Two-Week Driving Totals and a Late Ferry Booking
It is Thursday 14:00. A driver's records for the current fixed week (Monday 00:00 start) show 34 hours 20 minutes of driving, and for the previous week 47 hours 10 minutes. Tomorrow, Friday, he is asked to do a run requiring 9 hours 45 minutes of driving, then take a reduced daily rest of 9 hours at a hotel and return on Saturday with 8 hours 30 minutes of driving. He has taken two reduced daily rests this week already (9 h 30 min each) and one reduced weekly rest of 26 hours last weekend, for which no compensation has yet been recorded. He asks whether he can simply 'make up' the shortfall by taking a longer rest next month.
1. Test the proposed Friday and Saturday plan against the daily and weekly driving limits and the rest rules.
Read the worked answer
Daily driving: the normal limit is 9 hours, extendable to 10 hours no more than twice in a fixed week. Friday's 9 h 45 min requires a 10-hour extension. He has not used any 10-hour extension this week, so Friday would be the first - permitted. Saturday's 8 h 30 min is within the normal 9 hours.
Weekly driving: the limit is 56 hours in any single week. Current week: 34 h 20 min + 9 h 45 min + 8 h 30 min = 52 h 35 min. That is within 56 hours.
Two-week total: the limit is 90 hours in any two consecutive weeks. Previous week 47 h 10 min + current week 52 h 35 min = 99 h 45 min. That exceeds 90 hours by 9 h 45 min. So the plan as a whole is unlawful, even though each individual week is under 56 hours.
Daily rests: he has already used two reduced daily rests this week. A third reduced daily rest (the 9-hour hotel rest on Friday night) is not permitted - only three reduced daily rests are allowed between two weekly rests, and he has two left at most depending on how the week is counted; in any event the plan uses a third. He would need a regular 11-hour rest instead, which pushes Saturday's departure later.
Conclusion: the plan fails on the two-week 90-hour rule and on the reduced daily rest count. Reduce Friday's or Saturday's driving, or move part of the work to another driver or another week.
2. Address the reduced weekly rest compensation and the driver's suggestion of making up the shortfall next month.
Read the worked answer
The driver's suggestion is wrong on the law. Compensation for a reduced weekly rest must be taken en bloc, attached to another rest period of at least 9 hours, before the end of the third week following the week in which the reduced rest was taken. 'Next month' is outside that window.
Worked through: the reduced weekly rest of 26 hours was taken last weekend. The shortfall against the 45-hour regular weekly rest is 45 − 26 = 19 hours. That 19 hours must be added, in one block, to a later rest of at least 9 hours, and completed before the end of the third week following the week of the reduction. So if the reduction fell in week N, the compensation must be completed by the end of week N+3.
Practical plan:
- Record the 19-hour compensation explicitly in the tachograph records and the company's planning system, so an inspector can see it was taken.
- Attach it to a weekend: for example, a regular 45-hour weekly rest extended to 64 hours, taken en bloc, satisfies both the weekly rest and the compensation.
- Do not split the 19 hours across several short rests; it must be en bloc.
- Note that compensation attached to a rest period does not itself count as the weekly rest for that week - the weekly rest requirement still has to be met separately.
Finally, remind the driver that the two-week 90-hour limit already blocks the proposed Friday–Saturday plan, so the schedule must be reworked before any compensation planning is finalised.