Rules banning drivers from being behind the wheel for more than nine hours a day have been welcomed as a step forward for road safety and work-life balance.
The regulations, to take effect from January 1, could reduce fatigue and allow drivers to have more of a life outside their job, according to transport analysts.
While beneficial for safety, the rules may also cause upheaval for drivers and transport companies, as longer shifts have until now been common.
“We welcome this new set of regulations, which will benefit the drivers and all other road users around them,” said Thomas Edelmann, founder and managing director of Road Safety UAE.
He said tachographs – devices in vehicles that record distance, speed and hours driven – were “of central importance” to implementation.
Mr Edelmann said some lorry operators in the Gulf have already voluntarily installed tachographs to improve fleet management and ensure good practice among drivers.
“The education of the stakeholders in the formal fleet transportation sector, the informal transportation sector (owner/driver) and all involved drivers will be vital, too,” he added.
Safety first
The new rules follow significant improvements in road safety in the UAE, with the number of road deaths falling by two thirds between 2010 and 2019.
Joseph Salem, a partner and head of the travel, transportation and hospitality practice at the consultancy Arthur D Little in Dubai, said he understood the new rule applied to all drivers, both private and professional.
“Will it be a step forward for safety? Absolutely, because fatigue impairs reaction time, much like substances do,” he said. “Until now the UAE had general warnings about tired drivers. This gives a clear, measurable threshold.”
The biggest gains will come, he said, with heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).
In 2022, there were 208 HGV accidents in the UAE, increasing to 271 the following year and to 332 in 2024, before falling slightly to 325 last year.
Mr Salem said 12-hour shifts were currently the norm for many taxi drivers, delivery drivers and other professional drivers, while long-haul lorry drivers might work even longer shifts.
Until now, many drivers have pushed themselves “beyond the limit”, risking their safety and that of other road users.
A directive introduced in 2019 limited Abu Dhabi taxi drivers to 12 hours per day at a time when some admitted to working 15 hours to boost pay and meet targets. GPS software can be used to warn drivers they are reaching their limit.
Mr Salem said digital technology could help police the new rules, although if enforcement was based on electronic apps, loopholes allowing movement between apps must be avoided.
He added that employers, and not only drivers, should be responsible for enforcing the new limit.
Lost revenue
On a cautionary note, he indicated that the new rules would “impact the revenue generation” for drivers and affect the business plans and profitability of transport companies, many of which have vehicles running on 12 hour shifts.
“I don’t think that drivers will be pleased with such a policy,” he said. “They are paid based on a commission model: the more hours you drive, the higher revenue you get. So therefore they will be losing a significant proportion of their revenue and it will be difficult to make ends meet.
“It will the responsibility of the companies to ensure this issue is mitigated, by providing a different scheme of payment or by providing some specific upsides to these drivers so the nine-hour shift will be good enough.”
Enforcement for private drivers will be difficult, he said, but for them the rule acts as an important awareness signal.
Dr Iuliana Hartescu, a senior lecturer in psychology at Loughborough University in the UK who researches driver fatigue, said a limit on driver hours was “a very good way to go about implementing change”.
“Driving is a monotonous, repetitive, sedentary behaviour,” she said. “It’s hard to maintain attention, unlike other jobs where you have varied tasks. The nature of the job induces fatigue.”
She indicated that rules on hours would, as well as offering safety benefits, improve work-life balance for professional drivers.
“There’s quite a lot of evidence that having sufficient space between driving periods is really important for drivers to be able to get adequate sleep and recovery and engage in other activities conducive to living a full life – spending time with family, with children, engaging with other activities outside work,” she said.
HGV benefits
Conrad Phillips, founder and chief executive of National Compliance Training, a UK organisation that provides courses to help drivers and companies comply with transport regulations, described fatigue as “one of the biggest killers” of people in the HGV sector.
Depending upon the circumstances, daily driving limits in the UK and EU are typically nine or ten hours, although a driver may be on duty – a period that includes loading and unloading, for example – for a number of additional hours.
Mr Phillips indicated that by improving safety, limits on drivers’ hours could benefit transport operators.
“I wouldn’t want a driver being overly tired and crashing my very expensive vehicle into a ditch. It’s better for them to stop and rest,” he said.
“I was a lorry driver for a number of years. The people I worked for were very mindful that if you’re feeling tired, it’s better to stop and rest or stop and get some fresh air.”
He said that while the industry in the UK had become more conscious of the need to limit drivers’ hours, it was still the case that when asked, drivers would admit that at times they had continued to work even when tired.
“[Operators] should be asking their drivers, ‘Have you had enough sleep?’ That’s something we push on to our operators to be mindful of,” he said.
“ … Operators are mindful they cannot push the blame on to drivers. They’re fully responsible for the vehicle and operations.”
