m1cks:
If someone were to bring your personal car to you so you could travel straight home it may be ok but I’m not 100% sure. Tachograph might know the answer to that one.
There’s nothing to stop you from making your own way home in your own time, then returning to the vehicle in your own tim, after all you are disposing of your time freely as the law requires you to be able to when on rest.
If the company arranged for your car to be brought out to you I think you would be walking on very thin ice as far as the law is concerned.
I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t phone your wife/GF friend or whoever and arrange for them to pick you up, but you would need to restart work after the rest period from the same location, well legally you would anyway
Wheel Nut:
I am oh so tempted to mention Skills Coaches, but I won’t yet…
Even though they were not being paid for the travelling time (as far as I remember), and were allowed to make their own travelling arrangements, the Skills Coaches drivers were travelling to the coaches under the instruction of their employer.
The EU court said so, and the EU never gets anything wrong
Wheel Nut:
I am oh so tempted to mention Skills Coaches, but I won’t yet…
Even though they were not being paid for the travelling time (as far as I remember), and were allowed to make their own travelling arrangements, the Skills Coaches drivers were travelling to the coaches under the instruction of their employer.
The EU court said so, and the EU never gets anything wrong
Some were using their own cars or a colleagues car to meet a coach, others were travelling on a company coach to a ferry port or bus terminal and then taking over the coach.
The test case for this has already been aluded to: Skills Coaches. I had an involvement in this case that I’d rather not expand on in a public forum. In common with many operators, they were sending European tour coaches to Dover for the outward ferry. The driver for the tour would drive a car or van to Dover and meet the coach there. The driver who had done Nottm - Dover would drive the car or van back to Nottingham. All parties were prosecuted as these journeys were “other work” rather than “rest or break”.
Action has been taken against truck drivers who, on arival at their base, have been told that their truck is at point B and they need to go with someone in eg the service van or a car. All that travel time has been determined as “other work” and must be recorded as such.
Similarly, the driver who runs out of driving time can drive a car/small van back to the depot provided they have sufficient working time left. This is because of the same ruling. But a guy who has worked 15 and then wants to travel back to the depot or home is on a sticky wicket as he clearly has no working time remaining.
Personally, I can see that someone doing that type of drive at the start of the shift is likely to get “done”. Whereas it’s going to be very difficult to prove what happened at the end of the shift.
Very often the driver has nothing to loose by declaring the extra drive/lift as working time. IME you run out of driving time long before duty time. (I am aware there are plenty of exceptions to this).
IME the only drivers/operators likely to fall foul of this is those with an iffy record, a poor OCRS and are subject to a wider investigation.
Skills Coaches, incidentally, were none of these. The prosecutions were brought about by a whistleblower.
None of which addresses the case of a driver choosing to leave a vehicle and go home and back in his own time and of his own volition.
The Skills Coaches drivers were acting on the instruction of the employer to go to a specific place and take control of a vehicle, that’s not what we’re talking about here.
What we’re talking about is a drivers right to do what he likes during his daily rest period ie, leave the vehicle and go home during a legitimate rest period and return to the vehicle during a legitimate rest period.
None of which addresses the case of a driver choosing to leave a vehicle and go home and back in his own time and of his own volition.
The Skills Coaches drivers were acting on the instruction of the employer to go to a specific place and take control of a vehicle, that’s not what we’re talking about here.
What we’re talking about is a drivers right to do what he likes during his daily rest period ie, leave the vehicle and go home during a legitimate rest period and return to the vehicle during a legitimate rest period.
Quite right. I think the thread has developed a bit of a life of it’s own (as they often do!).
Do you remember the days of old when ‘some’ drivers would pull in a layby, wind the analogue clock forward 9 hours, and carry on back to base with their fingers crossed?
Dico:
Do you remember the days of old when ‘some’ drivers would pull in a layby, wind the analogue clock forward 9 hours, and carry on back to base with their fingers crossed?
Dico:
Do you remember the days of old when ‘some’ drivers would pull in a layby, wind the analogue clock forward 9 hours, and carry on back to base with their fingers crossed?
That was always handy if you were going out on a Friday night, in the days when VOSA knocked off at 5pm and didn’t work weekends.
It is much cleaner than leaning over to put a magnet on
