Driving home: the +1h / +2h rule and its pitfalls

This is one of the most misunderstood rules, and one of those you read the most contradictory things about. Many believe they are “entitled to 2 extra hours” every week, no strings attached. Others think you have to be on your sixth day. Neither is true. Here is exactly what the text says, article by article, with the link to the official source at the bottom of the page.

1. What Article 12 allows

Regulation 561/2006, as amended by the Mobility Package (Regulation 2020/1054), allows a driver to exceed the daily and weekly driving time in order to reach their place of residence or the employer's operational centre and take a weekly rest there:

Two details almost nobody picks up. First, the +1 h applies to any weekly rest: the text says “a weekly rest period”, with no qualifier. Many sites wrongly reserve it for the reduced rest. Second, the +2 h only opens onto a regular rest: if you are driving home for a 24-hour rest, you are entitled to +1 h, not +2 h — even with the 30-minute break.

And the two do not add up. “Two hours at most” is a ceiling that replaces the first one, not a bonus stacked on top of it. The absolute maximum is two hours.

2. What Article 12 does not allow

This is where most of the nasty surprises hide. The text spells out which articles may be derogated from: Article 6(1) and (2) (daily and weekly driving) and Article 8(2) (daily rest). Nothing else. Everything else still applies during your additional driving:

This is the answer to the question that comes up most often: no, nowhere does it say the derogation must fall on the sixth day. The confusion comes from Article 8: that is what requires the weekly rest to start before the end of the sixth 24-hour period. The two rules often cross in real life — you use the +1 h precisely because you are racing that limit — but they are two separate texts, and one is not a condition of the other.

3. The four conditions, without missing one

4. Not to be confused with: the other derogation in the same article

Article 12 contains two different derogations, and they get mixed up constantly. The first paragraph — the older one — allows departure from Articles 6 to 9 “to enable the vehicle to reach a suitable stopping place”, to the extent necessary for the safety of persons, of the vehicle or its load. That one has neither an hourly ceiling nor compensation, but it demands a genuine safety reason: an accident, a storm, a full rest area. It is not the drive home — that is described in checks, derogations and fines.

The +1 h / +2 h, by contrast, is an addition from the 2020 Mobility Package, with its own ceiling, its break condition and its compensation obligation. Invoking one while thinking of the other is the surest way to lose an appeal.

5. Also not to be confused with: the right to return home

Another source of confusion: Article 8(8a), which obliges the undertaking to organise the work so that you can return to the operational centre or to your home every four weeks and spend at least one regular weekly rest there. That is an obligation borne by the employer, by their planning.

The +1 h / +2 h, by contrast, is borne by you and concerns your driving time, on a given evening. Both talk about getting home; they do not replace each other. The detail of the right to return is in our guide Rest, compensation and returning home.

6. Why TruckerMaster flags it anyway

This derogation is still an excess. If a single condition is missing — reason not written down, no 30-minute break before the +2 h, a reduced rest at the end of a +2 h, forgotten compensation — a roadside check can reclassify it as an offence. That is why the app keeps warning you: not to bother you, but so that you check you are meeting every condition and that you do not forget the compensation.

TruckerMaster's alerts are provided for information, to help you understand and remember your own activity. They are not legal proof. If in doubt, refer to the official text and get proper advice.