Victorian Consolidated Regulations

Road Safety (Drivers) Regulations 2009 - SECT 89

Calculation of time

89. Calculation of time



(1) In the calculation of work time for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, a
period of less than 15 minutes counts as 15 minutes.

Examples A period of working for 14 minutes counts as 15 minutes work time. A
period of working for 17 minutes counts as 30 minutes work time. A period of
working for 53 minutes counts as one hour work time.

(2) In the calculation of rest time for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, a
period of time is calculated in blocks of no less than 15 minutes.

Examples A period of not working for 14 minutes does not count as rest time
(because 14 minutes is less than 15 minutes). A period of not working for 17
minutes counts as 15 minutes rest time (because 17 minutes is more than 15
minutes, but is less than 2 lots of 15 minutes, i.e. 30 minutes). A period of
not working for 53 minutes counts as 45 minutes rest time (because 53 minutes
is more than 3 lots of 15 minutes, i.e. 45 minutes, but is less than 4 lots of
15 minutes, i.e. 60 minutes).

(3) In calculating time in a period for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act,
the time must not be counted from within rest time, but must be counted
forward-

   (a)  if one or more major rest breaks are relevant to the period, from the
        end of a relevant major rest break; or



   (b)  in any other case, from the end of a relevant period of rest time.

Example A driver works standard hours. The driver completes 7 continuous hours
rest time at 7 a.m. on a relevant day, starts work at 7 a.m., works until
12.15 p.m., has a one hour rest break, then works until 7.15 p.m. In
calculating the number of hours worked by the driver on that day, the counting
must start from the rest period that finished at 7 a.m. Adding the periods 7
a.m. to 12.15 p.m. and 1.15 p.m. to 7.15 p.m. results in a total of 111/4
hours worked that day (which is not a breach of maximum work time for the
period from 7 a.m. to 7.15 p.m.). However, in calculating the number of
continuous hours worked in the second work period that day, the counting must
start from the rest period that finished at 1.15 p.m. Adding the periods 1.15
p.m. to 7.15 p.m. results in a total of 6 continuous hours worked (which is a
breach of maximum work time for the period from 1.15 p.m. to 7.15 p.m.).

(4) If a driver undertakes a journey and is in a different time zone from the
time zone of the driver's base at the time when a period of time is relevant
for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, the period must be calculated by
reference to the time zone of the driver base.

Example If it is necessary to determine the night hours of a driver with a
base in Western Australia while the driver is in Victoria on a journey, those
night hours are the period between 12 midnight and 6 a.m. in the Western
Australian time zone in which the driver's base is situated, even if those
hours equate (for instance) to 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. in Victoria.