In Europe, the working times of the driver are highly regulated – there are extensive documents dealing with all sorts of regulations, exceptions to these regulations and conditions that need to be met at every moment during the travel.
These regulations, especially governing the so-called ‘down-time’ of drivers, are in place to assure that drivers are always at their peak performance, mentally and physically wise, which is ensured with sufficient rest times.
Everyone who owns a driver’s license knows how tiring it is to drive multiple hours in a row. Now if you add to that the difficulty of manoeuvring a vehicle many times the size and weight of a personal car and the responsibility for life and wellbeing of 50+ passengers onboard as well as that of other road users it can seem like quite a daunting task.
Nevertheless, drivers at Faniani Coaches are more than up to it and are looking forward to starting their work every coming season
A quick glance at the regulations can inform you that drivers need to be incredibly careful with their brakes, this is the time in between their driving times. There is a limit to how much the driver can drive daily but also weekly, bi-weekly etc.
Daily it is good to keep in mind that the driver will need some pauses in between driving. Every 4 hours of driving there need to be a 45-minute break. The total hours of driving per day must never exceed 9 hours/day. The time from morning starting to evening finishing of the workday of the driver should be no more than 12h and then 12h overnight rest before starting with work the next day.
There are of course also exceptions to some of these rules and writing down all would take pages and pages – but for anyone planning a trip, we would recommend sticking to these approximations. It might sound like this might disturb the flow of the trip, however in reality that rarely happens as the driver and the tour leader usually consult regarding these regulations beforehand. The 45min pause after 4h driving on long commutes is often used for bathroom or lunch breaks for the group or for a monument stop. Anyone who has ever travelled for long stretches with a group can confirm that there is never a 4-hour time without someone from the group having to go to the toilet and so the group stops at the nearest gas station. Tour leaders of experience know how to read their group and for most passengers, the details of these regulations never affect their trip.
