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Posted By Gerry Knowles
I am currently doing some work for a company who employ a number of service engineers. Their role is to provide a remedial service to customers across England and Wales from a base in the Midlands. The debate we have been having today is around how many miles/hours a day does the company schedule them to work. The majority of their time is spent driving as the majority of the remedial work takes an hour at most. The question was raised as one of the engineers has been complaining about the work load. They currently work on average 54 hours a week. They use small non tacograph fitted vans and all have signed the working hours directive opt out. The job is currently being risk assessed but this is proving difficult due to the diverse nature of the tasks.
I would welcome your thoughts
Gerry Knowles
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Posted By Merv Newman
Our company policy, carried over from my previous employ as an "in-house" consultant, is to limit a working day which includes significant driving time to a maximum of 10 hours as, for most people, driving is one of the highest risk activities we can undertake.
We also limit the maximum distance to be driven in any one day to 500 miles.
501 miles, so can I take two days there and two days back ? No you B***** can't. Take the train and carry your tools.
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Posted By Clarke Kent
Gerry,
ROSPA produce some very good publications regarding driving hours and distances. No more than 2 hours continuous driving without a break of at least 15 minutes.
visit the Rospa website for details
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Posted By Laurie
I thought that even though you have signed an opt out, you can rescind it at any time, or is it not that simple?
Laurie
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Posted By Brett Rolls
You can indeed regain the right to the 48 hour week Laurie, but it is common practice to formalise it and give a notice period, usually one month.
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Posted By Mark Eden
what about the new working time directive coming into force shortly where no one can work over 48 hrs ?
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Posted By Jane Purser
Gerry,
Have you checked out Workplace Transport site on the HSE:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/workplacetransport/index.htm
There's plenty of info and detailed reports available and you should be able to make an informed decision from all the advice and guidance there. Good luck!
Jane
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Posted By Robin B
I had a 'discussion' with our old CEO once and was poo-pooed when I said that the Sales Force's working day started when they got into their cars and continued until the 'paper-work' was completed. However, he said that it started when entering the door on the first call of the day and leaving the door on the last - with a wee bit of paper-work at home. Aye right!
On a similar vein, how about a round trip from, say driving for an hour to Glasgow airport, flying to london for an all day meeting, and returning home all on the same day. Perhaps an 18 hour day!! Its still working time.
Robin
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Posted By Peter Batty
10 hours to complete 500 miles equates to an average speed of 50mph, achievable perhaps, though it doesn't leave any time for the Work Activity.
Driving is an extremely tiring activity, though it is often thought of as “Sitting there doing nothing”, the consequences of making an error are high.
Using the train is an option, though depending upon the amount of tools to carry could have other health & safety issues.
Also the time on the train to complete this journey may still be counted as working hours, depending upon the definition of working time.
My role takes me all over the UK, Ireland and Northern France and I have attempted to reduce my driving by using other forms of transport. My experience is that a door to door journey by train takes at least the same time as driving, flying takes longer. (At least 1.5 hours before flight Check In, at least an hour to drive to the nearest airport etc,etc).
Therefore a reasonable approach to the time spent behind the wheel is probably the safest option, this leaves the discussion, is the rest time at 2 hourly intervals working time or not?
Of course perhaps we should all work locally to our homes that would alleviate the need for long distance travel.
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Posted By Merv Newman
I may have been misunderstood. It wasn't 10 hours allowed to drive 500 miles.
10 hours is the maximum recommended length of the working day, including "face time" ie on-site. My average time, when I do 500 miles, is about 8 1/2 hours, including breaks every 2 hours or less. Theoretically this would leave me about 90 minutes for a meeting or whatever. Oh yeah !
Usually I time my trips to arrive at the hotel for dinner, 8 hours beauty sleep, then go into the meeting, ready for a full days work, the next morning.
In the reverse direction, if the morning meeting only lasted an hour or so then I could take the remaining 8 1/2 hours to drive home. If the meeting lasted the whole morning then driving that distance home would exceed my time limit. Another hotel night. (my total for 2004 was 176 nights, down on the 193 for 2003)
We tend to have standardised on cars rather than public transport. Door to door service and you don't have miles to walk carrying a laptop, video projector, toothbrush and change of y-fronts, your best suit and safety boots. From our offices we can get to most places in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, switzerland and Northern Italy within the 500 mile limit. When you really have to fly you have to lighten the load (the spare Y-fronts go out of the window) which means you usually forget something.
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