Mandatory breaks when driving from June 5, 2021

Good afternoon, dear reader.

This article will discuss the changes that have been made to the regulation “On the peculiarities of the working hours and rest periods of car drivers” from June 5, 2021 .

This document regulates the length of the working day for vehicle drivers and it is on its basis that drivers’ work schedules are drawn up. Let me remind you that a separate article has been published on pddmaster.ru, which discusses the peculiarities of the work and rest regime of drivers. I recommend that you familiarize yourself with it.

Well, today we will talk about the changes to the document dated June 5, 2018:

Working hours of drivers of fire and rescue vehicles.
Length of the driver's working day.
Driving time during the week.
Mandatory breaks when driving.

Drawing up a work schedule

The work schedule is drawn up for a month and includes working days taking into account the beginning and end of the shift, time for breaks for lunch and rest, weekends and special breaks for certain categories of drivers. Work time recording can be daily or cumulative.

Daily accounting

The limits by which the length of the working day is determined are regulated by Order 15 of the Ministry of Transport. Daily accounting assumes that the driver works according to the traditional 40-hour week. With 5 working days, the duration of the shift should not exceed 8 hours. With 6 working days, the duration of the shift should not exceed 7 hours. These 7 hours include not only specific driving time, but also the time the driver spends performing other work duties. These nuances will be discussed in more detail in the “Driver’s working time” section.

Summarized accounting

In case of summary accounting, discrepancies in the duration of the working day are allowed. The shifts may be long and may not meet standards, but if you count the number of working hours per month, they should fit within the standards. The calculation scheme in this case is more complex, and working hours can be taken into account both for a month and for a season in certain cases. We are talking about situations when the established weekly or daily norm cannot be met. A seasonal duration of the accounting period of up to 6 months is allowed if a work and rest schedule is drawn up for bus drivers if they transport passengers and work in a resort area. These are also drivers whose activities are related to seasonal work.

When the employer introduces summarized accounting, the opinion of the representative body of employees must be taken into account, and the duration of working hours for the entire period must also correspond to the standard for the number of working hours. There are still limitations in this case. This is the maximum working day, not exceeding 10 hours and certain exceptions when the working day can reach 12 hours. Exceptions include the following types of employment:

transportation on rescue, fire and cash-in-transit vehicles;
transportation by passenger company cars when servicing managers, local governments and state authorities;
intra-quarry, intra-factory and intra-facility technological transportation, in which the vehicle does not go onto public roads and city streets;
transportation when working with emergency services and public utilities, healthcare institutions, postal, telephone and telegraph services;
drivers of suburban and city shuttle buses;
intercity transportation.

Since both summarized and daily accounting must include the driver’s working time and his rest time (all types of breaks), you should familiarize yourself with these components in more detail.

Overtime

The longest shift duration allowed for daily or cumulative accounting may be exceeded in cases provided for by law. Such work is called overtime. They are allowed in the following situations:

Performing actions that cannot be completed within the specified time. Failure to do so will result in damage to property or other unpleasant consequences.
The need to perform duties that must be performed by an employee who is not on shift. Management must quickly replace the driver who has completed his shift.

Part-time mode for drivers is unacceptable.

Driver working hours

The total amount of working time consists not only of the period when the driver is driving a vehicle, but also of the following time periods:

Machine control.
Preparatory work before the start of a shift and before its end, especially if a work and rest schedule for an international driver is being drawn up.
Rest breaks specially established by the employer at the final destination and during the journey.
Simple, the cause of which is not the fault of the driver.
Forced downtime during unloading or loading of goods.
Forced downtime in areas with specialized vehicles.
The period of undergoing a medical examination before going on a shift or before leaving for a flight, as well as after completing a shift. The round trip travel must be taken into account if it is necessary to get to the place of the medical examination.
The period of driving a vehicle during a long-distance trip, when the driver is replaced by a partner.
The time that the driver spends on organizing the protection of the vehicle and the transported cargo at intermediate stations or parking lots. We are talking about intercity transportation.
The time that the driver spends on eliminating breakdowns of the serviced vehicle during the work shift.

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Remember that an employer's intention to force an employee to take a break at the expense of lunch time is not legal. It is also worth paying attention to the time it takes to protect the transported cargo. This time is not fully counted, but 30% must be counted.

The time the driver is at the workplace, during which he is not driving the car, is also counted. Such hours count towards a minimum of 50%.

Information about medical examinations

When hiring and checking, managers require more than just personal identification from drivers. A medical certificate is required confirming the suitability of a person to perform a specific type of work.

Driver medical examination

Periodic medical examinations are also carried out in the future, when drivers begin work. Here are some basic recommendations:

Sub-trip inspections are carried out to identify persons who cannot drive a vehicle at all and are unable to ensure safety while driving on the road.
Pre-trip activities are only available to doctors who have the appropriate license.

Stamps are usually placed on waybills.

Once every five years, bus drivers are examined by a psychiatrist because they operate equipment that can cause serious harm to others. Preliminary and periodic studies are organized at the expense of employers. Leaders not only organize the process, if necessary, they themselves participate in activities to improve first aid skills on the roads.

Driving time

It was previously mentioned that the regulation on working and rest time for car drivers regulates any periods associated with the employee’s work duties. We should also talk about the time that the driver spends specifically driving the car. During a shift, this period should not exceed 9 hours.

If we are talking about transporting passengers in mountainous areas in oversized vehicles exceeding 9.5 meters in length, the maximum period for driving the vehicle is reduced to 8 hours. This rule is also taken into account when drawing up the work and rest schedule for truck drivers transporting large, long or heavy cargo. An increase in driving time is allowed in the following cases:

Cumulative time tracking is allowed when driving suburban or city buses.
Increasing the shift to 10 hours is allowed no more than twice a week when using summarized recording of working hours. During 2 weeks, driving time should not exceed 90 hours.

It can be concluded that drivers of commuter, urban and freight vehicles have the busiest workdays. However, an upper limit in terms of vehicle driving time is not always set. The duration of driving a bus can be up to 11 hours during a shift lasting 12 hours.

About the procedure for maintaining summarized accounting

Working time calculation

The reason for using summarized accounting is the impossibility of using a standard schedule intended for representatives of a particular profession. Most often, in such situations, accounting periods are set at one month.

Internal labor regulations regulate the very organization of summarized time recording at a particular enterprise. These rules are set personally by the manager. This is done when approving a collective labor agreement, or with mandatory consideration of the opinion of representatives of the trade union body. In the internal regulations, it is necessary to write about the reason why summarized time tracking is organized.

Be sure to indicate the length of the accounting period. Accounting periods can be up to six months if we are talking about work performed seasonally.

Employees must be familiarized with the internal rules when they are hired at an enterprise that operates using summarized accounting. Sometimes summarized accounting becomes individual. This means that it is not valid for everyone, but for certain categories of employees.

Rest mode

Legal rest, in turn, is represented by such components as a lunch break, a meal break, weekly days off and special breaks for intercity drivers. Individual standards apply for each of the listed types of breaks.

Rest and eating

The duration of a full meal, depending on the length of the shift, ranges from 30 to 120 minutes. If the working day exceeds 8 hours, the lunch break may be 2 hours.

Break between shifts

If time is recorded according to a standard scheme, the duration of rest between shifts can be twice as long as the duration of the shift. Lunch time is also included in the time allotted for daily rest. For example, if a work shift lasts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and there is an hour lunch break, the driver must rest at least 15 hours between shifts. With a seven-hour working day, the duration of rest can be reduced to 13 hours. There are also exceptions in this case:

If we are talking about suburban or urban transportation, the rest time between shifts is reduced to 9 hours. In this case, the driver is entitled to rest for 2 days after the end of the second shift.
For intercity transportation, the rest time between shifts is up to 11 hours, while reducing the rest time to 9 hours is permissible only three times a week. If this happens, at the end of the work week, additional rest is provided until the end of the following week. The duration of such rest should be equal to the number of hours lost during the working week.
Split rest between shifts is permitted in some cases. The division occurs so that one part is equal to 8 hours, and the total time is not less than 12 hours.

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Continuous weekly rest

This type of vacation is represented by weekly weekends, the duration of which must be at least 42 hours. Weekends are not included in the calculation of rest between shifts. If we are talking about a standard working week, the total number of hours of uninterrupted rest should be 57 hours. With a summarized work schedule, it is possible to assign days off on different days.

Special breaks

Special breaks are intended for intercity drivers, and their duration is 15 minutes. The first such break must take place 4 hours after continuous driving, and subsequent breaks of 15 minutes are assigned every subsequent 2 hours. A special break is not provided if it coincides with a lunch break.

Irregular working hours

It is worth talking separately about irregular working hours, for which the legislation also provides its own standards. Employees whose working hours are not standardized include drivers of vehicles who are involved in survey parties and expeditions in the following areas:

survey and topographic-geodetic work in the field;
geological exploration work.

Continuous rest days are provided on a general basis, and the normal length of the working week is used to guide the setting of the duration and number of work shifts.

The length of an irregular working day can be any, but a driver must work no more than 40 hours per week.

Using the tachograph

Using a tachograph allows you to control the driver’s operating mode by installing this device on the vehicle. The route of the vehicle and its speed are recorded, taking into account the work schedule of the employee who is driving the vehicle. Installation of a tachograph is mandatory for the following types of transport:

trucks with a maximum weight of 3.5 tons;
any vehicles weighing over 5 tons;
cars weighing less than 5 tons, designed for 8 passengers;
all vehicles used for commercial transportation.

Tachographs without cryptographic protection installed before March 2014 cannot be used in 2018.