Victorian Numbered Regulations Victorian Numbered Regulationsr. 89
(1) In the calculation of work time for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, a period of less than 15 minutes counts as 15 minutes.
Examples
A period of working for 14 minutes counts as 15 minutes work time.
A period of working for 17 minutes counts as 30 minutes work time.
A period of working for 53 minutes counts as one hour work time.
(2) In the calculation of rest time for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, a period of time is calculated in blocks of no less than 15 minutes.
Examples
A period of not working for 14 minutes does not count as rest time (because 14 minutes is less than 15 minutes).
A period of not working for 17 minutes counts as 15 minutes rest time (because 17 minutes is more than 15 minutes, but is less than 2 lots of 15 minutes, i.e. 30 minutes).
A period of not working for 53 minutes counts as 45 minutes rest time (because 53 minutes is more than 3 lots of 15 minutes, i.e. 45 minutes, but is less than 4 lots of 15 minutes, i.e. 60 minutes).
(3) In calculating time in a period for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, the time must not be counted from within rest time, but must be counted forward—
(a) if calculating rest time and one or more major rest breaks are relevant to the period, from the end of a relevant major rest break; or
(b) in any other case, from the end of a relevant period of rest time.
Example
A driver works standard hours. The driver completes 7 continuous hours rest time at 7 a.m. on a relevant day, starts work at 7 a.m., works until 12.15 p.m., has a one hour rest break, then works until 7.15 p.m.
In calculating the number of hours worked by the driver on that day, the counting must start from the rest period that finished at 7 a.m. Adding the periods 7 a.m. to 12.15 p.m. and 1.15 p.m. to 7.15 p.m. results in a total of 11¼ hours worked that day (which is not a breach of maximum work time for the period from 7 a.m. to 7.15 p.m.).
However, in calculating the number of continuous hours worked in the second work period that day, the counting must start from the rest period that finished at 1.15 p.m. Adding the periods 1.15 p.m. to 7.15 p.m. results in a total of 6 continuous hours worked (which is a breach of maximum work time for the period from 1.15 p.m. to 7.15 p.m.).
(4) If a driver undertakes a journey and is in a different time zone from the time zone of the driver's base at the time when a period of time is relevant for the purposes of Part 10A of the Act, the period must be calculated by reference to the time zone of the driver base.
Example
If it is necessary to determine the night hours of a driver with a base in Western Australia while the driver is in Victoria on a journey, those night hours are the period between 12 midnight and 6 a.m. in the Western Australian time zone in which the driver's base is situated, even if those hours equate (for instance) to 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. in Victoria.