Now this is a tricky subject, and as far as I am aware I'm doing it right.
How do I know this? well, every thing we do in the cab is electronically measured and recorded on a tachograph machine.
If you get it wrong you get a print out and a little letter from the powers to be informing you of your wrong doings!
I've only had a couple of letters, and they were from when I first started, but sometimes you do have to bend the rules if you get caught out due to road works, or accidents etc.
As long as you write down on the back of a printed out slip you get from the machine you are generally ok if you were to be stopped and inspected.
Also as long as it's not habitual and they can see it's genuine you are ok.
But lets first discuss Driving Time.
I always mention how long my Drive Time is. But, you firstly need to know how that drive time is made up.
So lets say you drive from one town to another and it takes you an hour, on that journey you stop at roundabouts, junctions, letting cars out, traffic jams etc.
Well, as soon as I start moving that time counts, when I stop at a junction, so does the clock.
So using the 1hr journey time above to get from town to town, you may have to stop 10 times each for 1 min. so your actual drive time recorded is only 50 mins and not 1 hr!
So although my drive time may only say 5hrs 30mins for the day, I may well of been behind the wheel for 7hrs due to hold ups and general every day driving delays!
You can only drive for a maximum for 4 1/2hrs before you are required to take a 45 min break. Thats 4 1/2hrs of drive time not actual time.
Actual time is classed as working time and that is 6hrs before you must take a break.
On top of that you can extend your total drive time twice in a week from 9 hrs to 10 hrs, so thats 4 1/2 + 4 1/2 + 1 more hour.
However, there are also minimum rest periods you must take which is 11hrs, but 3 times a week you can reduce this to 9hrs if you wish.
The total amount of working hours in any one day must not exceed 15hrs
I do hope you are keeping up with all of this!
It is not easy to keep to, you are constantly clock watching trying to make sure you stay legal. I've got better at this and am fairly ok, but every now and again you do get close to the limits.
It is also the industry norm for drivers to max hours out. Especially on container work as the loads can run 24hrs a day.
I could work 15hrs a day, taking just 9hrs off on 3 consecutive nights with the remaining days still working 15hrs but taking an 11hr night off!
That's 75hrs a week! This in my opinion is wrong on all levels.
I guess I work on average 60hrs a week, and this is still way more that you really should.
However, you have to take into consideration, that although my day may be 15hrs long, I may be parked up and either waiting to load or unload for 3 or 4 hrs of that day.
But, it's not like I can walk off and go shopping, or do anything else other than wait in the truck, or like in some sites, you cannot even wait in your truck, you are put into a waiting room with no comfy chairs and expected to wait it out.
So the life of a trucker is not an easy one, and I would urge anyone considering it to think long and hard about it.
It's not a job, it's a lifestyle, you can be away like I was this week, from early hours Monday morning till late evening Friday!
It's not for everyone, it does take a different breed of person to do this job.
Some days I love it, others I hate it, but the money is decent and I also know it's not forever.
Unless I keel over on the job we have bigger plans!
Till later..........
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