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Land Transport Act 1998

Offences relating to work time and logbooks - Work time

79P: Defences to work time offences

You could also call this:

“Ways to defend yourself if you're accused of working too long”

You can defend yourself against a work time offence if you can prove that you couldn’t follow the rules because of a delay you couldn’t avoid. This delay must be caused by something you couldn’t have expected or because of an emergency.

An emergency means a state of emergency that the government has declared, an incident where emergency services had to help, or a situation where you had to act right away to save someone’s life or stop someone from getting badly hurt.

It’s important to know that even if you rested for 10 hours before starting work, this doesn’t count as a defence if you’re accused of working too long in one day.

Also, if you’re accused of working too long over several days, you can’t use the excuse that you had a 24-hour rest before you started that period of work.

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This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM434875.

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79O: Failure to comply with prescribed work time restrictions or rest time requirements, or

"Breaking the rules about work time and rest for certain drivers"

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79PA: Matters to be taken into account in imposing penalty for offence against section 79O, or

"How courts decide penalties for breaking work time and logbook rules"

Part 6B Offences relating to work time and logbooks
Work time

79PDefences to work time offences

  1. It is a defence in any proceedings for an offence under this subpart if the defendant proves that the failure to comply with subpart 1 of Part 4B was due to unavoidable delay in the completion of any journey arising out of—

  2. circumstances that could not reasonably have been foreseen by the defendant; or
    1. an emergency.

      1. For the purposes of subsection (1), emergency means—

      2. a state of emergency declared under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002; or
        1. an incident attended by an emergency service; or
          1. an event requiring immediate action to save life or prevent serious injury.

            1. It is not a defence in any proceedings for an offence against section 79O that a continuous period of rest time of at least 10 hours was taken before the commencement of the work time to which the relevant cumulative work day relates.

            2. It is not a defence in any proceedings for an offence against section 79O that a continuous period of rest time of at least 24 hours was taken before the commencement of the first cumulative work day to which the relevant cumulative work period relates.

            Compare
            Notes
            • Section 79P: inserted, on , by section 39 of the Land Transport Amendment Act 2005 (2005 No 77).
            • Section 79P(3): added, on , by section 42 of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 13).
            • Section 79P(4): added, on , by section 42 of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 13).