Working time is not driving time — and the difference costs money

Two clocks run in parallel in a professional driver’s life, and mixing them up is common. Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 counts driving hours. Directive 2002/15/EC, transposed into each country’s law, counts working hours — which include driving, but also everything else.

What counts as working time

• driving;
• loading and unloading;
• cleaning and maintaining the vehicle;
• assisting passengers, boarding and alighting;
• administrative formalities, customs, weighing;
• any work intended to ensure the safety of the vehicle and the load.

The limits

• Average weekly duration: 48 hours, calculated over the reference period (as a rule four months).
• Absolute maximum in one week: 60 hours.
• Compulsory break after 6 hours of work: at least 30 minutes.
• If work exceeds 9 hours: at least 45 minutes of break.
• Night work: a maximum of 10 hours in any 24-hour period that includes night work.

Working-time breaks may coincide with tachograph breaks, but they are not the same thing. A driver who spends six hours loading and waiting, without driving, has accumulated no driving time — they have accumulated working time and are entitled to a break.

Period of availability

This is time when the driver is neither at the wheel nor working, but must remain reachable to resume the job: waiting at the border, waiting at the dock, accompanying the vehicle on a ferry or train, and time spent beside the driver when double-manning.

Availability does not count towards the 48 hours, but only if the driver knows about it in advance — a foreseeable duration, notified beforehand. Open-ended waiting, with no information, is working time.

That is why marking the tachograph correctly matters so much: recording as “availability” what was actually work gives away hours that should be paid and counted.

Who enforces it

In Portugal, working time is enforced by the Autoridade para as Condições do Trabalho, while driving times are checked at the roadside by the GNR and the IMT. Other countries split it the same way: the labour inspectorate on one side, roadside enforcement on the other. They are separate procedures: the same day can be compliant on the tachograph and in breach on working time.

The record is compulsory and the employer must keep it for at least two years. Drivers may ask for a copy of their own records — and it is worth doing so before any argument about overtime.