Alan Payling considers whether tour drivers cleaning coaches on their rest days when in resort is a good and legal activity
When I was researching my recent article about what a selection of tour drivers spent their time doing when they had a rest day in resort (‘A tour driver’s holiday’, CBW1324), I came across a few drivers who made the most of their free time. I also came across drivers who said that rather than doing anything special on their legal rest day, they usually cleaned their coach when they weren’t taking their passengers out. This led to a few discussions about a practice that is, from what I see in Torquay & Paignton, widespread, yet of questionable legality.[wlm_nonmember][…]
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Legality
The question of the legality of cleaning their coach on a rest day was apparent to the drivers themselves as none of the drivers I spoke to were recording their cleaning as ‘other work.’ The defence they were relying upon was that they were cleaning their coaches out of the goodness of their hearts and because there was no compulsion upon them by their employers to do so, this was okay. The period when drivers tend to spend time cleaning their coaches when they’re in Torbay is during a weekly rest period and the definition of the requirement here is stated as being: ‘the weekly period during which drivers may freely dispose of their time.’
The drivers I spoke to said that it was up to them when they cleaned their coach and, as such, because there was no obligation to clean their vehicle at that particular time, they were as a result freely disposing of their time. There does seem to be a dull grey sheen over this issue though. One driver said that he had had a conversation with a gentleman he called ‘a ministry man,’ who was of the view that when such activities as cleaning a coach were being carried out, they should be recorded as other work. I could see his point.
While a coach driver’s contract of employment may not specifically state when coach cleaning should take place, one could hardly argue that it was not an implied term of any coach driver’s contract that they were not required to keep their vehicles clean. To what standard may well be a further moot point here, but as it is clearly part of a driver’s duties, it could come under the requirement to regard – and record it – as other work. Is this a case where it is much better to leave the sleeping dog alone? Is there in fact a case for saying that what the drivers are doing here is actually beneficial?
Where’s the harm?
One of the big, long-term problems for coach drivers is the sedentary and stressful nature of their occupation. In such a situation, it goes without saying that someone doing such a job would benefit from a bit of exercise. What better way to burn a few calories, then, than to get out the bodywork brush, the shampoo and a bucket and wash down the coach: maybe even add a bit of a polish to it too? Let’s use a common sense comparison. If that same driver was at home having a weekly rest and they were cleaning their car and caravan, would that be illegal? Clearly not. Would anyone think that was in some way detrimental to their health and welfare and to wider road safety? I wouldn’t have thought so.
So, are the many drivers that clearly get a good sweat on when they’re busy cleaning their coach inside and out doing anything that they couldn’t or wouldn’t do when they had a free day off at home? No. If this practice was stopped, what sort of things might the drivers get up to instead? Spend the afternoon in the pub, perhaps? Now, that would be a more suitable alternative, wouldn’t it just? If this practice were to be rigidly enforced, would that not be a case of the law of unintended consequences at work? To comply with the law, drivers would avoid doing something that is good for them and involves beneficial physical activity and instead they could spend even more time sitting on their bums downing a few pints or watching the telly in their rooms.
This situation could, after all, get a bit silly if the letter of the law came down on the side of recording everything that tour drivers do as ‘other work.’ What about the case of the driver who, having taken his/her card out and locked up the coach finds him or herself in the hotel’s reception having to deal with a passenger who needs some help? Clearly, it is part of the driver’s duties to look after the welfare of their passengers. What would our ‘ministry man’ have the driver do here? Tell the passenger that before they could help answer their query they had to nip outside and put their card back in, switch it to other work and then come back inside the hotel to sort out their problem? What about the driver who calls out the bingo numbers – is that other work too?
It could get really silly if we don’t focus upon the real issue here which is the proper regulation of the time drivers spend behind the wheel. The leisurely effort required to wash a coach down is a world away from the constant, unrelenting concentration that is required when a driver is steering a public service vehicle on today’s roads. And yet, here there is again scope for contradictory practices. What if a tour driver decided on their day off that as they couldn’t wash the coach down legally, they were going to hire a car to spend the day driving round Dartmoor sightseeing for their own pleasure? I’m not aware that many do, but it wouldn’t be illegal if that was how they wanted to freely dispose of their time.
The reality
Looking at the work that tour drivers have to do when they’re away on tour in a place like Torquay also suggests that they are not exactly overworked. Okay, the first day for some can be a long one. For many though, they’re parked up and relaxing by 1600hrs. The second day usually requires them to travel to a destination that is, at most, an hour and a half away from Torquay unless they’re heading down to the Eden Project, say. This could require them to be driving two hours each way, but the rest of the day is spent not doing a great deal. If the third day includes a half day, well, that’s sometimes hardly worth getting out of bed for – but means that they’re back at the hotel by 1300hrs. On either of those days there could be a trip to the theatre for some, adding another 45 minutes of driving to their tally. So by the time their Thursday rest day comes around, they’re not exactly going to be exhausted by a demanding week’s worth of driving are they?
Again, a bit of exercise out in the sun (it shines a lot in Torquay) where drivers can work at their own pace while they clean their coach for as long as they like is probably going to do them a lot more good than sitting down flexing the well-worn muscles of their posteriors. Paying close attention to their vehicles in a relaxed manner where they are not being rushed could also allow drivers the time to spot any defects that are making themselves apparent. There is also the issue that if they don’t clean the coach when they’re in resort and have to clean it when they get home – possibly after a long day’s drive – it could lead to them finishing late. For the drivers who are having a day off in resort so that they can work at the weekend, that could reduce the daily rest that they have at a time when 11 or 12 hours rest is more beneficial than a reduced rest of nine or 10 hours – which could mean an inadequate night’s sleep. Not a great idea.
It’s worth stressing that this is not like the issue a few years ago that saw drivers driving private cars for lengthy periods at the beginning of a spell of duty to position themselves to meet a coach but not recording that time. That practice was rightly outlawed, as it increased the amount of time that drivers were spending behind the wheel. The issue of cleaning a coach down on a rest day is different – very different – to what was a dangerous abuse of the rules.
On balance, we have a situation here that could be a breach of the rules, but if it were, enforcement would not make a lot of sense in the particular circumstances that tour drivers are in. They say that the law can be an ass sometimes: here, it could be a real pain in the bum. We don’t want any drivers cleaning their coaches to have a brush with the law, now do we?
The driver(s) whose photographs accompany this article were not photographed cleaning their coaches on their rest days.
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