Ask the MAC – 27 Nov 2025

Q. Some of our drivers operate primarily under the assimilated drivers’ hours rules but have recently been doing gritting work as well, under GB domestic rules. Can log books be used to record their activities?

A. Article 6(5) of EC561/2006 and Article 34 and 35 of EU 165/2014 make clear the acceptable methods.  In any fixed weeks (commencing midnight Sunday/Monday) that a driver drives in scope of assimilated drivers’ hours rules, a tachograph record must be produced for every working day in that week. Clearly, on assimilated hours driving days the driver must use the tachograph equipment in the usual way.

EC rules take no account of domestic methods, but it would be acceptable to produce a legally kept GB domestic drivers’ hours log book along with any other article 6(5) record that is required.

If a logbook is not legally required, then any work under GB domestic rules would have to be recorded in one of the three prescribed methods as mentioned in Article 6(5) and produced when stopped at a check. For non-driving duties or domestic rules driving, a record must be produced by one of the following methods:

• Written manually on a tachograph chart.

• Written manually on a digital tachograph printout.

• Made using the manual input facility of a digital tachograph.

• (In the UK only) for days where a driver has been subject to the domestic hours’ rules and a

record is legally required, recorded in a domestic log book.

All abroad?

Q. We have a standard national operator licence. Someone told me we can transport our own goods abroad. Is this correct?

A. A standard national operator licence does allow the carriage of goods for hire or reward in the United Kingdom, and also permits own account movements in the UK and abroad. However, standard national operator licence holders cannot transport goods for hire or reward internationally; a standard international operator licence is required to do that.

European regulation 1072/2009 provides a definition of what is meant by own account operations, or not for hire or reward, in that “the goods carried must be the property of the undertaking OR must have been sold, bought, let out on hire or hired, produced, extracted, processed or repaired by the undertaking”.