Driver Duty Hours

Duty hours govern continuous driving time, total daily duty and the rest required between shifts. The underlying reason is fatigue: driving performance degrades measurably with hours at the wheel and with disrupted sleep, and the degradation is largely invisible to the driver experiencing it.

Enforcement in Indian road transport is inconsistent, which creates a commercial trap. An operator who runs drivers beyond safe hours can quote shorter transit times than one who does not, so the market rewards the practice until an incident occurs — at which point the liability, the insurance position and the customer relationship all fail together.

Practically, the control has to sit at dispatch rather than at review. Blocking an allocation because the assigned driver would exceed available hours prevents the trip; reporting the breach afterwards only documents it. Where a long-haul movement genuinely cannot be completed within the limits, the answer is a relief driver planned in advance.