Drivers & hours
What is break and rest?
Breaks interrupt driving during a shift; rest periods separate one shift from the next. Both are required by the drivers' hours rules and both are recorded on the tachograph.
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<figure>
<img src="https://fleetoptix.co.uk/glossary/break/diagram.svg" alt="break and rest — diagram from FleetOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
<figcaption>
<a href="https://fleetoptix.co.uk/glossary/break">What is break and rest?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://fleetoptix.co.uk">FleetOptix</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>They exist to manage fatigue rather than to satisfy a rule, which is why they have minimum durations and rules about how they may be split.
A break has to be a break. Time spent loading, waiting under instruction or doing other work is not a break even though the vehicle is stationary, and recording it as one is an infringement.
Facilities are a real operational constraint on this. A schedule that requires a break where there is nowhere to take one produces either an infringement or a driver taking a break somewhere unsuitable.
What goes wrong in practice
- Other work recorded as break because the vehicle was not moving.
- Schedules that assume breaks can be taken anywhere on the route.
- Split break rules applied incorrectly, producing technically short breaks.