Lords content with hours
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• The proposed changes to British driver's hours regulations, which come into effect on September 29, were passed by the Lords last week.
For the Government, the Earl of Caithness said that the new regulations "will bring significant benefits to drivers in the form of less driving, longer weekly rest and longer breaks for most of them".
He argued that: "Drivers and operators will benefit from the ability marginally to increase daily driving and to postpone daily and weekly rest subject to later compensation."
However, Lord Underhill, for the Opposition, said that the 1968 Transport Act had served extremely well and that road safety standards in Britain are very high. With that in mind he said there were a number of points in the new regulations which caused concern.
"Bearing in mind that the majority of haulage employers have five or fewer vehicles, and many are non-unionised, the problem of carrying out enforcement with any degree of flexibility will be extremely difficult," said Lord Underhill.
"I should like to see journeys so arranged that drivers can get home by some extension of hours, rather than have to sleep in their cabs," he said.
In response, the Earl of Caithness said: "It is the removal of the hours of duty . . . that has provided the very necessary flexibility which we all wanted to see for drivers to allow them to get home after work, where that was feasible."
As for enforcement of the new regulations, new technology was being used to check half a million tachograph charts a year, and the Department of Transport and the police were making considerable progress, claimed the Earl.
Lord Teviot said the FTA and the RHA welcomed the new regulations, but the Bus and Coach Council was concerned that: "The regulations to do with goods transport do not sit easily with passenger transport which is a different matter.
"Particular difficulties can arise with the weekly rest, which is increased from 39 to 45 hours, and the awkwardness of compensation for any permitted reduction of it," said Lord Teviot. "Its effect would be to reduce a six-day availability to five-and-a-halfor even five-day working, which could be a serious loss to a seasonal industry."
The Earl of Caithness dismissed this argument. "I think the Government and the other member states have got it about right. It is not perfect for either side, but it is somewhere in the middle and I think we have a better working solution now than we had before."