Recent protest in the SE at long working hours:

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
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In respeonse to Steven Ladymans comments in the page quoted below, I’ve fired off the following e-mail. Anyone want to do the same?

Dear Sir,

From the BBC Article: BBC NEWS | UK | England | Kent | Lorry drivers protest over hours

You are quoted as having said: “There are certainly some people who aren’t implementing the directive properly,”

Are you actually aware that the directive has done NOTHING to reduce actual working hours and has only meant an increase in the amount of paperwork for a driver.

When the WTD was introduced to haulage, there was a concession to the bosses in the form of the Period of Availability (PoA). This covers, in some sectors of haulage, over 50% of a drivers daily duty time. Some absolute genius decided to legislate the WTD so that PoAs and driving breaks are not classed as working time.

So lets take a look at a working day:

Pre WTD:

Driver starts at 6am. Drives 2 hours to a supermarket RDC. Gets on a loading bay, sticks the tacho on other work whilst getting unloaded which takes an hour. He drives 2 hrs back to the depot and has a 45 minute break. He then spends an hour with the tacho on other work whilst he gets reloaded. Again he drives 2 hrs to a supermarket RDC, gets on a loading bay, sticks the tacho on other work whilst getting unloaded which takes an hour. He drives 2 hrs back to the depot, fuels up and finishes his shift at 6pm.

Total hours worked that day: 11.25.

Post WTD:

Driver starts at 6am. Drives 2 hours to a supermarket RDC. Gets on a loading bay, sticks the tacho on PoA (because thanks to the definition of a PoA, it is now classed as a PoA instead of other work) whilst getting unloaded which takes an hour. He drives 2 hrs back to the depot and has a 45 minute break. He then spends an hour with the tacho on PoA whilst he gets reloaded. Again he drives 2 hrs to a supermarket RDC, gets on a loading bay, sticks the tacho on PoA whilst getting unloaded which takes an hour. He drives 2 hrs back to the depot, fuels up and finishes his shift at 6pm.

EVEN THOUGH HE HAS DONE THE SAME 12 HOUR SHIFT, only 8.25 hours count as work towards the 48hr weekly limit under the WTD rules. Nearly a third of his hours don’t count.

What should have happened is that the PoA should never have been introduced and the working time counting towards the 48hrs a week been classed as duty time, INCLUDING driving breaks. After all, you may not be doing anything but you are still at work and driving breaks could be abused to keep the hours down.

Please could you respond with your views on this?

Yours truly,

Conor Turton

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SOME PEOPLE?

i was under the impression that MOST people (especially employers) still havent got the foggiest idea on what the directive is or how to comply with it :open_mouth:

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A lot of people on this site were dead against the R.T.D because they thought their hours would be limited, i was amongst very few who said i would like to work less hours.

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i do alot less hours.
My lot do the w.t.d by the book.And we are down to a 4 day week most weeks to keep our hours down.
We dont do alot of poa.and alot of drivers ive spoken to just abuse it anyway.
i am worse off money wise but not alot.
I cant understand drivers that are still working for peanuts.
This wtd should of been used to push wages up for the exploited 70 hour plus a week brigade.But they are still doing the same work.
If i worked for any employer who wanted me to break the rules he’d be told to shove it.i still speak to people and they say we are exempt.and they will argue till they turn blue.

MOBILE WORKERS ARE NOT EXEMPT.

Tony b