BREAKS AND DRIVING LIMITS
Driving
'Driving time' is the duration of driving activity recorded either by the recording equipment or manually when the recording equipment is broken.
Even a short period of driving under EU rules during any day by a driver will mean that he is in scope of the EU rules for the whole of that day and must comply with the daily driving, break and rest requirements; he will also have to comply with the weekly rest requirement and driving limit.
Breaks and driving limits.
After a driving period of no more than 4.5 hours, a driver must immediately take a break of at least 45 minutes unless he takes a rest period. A break taken in this way must not be interrupted.
A break is any period during which a driver may not carry out any driving or any other work and which is used exclusively for recuperation. A break may be taken in a moving vehicle, provided no other work is undertaken.
Alternatively, a full 45-minute break can be replaced by one break of at least 15 minutes followed by another break of at least 30 minutes. These breaks must be distributed over the 4.5-hour period. Breaks of less than 15 minutes will not contribute towards a qualifying break, but neither will they be counted as duty or driving time. The EU rules will only allow a split-break pattern that shows the second period of break being at least 30 minutes.
A driver ‘wipes the slate clean’ if he takes a 45-minute break (or qualifying breaks totalling 45 minutes) before or at the end of a 4.5-hour driving period. This means that the next 4.5-hour driving period begins with the completion of that qualifying break, and in assessing break requirements for the new 4.5-hour period, no reference is to be made to driving time accumulated before this point.
Breaks may also be required under the separate Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005.
See Annex 2 on page 43 for further details.
Daily driving limit
The maximum daily driving time is 9 hours
Weekly driving limit
The maximum weekly driving limit is 56 hours, which applies to a fixed week.
Two-weekly driving limit
The maximum driving time over any two-weekly period is 90 hours
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