Good news, and let's hope that other HGV operators wake up and take notice.
IMHO as a (part time) HGV driver, even the legal hours are too generous and anyone who blatantly disregards them deserves all that they get.
There are a LOT of operators and indeed drivers out there who treat the maximum permitted hours as a target rather than a maximum. The drivers hours regulations are complicated, but basically it is perfectly legal to work 84 hours in a 6 day period (3x15 plus 3x13) - although only 56 hours (4x9 plus 2x10) of that can be actual driving.
The basic problem is that hourly rates of pay are rock bottom, and too many drivers have fallen into the trap of working extra hours to compensate and try to earn a decent wage.
It's a shite industry from top to bottom and I am just glad that I am not completely reliant on it to put food on the table. Sometime soon I might just stick two fingers up at it (not for the first time!!). Over-regulated in all the wrong places (Driver CPC anyone? Complete waste of time and DRIVERS money), while the obvious safety issues are allowed to continue unabated.
