I was in Purfleet docks earlier this week and was waiting in a que for about an hour. I had already had my 45min break earlier. would this have been an appropriate time to switch mode to P.O.A?
Im aware that P.O.A doesnt count as break or other work but does it take time of your WTD? For example…If i started at 12, worked till 2, went onto P.O.A for an hour (so its now 3) do i have until 6 or 7 for my 30min wtd break?
Does P.O.A affect driving time at all or just shift time?
Anything else to be careful or look out for when using P.O.A ?
POA doesn’t count as working time nor does it affect your driving time.
If you start work at 12:00 and put the tachograph on POA at 14:00 to 15:00 then assuming you haven’t reached 4.5 hours driving you should have a break of at-least 15 minutes no later than 19:00.
Technically you’re supposed to know how long you’ll be waiting before you use POA, you also need to be careful if you’re driving a vehicle with a digital tachograph because although POA doesn’t count as break it does wrongly reset the driving time on the digital tachograph.
If you can you’re better off using break because it causes less confusion than POA and the criteria for break is less strict than POA.
If your sitting about with no work just stick it on break - You can have as many breaks on your tacho as you like
Which of course is ok as long as you dont get paid by what the tacho print out reflects.
Jack Richards and some other companies now only pay on tacho, especially if you are agency, the more breaks you take the more money they dont pay because apparently they dont pay you for your breaks, i know of one guy where they company he was working for even tried to not pay him for his POA time, which of course is b0ll0x and he got his money through the agency he was working with but if he had “Break time” instead of “POA time” the agency said he would have most defiantly not got paid, a very grey area i think so be cautious, if you have planned down time whilst you are on Duty time hit POA is my advice…
