IMPORTANT PLEASE READ – Ceasing of the relaxation of EU and GB drivers’ hours rules: all sectors carriage of goods by road – updated 29th May ’20
Published 4th June 2020
We have had a couple of emails and calls over the past couple of days regarding the above so we thought we would post this as a blog on our here for clarification. As is written below, the relaxation of EU drivers hours ceased with effect from 00:00 1st June 2020 and this was an email that was constructed and sent out as soon as we received the information from the GOV.UK webservice. Please ensure any of your drivers who took advantage of these rules, made print-outs for every day they did so; this is very, very important as we are already aware drivers having being stopped and asked for proof of their activities.
The post of Friday read as below:
Ceasing of the relaxation of EU driver hours with effect from 00:00 1st June 2020
As promised in our last post at the beginning of May and the previous one of mid-April; we have just 20 minutes ago received an update of the situation regarding the above. This is the statement from the email below:
As part of the Government’s effort to keep supply chains moving throughout the coronavirus outbreak, the Government announced a temporary measure to relax the enforcement of both the EU and GB drivers’ hours rules until 31 May 2020.
Following a review, the Department for Transport has confirmed that the temporary relaxation to the EU drivers’ hours rules will not be extended and will end at 23:59 on 31 May 2020. This means that with effect from Monday morning at 00.00, the normal drivers’ hours rules will apply. Please do not feel you can extend these yourselves as I am sure that the DVSA will be busy checking those they have been able to see or those they seen to see how well they have been doing.
The relaxation to domestic GB drivers’ hours rules will continue until 23:59 on 14 June 2020, but will be kept under review with more information being able to be found on this link.
For the purposes of the Road Transport (Working Time) regulations
Drivers and employers must record activities as follows.
Time spent furloughed does not form part of the calculation of the average maximum weekly working time, as it does not fall under either ‘working time’ or ‘excluded hours’.
Therefore, if a furloughed worker is not doing other work, including any training that would usually be recorded as working time, the time is not working time.
Work that is undertaken by a mobile worker while they are furloughed (for instance for a different employer) that is in scope of the regulations must be recorded and form part of the calculation of the worker’s average weekly working time.
Employers must record sufficient information on furloughed workers to meet their obligations under regulation 11 of the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005.
‘Leave’ must be recorded if conducting no work and taking statutory leave, even if statutory leave is taken while a worker is furloughed.
When statutory leave is taken, 48 hours must be recorded for the mobile worker’s normal working week and 8 hours per day for any period of time which is not a full week. Any leave over and above statutory leave does not have to be accounted in working time totals and can be used to reduce the 48-hour average.
For those of you for whom we carry out analysis, we have been taking care of this anyway and where you have advised us a driver is being furloughed, we have shown this and as advised above. That is to say, a duty has been recorded as furlough but it has been at zero time as far as the Road Transport Directive (Working Time) is concerned.
Please be advised, that during the period of between the relaxation of rules from April until end of May 2020, we were advised as follows:
The relevant provisions of the Road Transport Directive (Working Time) Regulations 2005 will not apply, to the extent that they conflict with the requirements of responding to the emergency. This means that as all of you would have been part way through a 26 (or possibly 17) week reference period, you would not be expected to reduce a drivers hours in order to bring them back to a 48-hour average. However, as when the reference period does come to an end, then it will be necessary to comply with the usual rules. Please also be advised that then as well as now, drivers must still comply with all the other requirements of the Working Time Regulations regarding breaks. These were included in a previous post but if anyone would like further clarification, please contact us and we would be delighted to assist.
Despite what very many of you think, breaching the Road Transport Working Time rules is a serious offence. The DVSA can deal with infringements in a number of ways including the issue of a prohibition notice or, in the most serious cases, a prosecution.
Downloading from drivers’ tachograph cards and vehicle units
We have also been contacted a number of times about this over the past few weeks. So again, taken from the GOV.UK website, this is the view of the DVSA and DoT.
Drivers who are currently driving still need to download their tachograph card. However, in some situations, drivers may be unable to download their card. For example the place where download equipment is located may be inaccessible due to COVID-19. If operators are unable to ensure drivers’ card downloads are carried out due to COVID-19, a record of this should be made and provided to a DVSA examiner if requested. Furloughed drivers need to download their tachograph card when they return to driving so currently drivers do not need to download every 28 days if they are not driving.
Operators still need to download vehicles’ unit data in accordance with the regulations although we, Transolva Ltd., strongly advise this duty is carried out monthly. Again, if they are unable to due to COVID-19, a record of this should be made and provided to a DVSA examiner if requested.
Over 30% of our customers use remote downloading devices which we supply and fit. You will never need to download a drivers’ digi card or vehicle again. We supply fit a download button which a driver presses at the end of his day and the device automatically (via an inserted SIM card, monthly subscrption) downloads every 2 days. You, therefore never need miss downloads or any speed data again!
I appreciate there is a lot of information above hence the reason we are publishing it as a blog as well. Please take notice of what’s been written above and ensure that none of you fall foul of the law.
You need to contact us on either 01935 577007 or [email protected]
