As the UK government response evolves to combat the Covid-19 pandemic they have released the following relaxation to drivers’ hours rules in key sectors.
The Department for Transport have stated these rules apply to both EU Drivers’ Hours and GB Domestic Rules covering carriage of ALL goods by road from 00:01 on 23/03/2020 until 23:59 on 21/04/2020.
Summary of EU Drivers’ Hour relaxation
The EU drivers’ hours rules can be temporarily relaxed as follows:
- Replacement of the EU daily driving limit of 9 hours with one of 11 hours
- Reduction of the daily rest requirements from 11 to 9 hours
- Lifting the weekly (56 hours) and fortnightly driving limits (90 hours) to 60 and 96 hours respectively
- Postponement of the requirement to start a weekly rest period after six-24 hours periods, for after seven 24 hours period; although two regular weekly rest periods or a regular and a reduced weekly rest period will still be required within a fortnight
- The requirements for daily breaks of 45 minutes after 4.5 hours driving replaced with replaced with a break of 45 minutes after 5.5 hours of driving
Drivers must not use relaxation ‘1’ and ‘4’ at the same time. This is to ensure drivers can get adequate rest.
Summary of GB Rules Relaxation
The GB drivers’ hours rules can be temporarily relaxed as follows:
- Replacement of the GB duty time limit of 11 hours with 12 hours
- Replacement of the GB daily driving time limit of 10 hours with 11 hours
Drivers can only take advantage of this temporary relaxation 5 days in any 7 day period and must take a rest period of 24 hours within the same 7 day period when taking advantage of this relaxation.
Full details from government website can be found here.