Road Legal

Drivers’ hours and working time laws together incorporate many different exemptions and defences.

What are the main exemptions and defences under UK domestic  drivers’ hours law?

UK domestic hours rules do not apply to:

• Drivers of vehicles used by armed forces, police and fire brigades.
• Those who always drive off the public highway.
• Private driving.

It is an offence for drivers to contravene the domestic drivers’ hours rules or for any third party to cause or permit them to do so. However, you are not liable to conviction:

• If  the breach was due to unavoidable delay in completing a journey from circumstances that could not reasonably have been foreseen.
• If, as an employer, the breach was caused or permitted by another third party (such as a second employer) and you could not reasonably have known about it.

Employers are also protected from conviction in the case of records-related offences if they can prove they took all reasonable steps to ensure drivers kept proper records.

More information about UK domestic drivers’ hours law.

 

What are the main defences under EU drivers’ hours and tachograph law?

It is an offence for drivers to contravene the EU hours or tachograph rules or for any third party to cause or permit them to do so. However, you are not liable to conviction:

• As a driver departing from the rules, if you do so to ensure the safety of persons, the vehicle or its load and provided road safety is not jeopardised. If you do this you should note all reasons for doing so on your tachograph chart or digital tachograph printout.
• As an employer, if an hours breach was caused or permitted by another third party (such as a second employer) and you could not reasonably have known about it.

Employers are also protected from conviction in the case of records-related offences if they can prove they took all reasonable steps to ensure drivers kept proper records.

It is also an offence under tachograph law to be driving an in-scope vehicle without a working tachograph. However, drivers will avoid conviction on this score if they can prove that:

• They were on their way to a place of repair at the time or that it was not immediately practical for the equipment to be repaired.
• They were on their way to a place of fitment at the time for a tachograph to be fitted.
• That they were keeping manual records instead.
• Where the tachograph seal is broken, that it could not be immediately repaired and that all other aspects of the regulations were being complied with.

More information about EU drivers’ hours and tachograph law

 

What about the exemptions under EU drivers’ hours law?

There are many exemptions for drivers from EU drivers’ hours rules. They include times when a driver is driving:

• Vehicles of under 3.5 tonnes GVW.
• Vehicles that cannot exceed 30km/h (40km/h from 11 April 2007).
• Vehicles used in emergencies or rescue operations.
• Specialised breakdown vehicles (but only those operating within a 100km radius of their base as of 11 April 2007).
• Vehicles used for non-commercial carriage of goods for personal use (not exceeding 7.5 tonnes GVW from 11 April 2007).

Drivers are also exempt from hours and tachograph rules when engaged in certain types of transport operations in the UK. They include:

• Vehicles used by agricultural, horticultural, forestry or fishery undertakings for carrying goods within a 50km radius of the vehicle’s normal base.
• Vehicles used for carrying animal waste or carcasses not intended for human consumption.
• Vehicles used for carrying live animals between farms and local markets or between markets and local slaughterhouses (within a maximum radius of 50km of the vehicle’s normal base from 11 April 2007).
• Vehicles specially fitted out as mobile shops, banks, libraries or places of worship.
• Vehicles with a GVW of below 7.5 tonnes carrying material or equipment for the driver’s use in the course of his work within a 50km radius of the vehicle’s normal base, where driving is not the driver’s main work activity.
• Vehicles used exclusively inside hub facilities like ports and railway terminals (from 11 April 2007 only).

Note that up to and including 10 April 2007, EU drivers’ hours rules also do not apply when driving is fully off the public highway. Where driving is split between off-road and public highway, the off-road portion counts as ‘other work’ rather than driving. From 11 April, however, both off-road and public highway driving will count as driving.

Many other exemptions and derogations also apply.

 

What about the working time rules?

There are a number of derogations and exceptions that apply to these rules but perhaps the most important one relating to the road transport sector is the exception that applies up until March 2009 to self-employed drivers in The Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005.

There are some strict rules, however, about who really qualifies as ‘self-employed’ – those who work for just one customer, for example, are unlikely to qualify. Whether self-employed drivers will be drawn into the scope of the RTD in 2009 has yet to be determined.

Where can I find out more?

For more information on the exemptions and defences that apply to EU drivers’ hours rules and UK domestic drivers’ hours rules, see the DfT publication Drivers’ Hours and Tachograph Rules for Goods Vehicles in the UK and Europe.

For more information about the changes being introduced to drivers’ hours rules from 11th April 2007, see the Transport Office’s guide to the new rules.

For more information on the exemptions and defences that apply to the road transport working time regulations see The Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005.

For information on the exemptions and defences that apply to general working time rules see The Working Time Regulations 1998 and The Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2003.