Lorry drivers' working hours have long been a major bone of contention at Community level. Extreme employment deregulation in the road haulage industry and the favouritism shown to it over other transport sectors where workers have more industrial clout conspire to make it a high-risk sector. More specifically, working hours are much longer than in other sectors of Europe's economy.
Lobbying by employers got the transport industry excluded from the scope of the Working Time Directive of 23 November 1993. Only repeated protest action by industry unions got the recent decision to extend the minimum working time provisions to road transport. But Community legislation to harmonize national rules on driving time in road transport has been on the books since the late Sixties and was coordinated in Regulation 3280/85. This regulation was traditionally interpreted as applying only to driving time in vehicles fitted with a tachograph. Although the regulation expressly refers to "other periods of work", the practice of most States and unclear case law guidance from the Court of Justice has not normally allowed all working time to be included when applying the Community legislation.

This is where the ruling of 18 January 2001 comes in. It endorses the opinion of Advocate General Mr Antonio Saggio given on 21 September 2000 to give greater clarity to the Community provisions on the matter. It says that the time spent by a driver in taking over a tachograph vehicle and commencing his duties does form part of his working time. This provision applies where the vehicle is not at the driver's home or the undertaking's operating centre. The Court held that "time spent by a driver to reach the place where he takes over a tachograph vehicle is liable to have a bearing on his driving, in that it will affect his state of tiredness". The driver will then have to record the time spent getting to the commercial vehicle on the record sheets. The Court dismissed the argument that a driver is free to choose how he gets to the pick-up point for a vehicle such that the time so spent counts as part of the rest period. The same provision applies to transport services like coaches. The Court was ruling on a referral for a preliminary ruling from a British court in criminal proceedings against a transport operator.

This Opinion, Advocate General Saggio emphatically said that: "I do not deny that treating as working time the time taken for a driver to travel from home to work may involve practical difficulties. However, overriding importance must be attached to the public interest in ensuring that the driver spends his driving time in an optimum state of fitness, so as to ensure that the stress which built up during that journey - whatever its duration and the method of travel used - does not have an adverse effect on his clarity of mind and effective performance. That view concerning the social function of the rules at issue is the basis for my opinion concerning the obligation to record the journey from home to work as 'other periods of work' using the recording apparatus".
It is an approach to which we can only give a ringing endorsement.

• Reference: Case C-297/99, Skills Motor Coaches and Others