Hi guys I have been reading rules on drivers hours published by VOSA but I am not sure if it is applicable to my situation. I currently work 3 days a week as an admin assistant, not driver related. I am wanting to do agency work for 2,3 days each week. Do I need to record these other days worked and do they affect how many hours I can drive for an agency?
dan2k7:
Hi guys I have been reading rules on drivers hours published by VOSA but I am not sure if it is applicable to my situation. I currently work 3 days a week as an admin assistant, not driver related. I am wanting to do agency work for 2,3 days each week. Do I need to record these other days worked and do they affect how many hours I can drive for an agency?
If you want to drive get a job full time , not as and when it suits you ,taking my o/t ,agency driver work 
Remember that its not VOSA but DVSA for the pedants on here.You would be fine with what you propose doing ,keep your hours logged in your diary if you are ever tugged.
dan2k7:
Hi guys I have been reading rules on drivers hours published by VOSA but I am not sure if it is applicable to my situation. I currently work 3 days a week as an admin assistant, not driver related. I am wanting to do agency work for 2,3 days each week. Do I need to record these other days worked and do they affect how many hours I can drive for an agency?
Yes you need to record them making manual entries as “other work”. They affect how many hours you can drive for an agency due to the weekly rest requirements. You cannot legally start driving work until 9hrs after the end of your last admin shift and you need to have a continuous break of 45hrs which can be reduced to 24hrs before you start your first day of admin work the next week. That would leave you able to do 2 days one week, 3 days the next without any worries about breaching rest requirements.
If the admin work isn’t three following days and is say Mon, Thu, Fri then if you drive on the weekends and don’t drive on the Tuesday and Wednesday you’d satisfy the full 45hr weekly rest period every week - it doesn’t have to be on a weekend.
Thanks guys, makes more sense. Conor you say the break period can be reduced to 24 hours, how often can that be done?
Short answer: Once a fortnight.
Long answer: You must have at least one full (45-hour) uninterrupted rest every rolling fortnight (Monday-Sunday). A weekly rest spanning midnight Sunday-Monday can be counted in either week, but not both.
I don’t know if I am just being thick but this sounds more complex than I thought. My 3 days admin job can be taken anywhere monday to friday. So 3, 8 hour days or 4 hours on some days etc as long as 24 hours are worked. What is the best shift pattern I should work to maximise number of agency days i could do?
Just recently passed my class 2 test I have my cpc and tachograph card. Does anyone know off any sites for jobs I’ve been looking flat out and can’t find anything cheers
akaweetommy:
Just recently passed my class 2 test I have my cpc and tachograph card. Does anyone know off any sites for jobs I’ve been looking flat out and can’t find anything cheers
universal jobsite[jobcentre]total jobs .com,indeed .co.uk ,sometimes gumtree,although not that good ,that’s the only ones I can think of right now
truckman020:
akaweetommy:
Just recently passed my class 2 test I have my cpc and tachograph card. Does anyone know off any sites for jobs I’ve been looking flat out and can’t find anything cheersuniversal jobsite[jobcentre]total jobs .com,indeed .co.uk ,sometimes gumtree,although not that good ,that’s the only ones I can think of right now
Cheers mate
dan2k7:
Hi guys I have been reading rules on drivers hours published by VOSA but I am not sure if it is applicable to my situation. I currently work 3 days a week as an admin assistant, not driver related. I am wanting to do agency work for 2,3 days each week. Do I need to record these other days worked and do they affect how many hours I can drive for an agency?
if its commercial work = yes
charity or private unpaid work = no
dan2k7:
I don’t know if I am just being thick but this sounds more complex than I thought. My 3 days admin job can be taken anywhere monday to friday. So 3, 8 hour days or 4 hours on some days etc as long as 24 hours are worked. What is the best shift pattern I should work to maximise number of agency days i could do?
Realistically, there are too many alternatives to choose the “best” alternative. It will also depend on what agency shifts you can find, as to how they will fit in with the other job.
Your best solution is probably going to be to work as few days as you can in the other job (i.e. fewer, longer days is better than more, shorter days). I’d also avoid taking nightshift driving jobs where possible (assuming your other job is done during the day) as chopping and changing your daily routine between days and nights is a bad idea IMHO.
The best advice I can give is to re-read the drivers’ hours regs (and DVSA’s booklet about it), keeping in mind that time spent at your other job is defined as “other work”. In other words, your other job doesn’t count towards driving time, but it does count when counting how much daily/weekly rest you’ve had.
Thanks mate I will give them another read. Just to clarify the reduced 24 and 45 hour periods have to be continuous before starting the next week as in it doesn’t matter if the hours have been accumulated I would need to have 1 clear day off one week and nearly 2 the next?
Yes, rest periods only count if they’re continuous.*
Also, compensation paid for a reduced weekly rest must be continuous as well.
For example, if you have only a 24-hour rest in one week, then you have to pay that back by having a continuous 21-hour rest added onto another daily or weekly rest period by the end of the third week following the one in which you had the reduced weekly rest. For example, you could add it to a full weekly rest (giving you a 45 + 21 = 66 continuous hours rest), or add it to a normal daily rest (21 + 11 = 32 hours continuous rest), or add it to a reduced daily rest (21 + 9 = 30 hours continuous rest, or you could even choose to add it to a reduced weekly rest (24 + 21 = 45 hours continuous rest, which now looks like a “full” weekly rest but actually isn’t because it’s made up of a reduced rest plus compensation). Confused now? 
In reality, though, it’s unlikely that you’ll be reducing the weekly rest all the way down to 24 hours very often, as you rarely finish work at exactly the same time as you are going to start the following day.
For example, say you finished a driving shift at 6pm on Saturday, and started your other job at 9am on Monday. That gives you a reduced rest of 39 hours, so you only have 6 hours to pay back. You could then finish your other job at 6pm on Monday and start again at 9am on Tuesday, giving you a 15-hour rest, and you can allocate this as a 9-hour reduced rest plus 6 hours of compensation for the reduced weekly rest. Your compensation for the reduced weekly rest is now paid off
That’s why I said that there’s too many options on how you could arrange your hours. In reality, you just need to see what shifts you get from the agency and work around that. Don’t commit to taking a shift if it looks like it would push you over your hours - make sure that you have sufficient daily rest after one job before starting the other (9/11 hours), and remember that you have to start your weekly rest no later than 144 hours (6 x 24 hours) after you finished your last weekly rest. It’s likely that the hours the agency offer you will change all the time anyway, so you’re unlikely to be able to get into a set “worked out” routine; you just have to see how it goes and work out the hours as you go.
Welcome to the world of EU Drivers’ Hours Regulations
- Just to fend off the nitpickers…
It is possible to split a daily rest period in two circumstances - you can split a “full” daily rest into one period of at least 3 hours and another of at least 9 hours without it being considered a “reduced” daily rest, plus there is a special rule to allow for rest to be broken to board a train/ferry, but that doesn’t really apply in your circumstances.
If you have flexibility in your office job, ask your agency/ies where their pressure points are and when they are most in need of drivers and work around that. This will help you to maximise your chances of getting driving shifts.
Fridays tend to be driver sickie days in some places, as do Mondays. You might find weekend work unpopular for drivers with families, so there may be more opportunities there too (and quite likely better pay rates).
You’re basically in exactly the same situation as I am, with a three day office job and four days to fill with driving and weekly rest requirements. Two days a week driving, plus an extra day every fortnight is very manageable if you can find the work.
Oh, and watch your WTD breaks in your office job records. A fifteen minute break before you exceed six hours of work should keep you safe.