Madguy there is no fortnight average for WTD and it’s 60 hours per week max. 48 over reference period either 17 or 26 weeks.
madguy:
Im sure someone will come along and disagree with this
Yeah me you’re getting confused with driving time which is 90 hrs a fortnight.
madguy:
You are allowed to work 90 hrs per fortnight so average it out to 45 hrs per week. (This is for working time directive not tachograph rules)so lets say you start at 06-00hrs and drive to your first job which takes an hour, then you sit on a bay for 4 hours, you could put it on break if you’ve been told that you will be there for 4 hours and your free to wander off and do what you want. you could put it on other work and sit there doing nothing or you could put it on POA, period of availability.
so if you use other work, then buy 11-00 am you have technically done 5 hrs work towards your WTD 45 hrs. average per week.
If you use break or POA then you have only done 1 hrs work towards your 45 hrs WTD.now average out what you do in a week and you will see that if you don’t use POA you can quickly run out of your 45 hrs WTD time.
another example is, last week I booked 81 hrs for pay purposes however with using POA I kept my WTD (driving and other work) down to 52 hrs and this weeks hrs booked were 61 hrs but with POA WTD hrs where booked at 26 hrs, so my fortnightly WTD hours where 78 which is below the 90 hrs average yet I booked total of 142 payable hrs.
Im sure someone will come along and disagree with this but this is how I was taught and it works for me and I never get in trouble for it.
Hope this helps.
Madguy
dude, the 90 hours is the amount of driving you can do in any 2 week period, with a max of 56 in a week
you must average a maximum of 48 working time hours over the reference period - usually 17 / 18 weeks, but it can be up to 26 weeks. you can work a maximum of 60 working time hours in a week.
Like I said there will be someone who will come along and disagree instead of giving any useful advice which is why I don’t usually bother putting anything in here.
and it looks like I got my average 45 hrs and 48 hrs mixed up, big friggin deal.
You never know someone may actually come along and explain it to us mere mortals in plain English but to be honest I doubt that will happen anytime soon, its much easier to slag off people who are tryin to help, good luck man, hope you get it sorted out.
Madguy,
Madguy I like what youre saying.I see it as the ways and means act. Before anyone else says anything, yes not a driver yet, however if this gets me more pay and is legal whats the problem. I see it as if I was to land at a job and they said cant tip you for an hour then bang off it goes to POA and can still drive and earn money
madguy:
Like I said there will be someone who will come along and disagree instead of giving any useful advice which is why I don’t usually bother putting anything in here.and it looks like I got my average 45 hrs and 48 hrs mixed up, big friggin deal.
You never know someone may actually come along and explain it to us mere mortals in plain English but to be honest I doubt that will happen anytime soon, its much easier to slag off people who are tryin to help, good luck man, hope you get it sorted out.
Madguy,
would you of prefered it if no one disagreed?
the people that disagreed, did give advice on what they disagreed with
who slagged you off?
so, how did you come up with your username? 
madguy:
Like I said there will be someone who will come along and disagree instead of giving any useful advice which is why I don’t usually bother putting anything in here.and it looks like I got my average 45 hrs and 48 hrs mixed up, big friggin deal.
You never know someone may actually come along and explain it to us mere mortals in plain English but to be honest I doubt that will happen anytime soon, its much easier to slag off people who are tryin to help, good luck man, hope you get it sorted out.
Madguy,
No, you didn’t mix up your average 45 and 48 hours. You worked it out from a 90 hour fortnightly limit which you categorically stated was a WTD limit, not a tachograph rules limit. That’s where you were 100% wrong - there are no fortnightly limits at all under WTD - it’s all about averages worked out over reference periods - which are at least 17 weeks and can be as long as 6 months. As others have explained (although you call this “slagging off”) the 90 hour fortnightly limit is on driving time (and most certainly is a tachograph rules limit and nothing at all to do with WTD and POA). Your mention of fortnightly WTD limits is completely wrong - they don’t exist. If you were taught that way then whoever taught it should be taken out and beaten severely.
And contrary to what you say, several participants in ths thread have given useful advice. Sorry if you don’t see it that way but that’s how it is in reality.
Dont ever use POA. Some of our drivers do but I don’t bother. No one in the office has ever said anything to me about not using it but that’s probably because they know I won’t listen!!
■■■■■ moan ■■■■■ moan ■■■■■ moan ■■■■■ moan. It’s trucknet.
madguy:
You are allowed to work 90 hrs per fortnight so average it out to 45 hrs per week. (This is for working time directive not tachograph rules)so lets say you start at 06-00hrs and drive to your first job which takes an hour, then you sit on a bay for 4 hours, you could put it on break if you’ve been told that you will be there for 4 hours and your free to wander off and do what you want. you could put it on other work and sit there doing nothing or you could put it on POA, period of availability.
so if you use other work, then buy 11-00 am you have technically done 5 hrs work towards your WTD 45 hrs. average per week.
If you use break or POA then you have only done 1 hrs work towards your 45 hrs WTD.now average out what you do in a week and you will see that if you don’t use POA you can quickly run out of your 45 hrs WTD time.
another example is, last week I booked 81 hrs for pay purposes however with using POA I kept my WTD (driving and other work) down to 52 hrs and this weeks hrs booked were 61 hrs but with POA WTD hrs where booked at 26 hrs, so my fortnightly WTD hours where 78 which is below the 90 hrs average yet I booked total of 142 payable hrs.
Im sure someone will come along and disagree with this but this is how I was taught and it works for me and I never get in trouble for it.
Hope this helps.
Madguy
so fagan and wally don’t let you do 84 hours one week and 71 hours the next? For £2.50 an hour! 
Okay then, if its a directive and not law, why do companies insist that employees take unpaid days off to achieve an average and insist it’s to comply with the law■■?
Surely a directive is…
and the law is…
Obligatory or not? That is the question!
Moan, ■■■■■, moan…
fredthered:
Okay then, if its a directive and not law, why do companies insist that employees take unpaid days off to achieve an average and insist it’s to comply with the law■■?Surely a directive is…
and the law is…
Obligatory or not? That is the question!
Moan, ■■■■■, moan…
it was an e.u. directive that was past in u.k. law on drivers hours.
there is nothing in the regulations that say that the time off has to be unpaid that is down to the individual company, some pay some don’t.
you only have to count your 28 days holidays into the WTD any thing over that whether paid or not doesn’t count 
It’s law - Specifically the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005, which were made in March 2005 and came into effect on 4th April the same year. These Regulations were enacted under powers granted to the Secretary of State under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. He made them as a result of the requirements of the EC Directive which basically ordered the governments of all EU States to incorporate the same limits etc into their domestic laws.
I don’t use POA simply for the reason it’s very rare you know how long you’ll be waiting and that it doesn’t clear your card. It will catch you out by putting it on POA, as you will more than likely have to stop again for a break because the POA doesn’t clear your card.
I alway use break, if I’m waiting for a load, I can sleep on the bunk, nip to the corner shop, cook up some scran, have the craic with the lads or just sit and drink coffee surfing TNUK.
In my opinion that qualifies as a break so that’s what I use, I haven’t used POA for months now and it’s saved me no end of stopping for unnecessary breaks to get back home.
Edit - I’d also like to add that if for any reason I need to stop (call of nature, nodding dog, something to eat/drink) then I just do it, I’ve never had an issue from the office, they know I don’t take the p, so I’m just left to it.
NewLad:
I don’t use POA simply for the reason it’s very rare you know how long you’ll be waiting and that it doesn’t clear your card. It will catch you out by putting it on POA, as you will more than likely have to stop again for a break because the POA doesn’t clear your card.
If POA is likely to be useful to you, there’s nothing to stop you putting it on Break for the first 15/30/45 minutes to count towards clearing your card, then switching to POA for the remainder.
Roymondo:
NewLad:
I don’t use POA simply for the reason it’s very rare you know how long you’ll be waiting and that it doesn’t clear your card. It will catch you out by putting it on POA, as you will more than likely have to stop again for a break because the POA doesn’t clear your card.If POA is likely to be useful to you, there’s nothing to stop you putting it on Break for the first 15/30/45 minutes to count towards clearing your card, then switching to POA for the remainder.
But why bother switching it, I just leave it, the only downside is that it could give you another reduced rest period if it’s on for 3 hrs, I just don’t tell the office it’s been on break and they don’t ask.
As I said “If it’s likely to be useful to you” - Which in reality is only going to be the case if you are hourly paid and don’t get paid for breaks, or your employer has some other issues with drivers “taking too many breaks”.
wildfire:
fredthered:
Okay then, if its a directive and not law, why do companies insist that employees take unpaid days off to achieve an average and insist it’s to comply with the law■■?Surely a directive is…
and the law is…
Obligatory or not? That is the question!
Moan, ■■■■■, moan…
it was an e.u. directive that was past in u.k. law on drivers hours.
there is nothing in the regulations that say that the time off has to be unpaid that is down to the individual company, some pay some don’t.
you only have to count your 28 days holidays into the WTD any thing over that whether paid or not doesn’t count
i thought it was 4 weeks?
Right, I understand what goes on and I was being pedantic. 
For those that don’t, it means employers encourage use of POA when waiting/loading etc to batter your hours when they are ‘busy’ and will gladly let you race along to 84/90 hrs a week. Then when it goes quiet (times being hard etc;)) they want that money back so send you home unpaid (because you’ve already ‘had those hours’ drive) and don’t or won’t let you use holiday days to bring the average down.
If you take a week off at a time its still 48hrs average so clever drivers use their hols as odd days here and there so that it only equates to 8hrs a day thereby ‘saving’ 8 hrs over a week.
Simples! HTH
stevieboy308:
wildfire:
fredthered:
Okay then, if its a directive and not law, why do companies insist that employees take unpaid days off to achieve an average and insist it’s to comply with the law■■?Surely a directive is…
and the law is…
Obligatory or not? That is the question!
Moan, ■■■■■, moan…
it was an e.u. directive that was past in u.k. law on drivers hours.
there is nothing in the regulations that say that the time off has to be unpaid that is down to the individual company, some pay some don’t.
you only have to count your 28 days holidays into the WTD any thing over that whether paid or not doesn’t counti thought it was 4 weeks?
its 28 days but your employer can use 8 days to cover the annual public holidays if they so choose, leaving you the 4 weeks / 20 days to take as you like