Just read an article about the amount of legislation that has been thrown at the truck driver since 2005 and how costs have risen astonishingly and it got me thinking that there can’t be much more left that they can throw our way. Not much more that they can charge us for, so does that just mean they will try to get more money out of the drivers on roadside checks. It all boils down to greed to be honest.
The companies/drivers running straight shouldn’t have an issue, how will they get money out of you if no issue, better hauliers will be green lighted and less likely to be pulled leaving more resources to be targeted at the selfish numbnuts.
If drivers/companies didn’t keep trying to bend the rules i’e driving across continents without breaks, insecure loading, overloading etc i’m sure they wouldn’t have to keep tightening up.
speedyguy:
The companies/drivers running straight shouldn’t have an issue, how will they get money out of you if no issue, better hauliers will be green lighted and less likely to be pulled leaving more resources to be targeted at the selfish numbnuts.If drivers/companies didn’t keep trying to bend the rules i’e driving across continents without breaks, insecure loading, overloading etc i’m sure they wouldn’t have to keep tightening up.
they once targeted the most serious offences and fined the companies and drivers. then most companies started playing by the rules, then they started to target minor offences and fined companies and drivers. these minor offences were once dealt with, with a quiet word in the ear.
you only have to look at places like spain to see how things have gone. you can run as legit as you like, but if they pull you, then you’re getting a fine.
speedyguy:
The companies/drivers running straight shouldn’t have an issue, how will they get money out of you if no issue, better hauliers will be green lighted and less likely to be pulled leaving more resources to be targeted at the selfish numbnuts.If drivers/companies didn’t keep trying to bend the rules i’e driving across continents without breaks, insecure loading, overloading etc i’m sure they wouldn’t have to keep tightening up.
I have to disagree completely here. I think the very reason they keep tightening up to the ridiculous levels at current is precisely because people aren’t running bent anymore in the traditional sense of the word. The digital tacho rendered running bent almost extinct and unless the respective authorities can fabricate a perceived source of danger from the transport industry that then needs to be legislated against and enforced, they would face massive redundancies and cut backs as government enforcement bodies were scaled back in line with the demand for them.
Having now driven in North America for the better part of four years with the odd stint in the UK it strikes me as astonishing the amount of hassle, red tape and regulation in the UK/EU now for something that should be so simple. Driving a truck from A to B to C to A again isn’t rocket science but the afore mentioned nonsense has made the job an absolute bureaucratic nightmare beyond any reason.
As for whats next, I dread to think. Once everyone is complying with the latest round of directives from the politburo the only possible reaction can be more and more bureaucracy to keep the legislative gravy train in motion. Perhaps it will be an 70 or 80kmh speed limit, perhaps it will be 6 hours driving a day, perhaps it will be that you can only drive while wearing a hard hat and wooley gloves or perhaps it will even be a £60 fine and 3 points for sneezing behind the wheel whilst wearing the wrong coloured socks. One thing is for sure, it will get worse and worse and worse because the livelyhoods of so many thousands of civil servants depend on it being so.
i remember a few years ago. Vosa tried to prosecute a driver for speeding, he had been doing 60mph. the judge threw it out on the grounds that there can’t be two speed limits for trucks, it’s either 56mph or 60mph.
Vosa said at the time, that they intend to carry on prosecuting for this offence in the future.
(not that there was any offence to prosecute).
If we had more judges like this that will use common sense, and drivers that will go to court rather than pay up and shut up, then we may see a bit of case law making some ridiculous rules and regs void.
i’ve always fancied the idea of being prosecuted for going over the 90 hour rule, but it’ll probably never happen. 
All i can see is, every other industry striving to increase productivity apart from the haulage industry, legally a truck is now less productive than what it was 25 years ago.
Yes I know gross weights have increased by 6 tonnes in that time, but it doesnt give you 6 tonnes more payload, at most its 2 to 3 tonnes!
A truck now, can not cover the distance a truck, 25 years ago could cover in a 10 hour drive.
It is about time something positive is done to improve productivity, and not strangle it.
Hours rules really need to be sorted, 1 being the 90 hr rule and not being able to drive after having a full weekend rest, how does that restiction compramise road safety??
Some of the rules are sensible, some are absolute B/S.
speedyguy:
The companies/drivers running straight shouldn’t have an issue, how will they get money out of you if no issue, better hauliers will be green lighted and less likely to be pulled leaving more resources to be targeted at the selfish numbnuts.If drivers/companies didn’t keep trying to bend the rules i’e driving across continents without breaks, insecure loading, overloading etc i’m sure they wouldn’t have to keep tightening up.
With a comment like this I have serious doubts as to whether you have actually ever done anything other than drive a supermarket delivery van. Just the issue of overloading is contentious, for example do you mean axle or gross overloading? Have you ever loaded groupage with 200 odd pieces all different sizes some out of gauge, some light, some very heavy and tried to fit everything into the trailer and keep within the axle weight limits? I doubt it very much. I would suggest that before you get on your high horse that you broaden your horizens somewhat. The vast majority of us dont overload on purpose, but much of what we do is based upon a best guess principle and years of experience. And it unfortunately occasionally it doesnt always work.
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Drivers’ permissible hours will be reduced, but wages will not rise to compensate it.
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Probably more confusion will be engineered out of nowhere by the E"Who" regarding WTDs and other similar meaningless pish.
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90kph speed limiters will slowly make their way into the majority of light goods vehicles, causing yet more bunching, frustration, and motorway tetris in the coming years
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Manual gearboxes will become close to extinct
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56mph standard limiter will be gradually replaced by a standard 50 to 52 for everyone, the supermarket drivers are just the guinea pigs at present for this cunning scheme to come.
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Fuel prices will soar
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Haulier profits will generally fall (as will average driver wage)
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Price of DCPC and anything you have to pay to the DVLA will rise
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Implementation of more DCPC style “courses” which will not be optional, and will require you to pay out of your own pocket.
weeto:
It is about time something positive is done to improve productivity, and not strangle it.
Hours rules really need to be sorted, 1 being the 90 hr rule and not being able to drive after having a full weekend rest, how does that restiction compramise road safety??.
Have I got it wrong or are you seriously suggesting that we should be allowed to work even MORE hours, and/or less rest, is a 13/15 hour day not enough for you 
if a wage, or for that matter employer profitability for these max hours is not enough, then the job is even more crap than I thought. Not entirely sure what you mean about the 90 hr max, it surely enhances safety by relief of potential driver fatigue rather than compromise it, and the restriction as you put it, is there to stop unscrupulous employers insisting a driver works ridiculously long hours, and to prevent some drivers who would be willing and stupid enough to work 24hrs, from killing themselves and more importantly other people.
robroy:
Have I got it wrong or are you seriously suggesting that we should be allowed to work even MORE hours, and/or less rest, is a 13/15 hour day not enough for you
Not being funny, but if you did 56 hours in week one, which isn’t exactly hard to do under the right circumstances, are you seriously suggesting that doing more than 34 hours the following week would render yourself a fatigued wreck and a danger to the public?
Since moving to Canada I work far longer hours than could ever be the case in Europe, yet I’m less fatigued than most of the drivers on here claim to be after doing half the hours that I do. In my opinion, from my own exeriences of working both here and in the UK/Europe its the stress factor from having to comply to the regulations there to the minute and worrying about the consequences of going over your time etc that makes the job so bad. I believe that a much simpler set of drivers hours rules could allow for more actual driving time and leave the driver less fatigued/stressed than is currently the case as he would be working to his own pattern, not the stop/start clock watching that is currently the case.
You only have to look on this forum on any given week and there will be numerous posts along the lines of “I ran 5 minutes over my time, will I be sent to prison and lose my job, house and marriage for me henious contempt of the law?” etc to see how bureaucracy has gotten in the way of common sense and real life.
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Lorn trakta:
I do a ‘duty’ time, night trunking,of 50/55 hrs pw, but regularily double that with house refurbishment, registered as my home, its the only real work I do frankly, these ‘mega’ hours are perfectly legal, VOSA themselves agreed it was btw, ‘under no instruction’ and all that crap.The tacho rules relating to drivers are invented barriers and parameters fielded/presented as deep and meaningful measures to enhance road safety, really?, when you’re at home/off duty do you go into a ‘coma’ untill waking up for the next shift? ,actually the mainstay of the tacho is to strictly control competition between operators, road safety is far from being enhanced .
I have the opinion that road safety has taken a major ‘hit’ from this device,drivers are now at their most pressurised, chased,and harassed
levels in transport history, not by their employers, customers, but by the tacho itself,trying to appease and keep ‘straight’ this automatons demands, drivers bemoan the fact that driving standards have fallen, plummeted more like, and this decline is a post tacho event for sure, its not a mere coincidence.The tachograph in itself is fine, but the way the regulations are draughted are inane ,puerile, and fantasy laden, unconnected to the real world in which operators and drivers have to to business, its hardly surprising when you consider the socio economic group who dream up these demands, if you drive 9hrs 10min x 5days your on your way to prison/court for being a danger to the public, really deep and meaningful stuff isn’t it, someone else can do 56 hrs driving a week, thats ok, oh and 15hour days are ok,two words assylums lunatics.
An excellent post. I’ve always thought the driving part of the job in the UK was a doddle, the bad part was the jumping through hoops to appease an electronic device that had no bearing upon reality or the circumstances on which it was placed.
the 45 and 90 hour rule are maximums
not a target that has to be met
driving is not just driving
multi drop job is duty hours greedy
trunking is driving time greedy
WTD legistration should be baseds on duty time
Hombre:
speedyguy:
The companies/drivers running straight shouldn’t have an issue, how will they get money out of you if no issue, better hauliers will be green lighted and less likely to be pulled leaving more resources to be targeted at the selfish numbnuts.If drivers/companies didn’t keep trying to bend the rules i’e driving across continents without breaks, insecure loading, overloading etc i’m sure they wouldn’t have to keep tightening up.
With a comment like this I have serious doubts as to whether you have actually ever done anything other than drive a supermarket delivery van. Just the issue of overloading is contentious, for example do you mean axle or gross overloading? Have you ever loaded groupage with 200 odd pieces all different sizes some out of gauge, some light, some very heavy and tried to fit everything into the trailer and keep within the axle weight limits? I doubt it very much. I would suggest that before you get on your high horse that you broaden your horizens somewhat. The vast majority of us dont overload on purpose, but much of what we do is based upon a best guess principle and years of experience. And it unfortunately occasionally it doesnt always work.
Public weighbridge? If you’re not entirely sure about the weight,then have it checked. Not always possible in some circumstances,but “best guess” principle would never stand up in court if you were found to be overloaded.
To answer a couple of points aimed at me, my reference to the rules enhancing road safety was said in a context in answer to a guy who I rightly or wrongly thought was suggesting that we should be allowed to work more hours to increase productivity. I certainly do not think that the present set of hours rules are considering road safety as a priority, for example what is safe about doing a 15hr spreadover and taking 9 hours off, you park up, have a shower, meal, coffee/tea /pint or whatever, back to the cab , unwind, in the bunk you are left with about 6half hrs, you sleep for about 5 up and away again, yeh, I know some of us don’t need a lot of sleep but others that do are working to the same regs, so how is 5hrs across the board safe enough to be fully on the ball to drive 44ton on a road.
A good point was made about drivers confusing limits with targets, this example relates a lot to my last point, you get drivers saying I got an 11 off “out of the way” last night, or I’ve got a 15 “left” 
… like I said limits not targets.
The present regs are pedantic at best and potentially dangerous at worse and as long as we HAVE to work long hours to make a living wage it will always be the same, and before anybody comes on explaining to me about nature of job concerning long hrs etc believe it or not I already know.
Total solution = get out of the EU and make some realistic UK domestic regs
ROG:
Total solution = get out of the EU and make some realistic UK domestic regs
+1
is there a petition on the downing street website to get enough votes to force a parliamentary debate. ■■
if not, then there should be.
The next legislation is manual entries for your rest is it not? Thats on the new tachos? I bet we will get those things you blow into to see if you’ve been drinking before the engine will start.
The next enforcement and road side payment will be for RTD and WTD offences, even though it was supposed to be enforced by VOSA years ago they have not done so yet, but with the financial situation it could prove a big money spinner for not having the break after 6 hours, and then the 9 hour rule.
if someone with common sense was to rewrite the next EU legislation, then this is what they would do. (but they don’t employ people with common sense).
maximum driving time without a break 4.5 hours. then 1 hour break, or 3 hours driving and 30 minutes break.
no maximum driving time per day/week/fortnight,
maximum duty time 14 hours.
10 hours rest.
36 hours rest per week. or 24 hours in week 1, and 48 in week 2.