Driving more than allowed, without taking the necessary breaks to rest, poses a danger to road safety, life or the integrity of people and is therefore monitored by the authorities.
Exceeding driving times is sanctioned as a very serious offense.
The tachograph is the device that records the running of the vehicle, speed, kilometres traveled, driving and resting times and other activities of the drivers. Digital tachographs are currently used, due to technological evolution and also because their measurement is much more accurate. This registers the information inside the driver’s card, assigned to each one of them identifying themselves and allows to store data about their activity in an individualized way.
In terms of driving times there are several options, uninterrupted, daily, weekly, bi-weekly.
- Uninterrupted driving: this consists of uninterrupted driving for a maximum of 4.30 hours with a break of 45 minutes, also uninterrupted. It could also be 2.30 hours driving, 15 minutes rest and another 2 hours driving with a final break of 30 minutes.
- Daily driving: the maximum daily driving time is 9 hours, except twice a week when it can reach 10 hours. This in a weekly workday of 6 working days where the 7th day would start the rest time.
- Weekly driving: driving time in a week cannot exceed 56 hours.
- Bi-weekly driving: 90 hours is the time allowed to drive in two work weeks. These can be distributed in such a way that the two weeks are 90. For example 56 hours the first week and 34 the second week.
The break between drivers is important for the driver to be able to continue his daily and weekly workday. The ordinary daily rest, in a 24-hours period, must be at least 11 uninterrupted hours, although it can also be divided, for example, a first period of 3 hours, followed by another of 9 hours, without interruption.
Within a 6-day driving week, there may be two 9-hour rest days, provided that the rest of the days must have a rest of 11 hours each day, this is called reduced daily rest.
There is also a normal and a reduced schedule for weekly breaks. After 6 driving days, a break of at least 45 uninterrupted hours must be taken. But there is the optión of taking a break of more than 24 uninterrupted hours and less than 45 hours.
