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Think you’re exempt from drivers’ hours rules? The 7.5t, 100km, ‘own goods’ and ‘empty van’ myths that get UK operators fined - and what the law says.
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Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain, who see drivers’ hours breaches come up at public inquiry, point to a fairly consistent set of recurring causes: drivers who split or miscalculate breaks incorrectly, driving limits exceeded through poor route planning or delivery pressure, tachograph misuse such as cards removed mid-shift or vehicles driven without one inserted, missing or unreconciled records, and transport managers who don’t monitor infringements or act on them. Operators who get caught out by an exemption sit within that same picture rather than apart from it - they’ve leaned on an exemption that doesn’t apply, or applies far more narrowly than they thought. An exemption only works where the vehicle and the actual journey meet the precise wording of a specific exemption. It is not enough that the work is local, occasional, unladen, done in your own vehicle, or covered by some other exemption under operator licensing or Driver CPC.
And in most UK operations, a vehicle that is exempt from the assimilated (retained EU) rules still falls under the GB domestic rules - so “exempt” almost never means “no rules at all”. This article runs through the exemption beliefs that most often lead to fixed penalties, prohibitions and operator-licence trouble, and what the rules actually say.
An exemption applies to the journey you’re doing today - not to a general description of what your firm does. Before a planner or driver decides a tachograph isn’t needed, work through:
The safe habit is simple: write down the exemption you’re relying on, the conditions that make it work, and what evidence the driver could show at the roadside. Two things catch even careful operators - the burden is on you to show the exemption applied (not on the examiner to disprove it), and a few minutes of in-scope driving pulls the whole day into the assimilated rules.
Almost every exemption myth comes down to confusing two separate rulebooks. The assimilated rules (Regulation (EC) 561/2006 as retained in UK law) cover most goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes. The GB domestic rules (Part VI of the Transport Act 1968) cover most goods vehicles that are exempt from the assimilated rules. Most “exemptions” move a vehicle between these two, not outside both.
For passenger work the same split exists: the assimilated rules apply to vehicles built to carry more than nine people including the driver, and many PSVs that fall outside them - for example, regular services on routes not exceeding 50km - come under the separate GB domestic PSV rules, which have their own driving, duty, spreadover, break and rest structure.
Wrong. The assimilated rules apply to own-account work just as much as to haulage for hire or reward. Carrying your own materials, plant or stock in a vehicle over 3.5 tonnes is squarely in scope.
The confusion is understandable, because a couple of genuine exemptions do turn on “not for hire or reward”. But those same exemptions also require the carriage to be non-commercial - and the official definition of non-commercial carriage excludes both hire-or-reward and own-account use. It covers only carriage that generates no income and isn’t linked to any commercial activity, such as moving your own house or transporting a hobby rally car.
So a builder moving their own materials to a paying job is operating on own account. That’s commercial, and in scope - subject only to the specific ≤7.5t / 100km exemption below, which has its own conditions.
The load isn’t the starting point - the vehicle and the journey are. The assimilated rules don’t require the vehicle or trailer to be laden. An empty in-scope vehicle on a public road is still in scope.
There are genuine out-of-scope movements: driving an empty vehicle to or from its annual test or a repairer, or moving it between depots where that isn’t part of an ongoing in-scope journey. That is not the same as “every empty leg is exempt”.
The trap is the positioning journey. Moving a tractor unit, tipper, coach or recovery truck empty so it can start or continue commercial work doesn’t stand on its own - look at the whole duty and the reason for the movement. DVSA guidance is explicit that positioning a vehicle as part of an in-scope journey stays in scope.
The threshold for the assimilated rules is 3.5 tonnes, not 7.5. The 7.5-tonne figure belongs to a couple of specific, narrow exemptions - it is not a general weight cut-off.
The assimilated rules apply where the maximum permissible weight, including any trailer or semi-trailer, exceeds 3.5 tonnes. A 7.5-tonne box van on ordinary commercial work is fully in scope, tachograph and all.
“7.5 tonnes” appears in just two exemptions:
Neither turns “under 7.5 tonnes” into a free pass. And the trailer counts: a 3.5-tonne van plus a plant or tipping trailer can tip the combination over 3.5 tonnes and straight into the assimilated rules.
There is no general “local radius” exemption. Several exemptions mention 100km, but each carries its own strict conditions. Distance alone exempts nothing.
The 100km figure attaches to specific derogations, including:
A multi-drop waste round, a tipper running site-to-site, or a scaffold wagon doing yard-to-site work doesn’t get a tachograph exemption just because it stays local. If it’s over 3.5 tonnes on commercial work, it’s in scope. And even where a 100km derogation genuinely applies, the vehicle normally drops into the GB domestic rules - not out of all rules.
Be careful with multi-depot operations, too: the “base of the undertaking” isn’t a movable label you pick after the event to make a job fit. You need an honest, consistent basis for the vehicle’s normal operating base.
A “driver” is anyone who drives an in-scope vehicle (or is carried on it to be available to drive). “Driving isn’t the main activity” is one condition of one exemption - not a general escape.
That phrase comes from the materials and equipment exemption, where driving must not constitute the driver’s main activity - alongside the ≤7.5t limit, the 100km radius, and the “not for hire or reward” condition. All four have to hold at once.
A site operative who occasionally takes the van to fetch materials for their own use may meet it. A driver whose day is spent delivering materials from yard to customer does not - for them, transport is the main activity. And the whole-day trap still bites: a single short stint of in-scope driving puts that person under the assimilated rules for the entire day.
Mostly true for vans up to 3.5t used only in the UK - but two things catch operators out: trailers and international work.
Trailers. A van towing a trailer where the combined maximum permissible weight exceeds 3.5 tonnes is in scope of the assimilated rules - tachograph and all - even on a purely domestic job.
Domestic vans up to 3.5t. Used for a trade or business, these generally fall under the GB domestic rules (private use is exempt). That still means the 10-hour driving limit, the 11-hour duty limit, and written records if you hold an operator’s licence and drive more than 4 hours that day.
International work from 1 July 2026. From that date, vans over 2.5 tonnes and up to 3.5 tonnes used for international transport for hire or reward (UK to EU or EFTA) must be fitted with a second-generation smart tachograph and follow the assimilated drivers’ hours rules. UK-only operations in this weight range are not affected.
Operator licensing, Driver CPC, vehicle testing and tachograph/drivers’ hours are four separate regimes , each with its own scope and exemptions. Being outside one doesn’t put you outside another.
The classic trap is the small-trailer point. The 1,020kg threshold that can keep a vehicle-and-trailer combination outside goods-vehicle operator licensing is an operator-licensing concept - it does not, on its own, take a combination out of drivers’ hours or tachograph scope. If the combination’s maximum permissible weight exceeds 3.5 tonnes, check the tachograph position separately.
The same logic applies to Driver CPC: a CPC exemption isn’t a tachograph exemption. Keep the decision trees apart - answer the tachograph question on its own terms.
Usually, being exempt from the assimilated rules just means the GB domestic rules apply instead - not that nothing does.
For goods vehicles under GB domestic rules the headline limits are 10 hours’ driving and 11 hours’ duty in a working day (the 11-hour duty limit doesn’t apply on a day the driver doesn’t drive), plus the domestic record-keeping rules. The full figures are in the table above.
The expensive mistake is telling a driver “you’re exempt today” without telling them what they’re exempt from and what still applies. That leaves no reliable system for planning, supervision or records - which is exactly what a DVSA visit or roadside stop will expose.
You can’t cleanly split a day - and where the rulebooks meet, the assimilated rules take precedence. A single short stint of in-scope driving puts the driver under the assimilated rules for the whole day, with the full break, driving and rest requirements.
On a day that mixes assimilated and GB domestic work:
This is exactly why the occasional driver - the yard operative, the mechanic, the transport manager who “just takes one out” - needs watching. The question isn’t whether they usually drive; it’s whether they drove in scope that day, and whether the records exist.
Occasional drivers need records too, whenever they drive in scope. Anyone in scope of the assimilated rules must be able to produce a full set of records - driving, other work, periods of availability, breaks, rest, and annual or sick leave - for the current day and the previous 28 calendar days (56 days for UK–EU international journeys). “I only drove once this week” is not a defence for a missing record.
On the operator side, the housekeeping isn’t optional:
DVSA accepts “block recording” for fixed weeks with no in-scope driving, until further notice, but expects full records for a week once in-scope driving is done in it;
Commercial urgency is not the emergency exemption. In drivers’ hours terms an “emergency” is narrow: immediate action needed to avoid danger to life or health, serious interruption to essential public services or transport, or serious damage to property - and it applies only for the duration of the emergency.
A late delivery, a missed booking slot, a driver off sick, a crane waiting on site, a school trip running late, or a customer threatening penalties is not, in itself, an emergency. Where the exemption genuinely applies, the driver should record the reason clearly.
Treat temporary relaxations as a last resort, not a planning tool. The guidance expects operators to have contingency plans for foreseeable disruption - driver shortages and tight slots are foreseeable.
These are some of the most exemption-sensitive sectors - and none of them is a blanket exemption. The wording matters, and so does the actual work being done that day.
The assimilated rules don’t simply exempt “recovery vehicles”. The exemption is for specialised breakdown vehicles within a 100km radius of base. Case law treats a specialised breakdown vehicle as one whose construction, fitments and permanent characteristics mean it would be used mainly for removing vehicles recently broken down or in a collision. A general flatbed or beavertail used for haulage as well as recovery won’t qualify. And recovery guidance is clear that once the 100km radius will be exceeded, the driver is in scope and must keep a tachograph record from the point they know the threshold will be passed.
The household refuse derogation isn’t a general waste-sector exemption. It’s aimed at primary, door-to-door collection of household (and similar) waste where the transport is subsidiary to the collection, normally within about 50km of base. It doesn’t extend to commercial waste from a manufacturing process, or to bulk haulage of waste to a distant site.
These derogations are tied to direct involvement in maintaining an existing service - not building a new one. For road maintenance, the journey must directly relate to the maintenance work; simply positioning a vehicle ready to start, or returning to base afterwards, may fall outside the derogation. A job ticket that just says “site work” or “waste” rarely answers the more specific roadside question.
Good exemption control is mostly routine. Operators who stay out of trouble tend to:
When the answer is uncertain, treat the job as in scope until you've checked. That feels cautious, but it's far easier to explain than a missing record, a failed download, or a driver who can't produce the last 28 days. Keeping this straight across a mixed fleet, day after day, comes down to analysing the tachograph data properly and catching what the records show - and that analysis, and the infringements it identifies, is what Tacho Agent puts in front of you.
This article is provided for general guidance only and reflects our understanding of the rules as they apply in Great Britain as at the date shown on this page. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice tailored to your specific operation.
Drivers' hours, tachograph, working time and operator licensing rules are detailed and change over time, and some requirements differ in Northern Ireland and for international journeys. Always check the current guidance on GOV.UK and the underlying legislation on legislation.gov.uk, and consult your transport manager or a qualified compliance professional before acting.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Tacho Agent Ltd accepts no liability for any loss arising from action taken, or not taken, in reliance on this article. Nothing here excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence or for fraud. Use of this article is also governed by our Terms of Use.
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