Hi guys could someone please explain period of availability to me? When to use etc as it seems somewhat of a grey are, people I speak to tend to stay away from it as they dont understand what circumstances to use it?
It’s a period where you’re at work but aren’t doing anything. For instance I’m normally waiting for a trailer to go back with when I get to a delivery point as its all drops and swaps. They’ll tell me it will be about 2hrs, that’s POA as I know how long in advance. If it then takes an hour its fine, if it takes three hours it’s fine. The key thing is knowing about it in advance.
Prior knowledge also works, so you get somewhere and you know its normally say 90mins to tip you. From past experience you know about that so can count it as POA.
The thing is all of those circumstances can also be used as break instead. A reason for using POA instead would be because a driver gets deducted breaks.
It stands for Press Once Again. Press the mode button once more and you’ll be on break mode !
Basically to meet the requirements for using POA you must:
1.Know about the period of availability in advance.
2.Know roughly how long the period of availability will last.
3.You must not have to remain at your workstation whilst on POA.
4.You must be available to restart work if you’re required to do so.
I know we mention this over and over but if you use POA you should be aware that the digital tachograph treats it as break, so 45 minutes of POA or an accumulated 45 minutes of POA will reset the driving time on the tachograph display but does not legally reset your driving time.
So if you use POA after you’ve done some driving you will need to manually calculate the 4.5 hours of driving that’s allowed before needing a break.
The legal definition of POA is:
"“period of availability” means a period during which the mobile worker is not required to remain at his workstation, but is required to be
available to answer any calls to start or resume driving or to carry out other work , including periods during which the mobile worker is
accompanying a vehicle being transported by a ferry or by a train as well as periods of waiting at frontiers and those due to traffic prohibitions;"
Also
**"**A period shall not be treated as a period of availability unless the mobile worker knows before the start of the relevant period about
that period of availability and its reasonably foreseeable duration.
(2) The time spent by a mobile worker, who is working as part of a team, travelling in, but not driving, a moving vehicle as part of that team
shall be a period of availability for that mobile worker.
(3) Subject to paragraph (4) a period of availability shall not include a period of rest or a break.
(4) A period of availability may include a break taken by a mobile worker during waiting time or time which is not devoted to driving by the
mobile worker and is spent in a moving vehicle, a ferry or a train."
John1328:
what circumstances to use it?
If you don’t get paid when you’re on break. The end.
Unless the company you’re working for has its own policy about POA, or if you’re not being paid for breaks, don’t bother using it; stick it on break instead.
Poa only effects the wtd side of things.
For the wtd only driving and other work count as working time, break and poa don’t.
In a fixed week your working time can be a max of 60 but can’t average more than 48 at the end of the reference period.
You then have the wtd breaks, you can’t work more than 6 hours at any point without a 15 and must show 30 or 45 in total depending on the total working time in a shift.
Break and poa don’t count towards all the work / working time mentioned above.
There’s 2 reasons to use poa.
1
If you’re paid off the tacho and have all recorded breaks deducted and whilst you want to keep your wtd working time down. Obviously you need your minimum breaks, but any other waiting time bang it on poa, technically you should be told or have experience of how long the wait will be before you can use it, but it’s uncheckable and no one is bothered.
2
If by taking too much break now would mess up your day and you want to keep your wtd working time down.
You’re 5 hours drive from the yard, you’ll be at a drop for an hour, but taking a 45 now will mean a 45 on the way back, take between 15-44 now will mean you’ll only need a 30 on the way back, so switch to poa after 15-44 mins.
Poa will wrongly reset the driving time on your tacho, so if you use it you need to get a pen and paper out to write your times down, for this reason I’d only ever use it if I really had too, if one of the 2 reasons doesn’t apply, just use break when waiting about
I thought there recently changed the requirement about having to know the length of delay before being able to use poa?
drover:
I thought there recently changed the requirement about having to know the length of delay before being able to use poa?
The regulations regarding POA haven’t changed, the definitions in my post came direct from the .gov website.
You don’t have to know the exact length of time you’ll be on POA knowing roughly how long the POA will last is sufficient.
tachograph:
drover:
I thought there recently changed the requirement about having to know the length of delay before being able to use poa?The regulations regarding POA haven’t changed, the definitions in my post came direct from the .gov website.
You don’t have to know the exact length of time you’ll be on POA knowing roughly how long the POA will last is sufficient.
Good to know thanks, it’s not like anybody could really check anyway though is it
drover:
tachograph:
drover:
I thought there recently changed the requirement about having to know the length of delay before being able to use poa?The regulations regarding POA haven’t changed, the definitions in my post came direct from the .gov website.
You don’t have to know the exact length of time you’ll be on POA knowing roughly how long the POA will last is sufficient.
Good to know thanks, it’s not like anybody could really check anyway though is it
I agree, I’ve never heard of anyone getting done for not knowing the length of POA in advance 
Sent from my mobile via Tapatalk.
Cheers for all the replies guys, some great advice here.