Professional Driving Breaks

[RMMP]

We are getting mixed messages regarding a 12 hour night shift and our break entitlement.We carry out a mixed night of driving & other work.We get a 40min Break after 4hrs then comes a grey area,where no one will come up a definitive answer.We do get another 20mins,management are quite happy with us taking it at the end,i feel this is surely against the law.Help please.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

We are getting mixed messages regarding a 12 hour night shift and our break entitlement.We carry out a mixed night of driving & other work.We get a 40min Break after 4hrs then comes a grey area,where no one will come up a definitive answer.We do get another 20mins,management are quite happy with us taking it at the end,i feel this is surely against the law.Help please.

The law on professional drivers is very clear you must have 45 minute break for after 4.5hours of driving so if you have been driving for 4.5 hours then you are legally entitled to a 45minute break. If you do 2 lots of 4.5hour driving then you get 2 x 45 minute breaks.

However, if, as you state you have a mixed work plan then things get confusing it might be worth contacting DVLA to get a ruling as I know non driving work can affect the rules.

As to the 20 minute break at the end of the shift RM cannot enforce it on you as breaks should be somewhere in the middle, however as RM give us more than the statutory minimum for non drivers the rules get a bit confusing. What I am trying to say is that they cannot tell you take it at the end but they can allow people to take the break at the end of the duty if they wish. H&S may question it and frown about it but at the end of the day the people are doing this against their advice and volunteering to do so there is not much they can do either.

[andy2007]

This has come up at our place, when the Managers decided that they wanted the Drivers to strap their own trailers. Aparently, you can't do ANY work during your minimum Driving breaks (the 45 mins after 4.5 hours). I'm afraid I don't know where it says that in the legislation. Just that, that's what we were told. Because if they arrived just before their break (which sometimes happens), they couldn't do what the Managers wanted.