The GB Domestic Drivers’ Hours Rules apply to all drivers of goods vehicles, however small, driven in Great Britain (Northern Ireland has its own rules) in connection with a business, where EU drivers’ hours rules (tacho regulations) don’t apply.

The rules are quite straightforward. In any day (defined as 24 hours from the start of duty) you’re allowed to drive for a maximum of 10 hours. Driving is defined as being at the controls of a vehicle for the purposes of controlling its movement, whether it is moving or stationary with the engine running.

The total amount of time that you’re allowed to be ‘on duty’ for the same 24 hour period is 11 hours.

For an employed driver, including directors of limited companies, ‘on duty’ means any working time, including sweeping the yard, answering the phone, loading and unloading etc.

For a self-employed driver ‘on duty’ means driving the vehicle or carrying out any other work in connection with the vehicle or its load. Answering the phone or sweeping the yard would not be duty time, cleaning the van or loading it up would be.

If you drive for less than 4 hours in a day there are no restrictions on duty time – you could legally work in the warehouse for 10 hours and then drive for up to 4 hours.

There are exemptions to the duty time BUT NOT THE DRIVING TIME for certain trades, but same day courier work wouldn’t fall into any of the exemptions.

If you only ever drive vehicles that are under 3,500kg GVW there is no legal requirement to keep records of your working or driving hours.

• You can drive for up to 10 hours per day, breaks aren’t included in the 10 hours, nor is loading and unloading or waiting time with the engine switched off.
• You can ‘work’ for up to 11 hours per day, breaks aren’t included but all other work is included (unless you’re self-employed when some work doesn’t count).
• The ‘day’ lasts for 24 hours from the time you start work. So if you start at 10.00am today and work for 11 hours then you can’t do any more work until 10.00am tomorrow.
• There are no record keeping requirements for drivers of vans under 3,500kg.
• There is a requirement under the Working Time Directive and Health & Safety laws for drivers to have adequate rest.

The rules are enforced by VOSA, but except for in cases where tiredness has actually caused an accident I’ve never actually heard of anyone being prosecuted for being ‘over hours’ in a vehicle without a tacho or driving hours log. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, just that I’ve never heard of it.

In the case of an employee who causes an accident while exceeding their daily driving or duty time their employer would almost certainly be held liable for the accident. A death caused by an employee under these circumstances could leave the employer facing a charge of Corporate Manslaughter.

It should also be noted that both VOSA and the Police can go to extraordinary lengths to establish exactly how long a driver has been working, particularly following a serious accident. Mobile phone records can easily be checked to pinpoint the users whereabouts to within a few hundred metres, your own GPS tracking logs can provide even more conclusive evidence, fuel receipts can be examined and the time of fuel-card and credit-card purchases can be traced. Even a POD for a 500 mile round trip same day delivery may be enough to incriminate you.

VOSA are already using ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition), in conjunction with axle weight sensors embedded in the road, to identify overloaded vehicles. I believe that it’s only a matter of time before they use it to detect drivers’ hours offences as well.

Most newspaper reports have picked up on the driver blindly following his satnav’s instructions and ignoring warning signs but other reports make the situation clearer.

“The DHL delivery driver had started work at 7.30am that morning. It had been a long day for him and he had only made 85 drops out of 120 he had to complete by the time of the accident.

“It was a strange area to him and he was under a great deal of pressure to get the delivery out first and foremost.

“This is a 21-year-old man who was under significant pressure from his employers.

“He was panicked and fairly stressed and at the time of the accident still had 35 packages to deliver.”

The accident happened at 1735 – the driver had already been working for over 10 hours and had done 85 drops out 120 in a rural area of Northumberland that he was unfamiliar with. His satnav sent him down a gravel track where he was confronted with an unmanned level crossing seemingly of the type with no warning lights.

One report says “Foster had ignored safety notices at the crossing and had not followed written instructions to ring a signaller to check if it was safe to cross. Instead, he simply attempted to cross the track, causing the accident.”

I used to have to cross one of these crossings regularly and I’m certain that the signs actually said something like “drivers of large or slow vehicles must phone signalman for permission to cross”. As he wasn’t driving either then maybe he should be forgiven for not phoning the signalman – if that’s what the signs say of course.

Richard Booth, the chairman of the Tynedale magistrates’ bench, said “we have taken into account that you were under considerable duress at the time of the accident.

“I think your employer needs to be taken into account.”

Mr Foster received a 13-week jail term, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to do 200 hours community work and pay costs of £60.

It’s not clear from reports whether DHL face any action for their part in the accident, or indeed whether the driver was an employee, a subcontractor or a ‘Service Partner’.

In 2006 a 45-year-old Toyota employee died, apparently from working less than 20 hours overtime per week in the run up to launching a new product.

His death has now been classed as an industrial injury, meaning that his family can claim against his employers’ insurances.

60 hours per week is classed as a short week by many in the UK same day courier industry. While HGV drivers are limited by law to 48 hours work a week and any employed workers can insist on working a maximum of 48 hours per week with 5 weeks holiday per year, many courier owner-drivers and courier company owner-managers work in excess of 70 hours per week with few if any holidays.

For the working man, doing his best to provide for his family, is it not better to have a few more years to spend with the family, rather than a few extra quid each year and an early death? Life is apparently a journey, not a destination.

(Written by me, working at 1837 on a Saturday evening)

Does the RTD apply?

The RTD applies only to mobile workers who work in vehicles to which EU drivers’ hours rules apply – that is vehicles with a tachograph fitted. THIS WILL INCLUDE MOST DRIVERS OF TRANSIT OR SPRINTER VANS USED TO TOW TRAILERS.

‘Working in’ would include driving, shunting, navigating, training, loading etc and would include driver’s mates.

It applies to some self-employed drivers under limited circumstances but looks set to include all self-employed drivers (of vehicles with tachos) from March 2009.

Workers who only occasionally drive or work in vehicles to which EU drivers’ hours rules apply are still subject to the RTD even when not driving if they work in vehicles with tachos for 11 days or more during a reference period that is shorter than 26 weeks or 16 days or more where the reference period is 26 weeks or longer.

For example a warehouseman who takes a 7.5 tonner out to refuel it now and again would be covered by the RTD during all his working time if he drove the 7.5 on 11 separate days during the reference period, even if it was for just ten minutes each time.

A worker who is covered by the RTD because of work carried out for one employer would also be covered by the RTD if he carries out any other work for other employers – weekend work for example.

A mobile worker who isn’t covered by the RTD is still covered by the Working Time Directive (WTD)

What does the WTD mean to couriers?

The Working Time Directive does not apply to the self-employed. Unlike the RTD (see above) there are no firm plans to broaden its scope to include self-employed workers.

The rights that the WTD gives to mobile workers not covered by the RTD are:

An average 48 hour working week over (usually) a 17 week period. Workers can choose to opt out of the 48 hour maximum working week but the opt out must be voluntary and in writing and they can cancel their opt out at short notice.

Adequate rest, both daily and weekly – but unspecified. ‘Adequate rest’ means that workers have regular rest periods.  These should be sufficiently long and continuous to ensure that workers do not injure themselves, fellow workers or others and that they do not damage their health, either in the short term or in the longer term.

Free health assesments for night workers. This must be offered to all workers before they start regularly working at night time – which is defined as: at least three hours between 11pm and 6am or (by agreement with your workers) at least 3 hours during any 7 hour period which includes the period between Midnight and 5 am. Free health assessments must be offered on a regular basis, usually once a year or more.

A minimum of 4.8 weeks per year paid holiday per year (increases to 5.6 weeks on 1st April 2009). The employer is free (within reason) to specify the dates when the holidays can be taken and Bank Holidays are included in the minimum entitlement.

These are the minimum entitlements, employers are of course entitled to offer their employees better terms.

Further reading:

WTD Guidance

RTD Guidance

In the case of death caused by a driver working those hours the company and its management face prosecution for Corporate Manslaughter.

If they’re only driving vehicles that aren’t on tacho they’re covered by the Working Time Directive but not by the Road Transport Directive – so they’re allowed to opt out of the hours requirement of the WTD.

They’re also covered by the UK domestic driving rules which limits them to a maximum of 10 hours per day driving and 11 hours per day total ‘duty time’.

No written records need to be kept, but if your employee was to drive for say 11 hours a day and had an accident that killed someone (or him) you’d probably be charged with manslaughter.

The UK could always go it alone and pass our own legislation without an EU directive but they’d go through a full consultation process first and they haven’t even made noises about it being on the agenda.

He will of course need to keep his own full records of his employees’ working time to comply with the RTD.

This would mean that you’d have to keep an accurate record of all their working hours, breaks and POAs even for the ‘non tacho’ week. Since VOSA can demand access to the records to monitor your RTD compliance then you’d have to make sure that those records also show that you stay absolutely within the UK Domestic Rules while your drivers are driving small vans – 10 hours driving & 11 hours daily duty limit etc.

That’s EXACTLY how they deal with a lot of serious crime nowadays – including part of the ongoing campaign against terrorists.

Don’t mock it, it works apparently. Anyone notice the randomly parked (non-traffic) police cars with ANPR cameras parked on every motorway route towards major airports over the last couple of weeks?

They can now check on ownership, road tax, insurance and MOT status instantly, as long as their cameras can read the number plate. Surely that’s agood thing? It gets uninsured/untaxed etc drivers off the road, which I think we all want. It also allows the police to target these drivers and discover that they’re almost invariably involved in some other illegal activity.

Of course they can also enter your vehicle reg into their system and work out your exact movements for the last few weeks, but who’s worried about that?

Now if VOSA start doing that………