No bunk for mate
Page 49
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We deliver caravans nationwide and have to employ a driver's mate because the loads are over 3.5m wide, but he is not a driver.
If the vehicle cannot get back home for the night the driver uses a bunk in the cab and the mate sleeps across the cab seats. We have been told that the mate cannot sleep in the cab unless it has a bunk for him. Is that right?
A No. The drivers' hours law no longer applies to attendants carried on a vehicle to deal with trailers or long, wide or projecting loads, so there is no regulation which states that an attendant must be provided with a bunk.
Prior to the EC drivers' hours law being consolidated and revised in EC Regulation 3820/85, the old EC Regulation 543/69 applied to the crew of a vehicle, which included the attendant.
Consequently, an attendant was subject to the daily rest rules and, like the current regulation, a requirement was that a daily rest period should be taken outside the vehicle unless it had a bunk and the vehicle was stationary.
When the regulation was revised it stated that In view of the falling number of drivers' mates and conductors it is no longer necessary to regulate the rest periods of crew members other than the driver" but in the interests of good staff relations you might consider fitting a second bunk.
Write to Commercial Motor Any Questions, Room L431, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, or phone CM 's 24-hour legal hotline (081-652 3689) giving your name and number. Duck worth's answers are an interpretation of the law and should not be seen as definitive.