Charlotte Haye 8th April 2021

A Beginners Guide To HGV Driving Hours

When you take a road trip, you plan in times to pull over, take a break and stretch your legs a bit. Well, HGV drivers need to do the same thing! But instead of pulling over at the point they feel tired, HGV drivers have a rulebook that tells them how long they can drive for in one go, when they need to take breaks, and even how long those breaks should be. This ensures all drivers on the road are well rested and driving their best. But if you’re new to driving, the rules might seem a bit confusing, so today we wanted to share the breakdown for you today.

The Limits On Driving Hours

The rules we have on driving hours in the UK are actually based on regulations set by the European Union to ensure driver safety. But before you start worrying about Brexit and the impact that might have, these rules have also been enshrined in British law, so they’re staying around. The key rules for HGV driver hours include:

A 9-hour daily limit on driving. This can be increased to 10 hours, but only twice a week, no more.
Drivers may only drive 56 hours in any given week.
90 hours is the maximum fortnightly limit.

These limits take into account things like shift patterns, which is why they roll over both a week and a fortnightly time period. As long as you aren’t exceeding any of these limits on drive time, you should be able to keep driver fatigue at bay.

Legally Mandated Breaks

On top of the rules around how long you can drive, there are also rules around the breaks you must take. Mainly, that after 4.5 hours of driving, you are legally required to take a break of at least 45 minutes. The drive time making up that 4.5 hours can be done in any way you like – from one long sitting to multiple shorter periods. But either way, once you’ve hit 4.5 hours of drive time, you have to take that 45-minute break. Like the driving itself, this can be done in one single sitting, or you can do a ‘split break’, where you take a 15-minute break, followed by a short driving period and another 30-minute break shortly after. We say 15 minutes because if your break is less than 15 minutes, it’s not legally considered a break. If you don’t take the 45 minutes, or the 15 and then 30-minute breaks, then you and your fleet manager could face criminal prosecution.

This is mainly because the human brain isn’t designed to focus for that long, and so it needs a decent amount of recovery time before you put it back into focus mode.

Rest Periods

On top of your break requirements, HGV drivers also have to take rest periods. These are the longer periods of time you go between driving, so that you can fully relax, rest and recover. All drivers are required to take a daily rest period of 11 hours. This period can be taken all in one go (for example, overnight), or it can be split into two chunks. However if you do split it, the first period needs to be an uninterrupted 3 hours, and the second an uninterrupted 9 hours – which means you actually end up taking a minimum of 12 hours rest.

A HGV driver can, if they choose, reduce this daily rest period to a minimum of 9 hours uninterrupted rest (called reduced daily rest period), but you can only do this three times a week. Any rest period you take that’s over 9 hours but under 11 automatically falls into this category.

There is also a rule around the total rest taken per week, to ensure no driver is going without the required amount of rest. Drivers have to total 45 hours of weekly rest periods. Again, this can be reduced, this time to 24 hours, providing at least one full rest is taken in any fortnight, and that there are no more than 6 consecutive 24-hour periods between weekly rests. These rules are all put in place to keep drivers happy, healthy and safe.

Driving Time vs Working Time

This is where things get a bit fuzzy, because while driving time and working time might sound the same, they’re not. To clarify – driving time is classed as time you spend physically behind the wheel, driving your HGV. Working time is defined as anything else you do in connection to your job, transport and operations. This includes (but isn’t limited to):

Driving
Loading and unloading
Monitoring or any loading/unloading activities
Driver CPC training
Industry-specific job training
Cleaning and maintaining your vehicle
Conducting daily vehicle checks and reports
Administrative work
Waiting periods where the foreseeable duration isn’t known

Of course, under this model driving is also considered working time, which is why things get a little fuzzy. Working time isn’t regulated in exactly the same way. It’s a little complicated but essentially:

Working time must not exceed an average of 48 hours a week, normally calculated over a 17-week period.
There is a maximum working time of 60 hours per week.
A maximum working time of 10 hours is night work is performed.

These rules apply to any driver of a vehicle and trailer of more than 3.5 tonnes – which makes up the majority of working HGV drivers. At Easy as HGV, we cover these rules extensively in our HGV training, to ensure you know and understand what is expected of you, and how it’s designed to keep you and other road users safe. It also means that if you happen to meet an employer who is trying to bend the rules, you can recognise it and take action. If you would like to know more, or just need some advice, please just get in touch with the team today.

Charlotte Haye

Take the first step towards your dream HGV driving career. Contact Us

Call free 0800 970 8447

Get a Quote

Why choose Easy As HGV?

We're Local

Great Value

Speedy & Helpful

Trusted