Far from reducing driver's hours is there not a case
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for flexibility because ' seasonal demands and other reasons and nes not the law already provide for it? 'hat are your views?
k First, to deal with the law on driver's hours as it stands at the moment: In ;neral terms it is not lawful for anyone to lye for a continuous period of more than IF hours, or more than 11 hours in all, in any Inod of 24 hours beginning at 2 a.m. coupI with the requirement that a driver must me at least 10 consecutive hours of rest in iy period of 24 hours calculated from the time ten he began to drive.
There are, however, some permissible nations to these basic requirements. Thus is period of rest of 10 hours may be reiced to 9 hours if the driver has 12 consecu,e hours of rest during the following period 24 hours.
Additionally drivers of vehicles operating ider A or B licences issued in England or ales may drive continuously for a period of hours if they are only on duty for one period 4 exceeding 8 hours in any 24 hours and if iring their period of duty an aggregate of at 1st 40 minutes' rest of which one period ust be not less than 20 minutes which must taken between 2 and 5 hours after the tie at which they begin their duty. Additially, in the case of a driver engaged by the aek. it is legal for him to drive for 12 hours all on two days a week if some part of the hours is spent by him in waiting or loading unloading the vehicle and one complete
day's rest of 24 hours is allowed in each week.
Regarding any possible change in law covering driver's hours it must be accepted that while there is a trend to reduce hours of work in industry generally so that 5 working days of 8 hours each provide a common basis, much longer hours of work have persisted in road transport and particularly haulage.
Equally, however, because transport is a service industry, there are inherent requirements which demand that a substantial proportion of goods vehicles are required to start work before trade and industry if they are to be available immediately its customers start work. For the same reason they finish later at night. But in a large number of such cases the overall spreadover of working hours would not make an economic double shift because they amount, in total, to around 10/12 hours rather than the 16 hours or so which would constitute a double shift. When operating double shifts too, there would be the added problem of either bringing vehicles back to base to effect the changeover or alternatively arranging for that to be done at some wayside point,
Probably in agriculture, with its perishable products destined for markets or livestock which it is essential both to deliver to market and later deliver to their new owners the same day, is the problem of reducing driver's hours likely to be most acute.
Where, however, shifts are already applied to transport operation, or where schedule runs can be adjusted both as regards mileage and time, it would be less difficult to readjust working schedules to reasonable amendments of the existing regulations.