DVSA issues advice on drivers’ hours for utility vehicles
The Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has issued detailed guidance on its interpretation of EC Regulation 561/2006, whose effect is to exempt some vehicles used in connection with sewerage, flood protection, water, gas and electricity maintenance services from EC drivers’ hours rules.
The scope of the exemption hinges on the meaning of the word ‘maintenance’, DVSA says – adding that, for vehicles to qualify for the exemption, they: “must be directly involved in maintenance work, where part of the existing utility infrastructure is being repaired or replaced.”
The agency cites the example of a vehicle used when replacing an existing section of underground pipe, which it says would be exempt from EC drivers’ hours rules. But a vehicle used when installing a new underground piping system would not.
What will not wash, DVSA says, is that argument that some vehicle operations “qualify for the derogation by virtue of the fact that they maintain a service in the wider context.”
For example, DVSA is unequivocal about rejecting the argument made by some electricity companies – namely that all their vehicles should be considered exempt because all their work contributes to maintaining the national grid.
DVSA said: “This goes beyond the exemption, and some of these operations are in fact bound by EC drivers’ hours rules.”
It added: “Some sewerage companies believe that vehicles transporting sludge from their plants should be exempt. Although removing sludge from the sewage system can be seen as maintenance, actually transporting sludge from the plant may not.
“If sludge is removed directly from the sewage system onto the vehicle and transported away immediately, this maintenance work would be exempt. However, if sludge is removed from the system then stored at the plant before being transferred onto a vehicle, the ‘maintenance’ element would have been completed before the sludge was transported, so this journey would fall under EC drivers’ hours rules.”
Operators can read the full DVSA guidance note here.
