. You can see them in laybys all over this country, never mind Europe and by no means are all of them foreign registered.
Indeed, and I have done it many times myself since the rule was introduced in April 2007. However, if people regularly indulged in a widespread practice of sodomizing woolly animals at the weekend it wouldn’t make it legal, well apart from in Aberdeenshire obviously.
Nezza:
And there was me thinking I was asking a simple question with a simple answer !!!
Very rarely on these boards once people who don’t understand the regulations throw their hat in the ring.
Thanks for that - I don’t ever intend getting myself into that situation, but nice to see a way out if it happens.
This is a new one on me though!
Coffeeholic:
You didn’t get a minimum of 89 hours rest in the 24-hour period, which is a rule.
Sunday, no good, other days good.
There is nothing relevant about Sunday except that it is the end of the fixed week,
In your second example, the driver can’t reach Sunday without having had a full weekly rest.
And there was me thinking I was asking a simple question with a simple answer !!!
There is nothing simple about the drivers’ hours rules.
Regards,
Nick
ncooper:
Only if a driver’s working week always begins on Monday, is your comment about Sunday correct.
Which is what i said in my first answer to grumpybum. Provided the last shift in her scenario wasn’t a Sunday then there is a way round it to allow the driver to stay 100% lega,l and get home, by taking two weekly rest periods for the same week.
ncooper:
There is nothing relevant about Sunday except that it is the end of the fixed week,
Which makes it very relevant as all the weekly rest rules are built around the requirements for fixed weeks
ncooper:
In your second example, the driver can’t reach Sunday without having had a weekly rest.
Really? You are wrong. What if he started at say 18:00 on Monday after his last weekly rest. From then until 14:00 Sunday is 140 hours so no requirement for a weekly rest before that. Starting any time from 14:00 Monday means he can go to 14:00 Sunday without taking a weekly rest.
ncooper:
And there was me thinking I was asking a simple question with a simple answer !!!
There is nothing simple about the drivers’ hours rules.
Nonsense, the rules are very simple if you just take the time to read them, all of them including this such as the definitions.
It also helps if the reader doesn’t get confused by and uses terms such as working week, which is only mentioned once in EU 561/2006 - page 2 paragraph 13 - in the preamble which sets out the aims and intentions of the document and is not mentioned at all in the actual articles which go to make up the actual regulations. There is only one definition of ‘week’ in the regulations and it 'aint ‘working’. By inventing another definition, which isn’t in the regulations, you end up with the confusion you are currently suffering.
The Golden Rule with these and all regulations is read everything that is there and don’t add in stuff that isn’t. Most of the questions people ask about the regs on these forums have arisen because they have added stuff into the regulations which aren’t there or they have skipped the boring bits of the regs such as the definitions of all the terms used. If someone doesn’t know what things like ‘week’, ‘break’, ‘rest’, ‘daily driving time’ and so on mean each time it is mentioned in the regulations, and all those terms only have one meaning they won’t understand the rules.
This leads to things such as - “You can’t take a break there because you are not free to dispose of your time.” They haven’t read the definition of break. Another popular one. “You can’t drive more than 10 hours between midnight and midnight.” They haven’t read the definition of daily driving time. Those are a couple of the ones that appear regularly on these boards. Read and know the definitions and the rest is easy.
Just to add I remember a multiple page discussion on the definition of the word “within”
Unlike Coffeeholic who can repeat the rules verbatim, I tend to keep a copy on my desktop which I check whenever a difficult question comes up. I just enjoy it when the same old arguments crop up and the same old misinformation 
grumpybum:
Thanks for that - I don’t ever intend getting myself into that situation, but nice to see a way out if it happens.This is a new one on me though!
Coffeeholic:
You didn’t get a minimum of 89 hours rest in the 24-hour period, which is a rule.
My apologies, I wasn’t completely correct there. That only applies to days that fall in a month which have an ‘R’ in them, excluding, for obvious reasons, the two months with the Autumn and Spring Equinox.
I trust this clarifies matters and once again my apologies if it has led to any confusion and/or fines.
Wheel Nut:
Just to add I remember a multiple page discussion on the definition of the word “within”
Yep … I remember avoiding that thread to