The 4h28 Drive and the Broken Ferry Booking
You drive a 40-tonne articulated lorry from Ghent to Calais for a 19:40 ferry. Your tachograph shows: 06:10 start of duty, 06:25–08:55 driving (2h30), 08:55–09:25 break (30 min), 09:25–12:23 driving (2h58), 12:23–13:08 break (45 min), 13:08–15:20 driving (2h12). At 15:20 you are 180 km from Calais; the motorway average is 80 km/h but roadworks add 25 minutes. Your dispatcher calls: the ferry is delayed to 22:15, and a customer wants you to take a detour of 55 minutes to collect a priority pallet. You feel tired after a poor night's sleep.
1. Calculate your remaining driving time and evaluate whether the detour and the ferry are feasible within the rules.
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Daily driving used: 2h30 + 2h58 + 2h12 = 7h40. The daily limit is 9 hours, extendable to 10 hours twice per week. So you have 1h20 of normal daily driving left, or 2h20 if you use a 10-hour extension.
Driving to Calais: 180 km at 80 km/h = 2h15, plus 25 min roadworks = 2h40. That already exceeds your remaining 1h20 and even the 10-hour extension (2h20). The detour adds another 55 min, making it clearly impossible.
Conclusion: you cannot legally reach Calais by driving alone today, with or without the detour. The detour must be refused or reassigned, and the ferry plan must be reworked (relay, second driver, or postponement). Note also that the 10-hour extension is limited to twice per week and must be recorded; check whether you have already used it.
2. Assess your fatigue and state what you should do before continuing.
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You have driven 7h40 with only two breaks totalling 1h15 across more than nine hours of duty, after a poor night's sleep. Fatigue is a recognised collision risk and is also a health-and-safety obligation, not just a tachograph formality. The safe and defensible action is to tell the dispatcher you are not fit to continue for another 2h40 plus a detour, take a proper rest, and let the plan be changed. Do not use the 10-hour extension simply to rescue a commercial schedule when you are already tired: the extension is a legal ceiling, not a target. Record the situation and, if pressured, escalate it, because the driver shares responsibility for not driving while unfit.