Drivers' working hours

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Drivers' working hours is the commonly used term for regulations that govern the activities of the drivers of commercial goods vehicles and passenger carrying vehicles. In the United States, they are known as hours of service.

Within the European Union, Directive 2002/15/EC^[1] is setting the rules regarding working time for drivers carrying out road transport activities in the European Union from the point of view of improving road safety, health and safety of drivers and ensure fair competition among transport operators. Working time of mobile workers is a strictly national obligation to implement and to check and it cannot be imposed to drivers from third countries. Regulation (EC) 561/2006 (consolidated version 22-05-2024) [1] is the regulation complementing the aforementioned Directive in view of driving times, breaks and rest periods required to be taken by professional drivers of vehicles carrying goods or passengers in international or national transport operations. There are special circumstances when carriages and thus drivers may be exempt from the Directive 2002/15/EC. The Regulation (EC) 561/2006 applies to the carriage by road of goods by vehicles with a total mass exceeding 3.5 tonnes and to the transport by road of passengers by vehicles that are adapted to carry more than nine people (including the driver). It applies, irrespective of the country of registration of the vehicle, to carriage by road in the EU and between EU countries, Switzerland and European Economic Area countries. The Regulation exempts from its scope of application ten categories of carriages (Art. 3), but there are also specific national exemptions offered in Art. 13. Though EU countries have to inform the Commission of those specific national exemptions.

UNECE have adopted in 1970 the European Agreement Concerning the Work of Crews of Vehicles Engaged in International Road Transport (AETR).^[2] This Agreement is common for EU, EEA countries, and Switzerland as well as other non-EU countries of the European continent. All vehicles crossing an AETR signatory country during its transport operations (carriages) should obey the common rules set by the AETR agreement.

Since September 2010, AETR rules have been amended to align closely with EU Regulation 561/2006.

Under certain circumstances, drivers may instead fall within scope of the domestic rules of that country.

In addition to the above requirements, drivers in the EU must also abide with the European Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC.