Driver work time and logbooks: keeping them in step with your timesheets

Who needs a logbook, and the work time limits

The limits are in Part 4B of the Land Transport Act 1998, with the detail in the Land Transport Rule: Work Time and Logbooks 2007. The work time rules apply to a driver of a vehicle that:

• needs a class 2, 3, 4 or 5 licence;
• is used in a transport service (other than a rental service), or ought to be operated under a transport service licence; or
• carries goods for hire or reward.

A logbook is needed for the same vehicles, except that carrying goods for hire or reward brings in a logbook only on a heavy motor vehicle. The best-known exemption is for a class 1 or 2 goods vehicle operated within 50 km of your usual business location or a base of operations, and there are others for listed vehicles and services. The NZ Transport Agency stresses that a logbook exemption only removes the logbook: the work time limits still apply.

The limits themselves, from section 30ZC of the Act and clause 2.1 of the Rule:

• 5.5 hours of continuous work time, then a rest break of at least 30 minutes.
• 13 hours of work time at most in a cumulative work day, a period of no more than 24 hours that starts after at least 10 hours' rest.
• 10 hours of continuous rest at least in each cumulative work day.
• 70 hours of work time at most in a cumulative work period, which runs between rests of at least 24 hours.

Rest time has a strict meaning: at least 30 minutes, not work time, and not spent in a moving vehicle associated with work. The Agency adds that a rest break must be uninterrupted, so refuelling or paperwork in the middle of it does not count. Some drivers have their own settings, such as short-fare passenger drivers and approved variations.

The logbook and the timesheet: two records of one day

The logbook is a safety record. Clause 5.2 of the Rule requires each page to show the driver's name, the date, the vehicle's registration (and distance readings for road user charges), and the start and finish time and place of every period of work and every rest break. It must be a continuous record through the cumulative work period. Many operators now use one of the electronic logbooks the Agency has approved.

The timesheet feeds the wages and time record, which section 130 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires you to keep: the hours each employee worked each day in a pay period and the pay for those hours. It is a pay record, kept under employment law, and an employee can ask to see it for the last six years. Our article on wage and time records covers what else goes in it.

Because the two are made for different laws, they can drift apart without anyone noticing, until someone compares them. The Act makes that easy: whoever keeps the logbook copies must produce them on demand, together with the driver's time records, payment records and employment records, and an enforcement officer may copy the lot. A logbook showing a 12-hour day beside a timesheet paying 9 hours is a question about pay. A timesheet showing 14 hours beside a logbook showing 12 is a question about the logbook.

The simplest control is a weekly match: each driver's logbook start and finish against the start and finish on the timesheet, with any difference explained on the day. Team timesheets from jobtracker.co.nz gives you the timesheet side of that check, for drivers who choose to share their hours with you: each day's start, finish and break by person, and a CSV for any period. It is not a logbook and not an approved electronic logbook, so drivers still keep theirs. It costs $6.99 a seat a month, GST included, for at least three seats.

Loading, waiting and yard time

Work time is wider than driving. The Act defines it to include loading and unloading, maintaining and cleaning vehicles (other than unpaid cleaning outside working hours), administration and recording, and any paid employment other than paid leave or paid breaks of at least 30 minutes, whether or not it has anything to do with transport. A morning in the yard before a run is work time in the logbook, and a driver's hours at a second job count towards the 13 and the 70.

The pay question uses a different test. Employment law asks whether time is work by looking at the constraints on the employee, their responsibilities and the benefit to the employer, as our article on whether travel time is work time explains. Waiting at a depot, on call for a load you must take the moment it is ready, is likely to meet that test. Time the logbook counts as work but the timesheet does not pay deserves a hard look.

Breaks are where the two records most often disagree on paper. Under section 69ZD of the Employment Relations Act, a long shift carries paid 10-minute rest breaks and an unpaid 30-minute meal break. A paid 10-minute break is still work time for the logbook, because only paid breaks of 30 minutes or more are left out, and it is too short to be rest time. The 30-minute meal break can be the logbook rest break, if the driver truly stops work and the vehicle is not moving. Our article on rest and meal breaks sets out how many breaks each shift length carries.

Checking and keeping logbooks

Under section 30ZH of the Act, an employed driver gives you a copy of each completed logbook record within 14 days, and you keep it for 12 months from the date of the record. The driver keeps their own logbook for 12 months after its last entry. Section 30ZD adds your own records: time records, records of payments and employment records for each driver, plus accommodation and fuel records and receipts, all kept for 12 months and available for immediate inspection.

The Agency's guide for operators expects more than storage. It calls it best practice to collect logbook pages from every driver regularly, check them now and then for gaps and accuracy, including against your other records such as fuel receipts and timesheets, file them so a missing page shows up, and act on what you find with retraining or warnings. The legal reason is section 79T: a person who causes or requires a driver to exceed the work time limits, miss their rest or skip the logbook, when they knew or should have known it would happen, faces a fine of up to $25,000. The Agency calls this the chain of responsibility.

Fatigue: the duty behind the limits

The Agency says restricting work time helps reduce the risk of fatigue in drivers. The limits sit alongside your duty under section 36 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of your workers and of other road users your work puts at risk. Staying inside 13 and 70 hours does not by itself show that duty is met.

WorkSafe names long hours, irregular hours and night work as causes of fatigue, and says most people's alertness is lowest between 3 am and 5 am and between 3 pm and 5 pm. Rosters, delivery windows and the time you allow for a run are where fatigue is designed in or out. Where a customer's loading times shape your drivers' days, section 34 expects you to consult and co-operate with them, because both businesses have a duty for the same risk. Our article on fatigue management for employers covers the warning signs in hours data and what a fatigue policy should say.

The paid side of the day, on one page