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Time on your side
Page 38
Page 39
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Smart operators can make the working time regulations work to their
advantage. Patric Cunnane reports from an ETA training seminar.
After all the fuss and bother it seems the Working Time Regulations might be more manageable than the industry had feared.That was the consensus at a recent seminar on the regulations impact held by the Freight Transport Association at a hotel in Tunbridge Wells.
The light at the end of the tunnel for most of the 22 operators in attendance was the way' periods of availability' (P0As) can be used to lessen the impact of restrictions on working time.
FTA trainer instructor Kevin Hardwick told delegates that a driver working 48 hours can add five hours for breaks and perhaps another 10 hours"availability', giving a 63-hour week. "So you can put your drivers' minds at rest," said Hardwick, -The only restriction is that working time must not exceed 60 hours — but that could give you a 75-hour week with 10 hours covered by periods of availability and five hours of breaks. Therefore the impact on earnings is minimal."
All the delegates agreed that they could use POAs to their advantage in implementing the regulations. "We thought the impact would be that you would need more drivers but you may, in fact, need fewer because you will be getting more out of them," Hardwick explained.
Big record collection
However, operators will need to keep records for two years and must be aware if their drivers have any other employment. For example, if a driver is working for a taxi firm at weekends that must be declared because it could affect his daily or weekly rest.
The grey area remains the definition of a period of availability. One delegate delivers cars. "How can you prove whether you knew what the period of availability was in advance?" he asked. "We pick up cars and when we go to garages we are told that the salesman is busy and we don't know how long we will be waiting."
Hardwick advised that the driver must ask anyway and then switch the tacho to 'rest'. As for supermarket deliveries,VOSA will accept that a vehicle crawling in the queue is on a POA. Motorway hold-ups are more of a grey area. "If the driver is told by Sally Traffic they will be stationary for two hours it could count as a POA," he said."The driver should make a note. However, it could still be classed as driving time because the driver is in control of the vehicle," Eleanor Laird. company secretary, and Kevin Holmes, transport manager of Enterprise Freight Services, had a more tricky problem."We do multidrops — at every one a driver could be held up for 10 minutes," Laird reported. "How are we going to do all the paperwork?"
Again, it's a question of trying to ascertain the POA in advance, Hardwick replied. As a former delivery driver he recognised that an HGV might arrive at its tipping point at 6am when the staff are not due till 7am: "That could count as either a POA or a break."
It became clear that the whole business of POA will be exercising the industry as the regulations bed in over the next few months. Ian Wilson of Crawley-based Air and Cargo Services is evidently a glutton for punishment: "I went to an RHA seminar yesterday." he revealed. "It came up with about six different definitions for POAs."
Delays at night
His colleague Robert Winmili, a director of the firm, added: "We are concerned about waiting time. There's a night element and they may be waiting an hour or more to collect."
Anne Travis, supply chain manager of Tunbridge-Wells based pie makers WA Turner, welcomed the regulations' flexibility: "The ability to extend the reference period to 26 weeks helps seasonal operations like ours," she said, adding that the company had negotiated a workforce agreement for that reason. "As a food manufacturer we are busy at the moment but it gets quiet in June and July."
Douglas Ratcliffe. transport manager for demolition firm Brown and Mason, said it was easy to be misled."There's so much information —but a lot if it is misinformation," he warned.
Hardwick stressed that the key to making the regulations work is training.
"The lack of training was a big problem when tachographs were introduced," he remarked. "The majority of drivers out there did not understand the drivers rules and it was not their fault. They were not getting the instruction, supervision and training. You can't keep people in the dark and simply expect them to do the things you want," A driver who is not on the road should still record the duty time on his tachograph, and that includes yard time, said Hardwick. He must also say what that work was: "If you are running tight, do the drivers need to be doing some of the things they are doing? Should they be waiting at your gate for half an hour eating into your own driving timer •