4.5 hours of driving, 45 minutes of break: A real tachograph would completely change our ETS2 journeys!

Euro Truck Simulator 2 has only recently changed considerably in this area. With Update 1.60, SCS Software divided the old fatigue system into two separate mechanics. Rest State represents our level of recovery in simplified form: it decreases during prolonged activity, warnings appear and microsleep events can occur when it becomes exhausted. Alongside it is Mandatory Break. In ETS2, we can drive for up to ten hours before the game requires nine consecutive hours of rest. We receive a warning two hours beforehand. Both systems can be configured or disabled independently.

That is more simulation than before. But it is still a long way from a digital tachograph system. And that is the new angle here: a real recording device does not merely ask, “How much longer can you drive?” It documents what we are actually doing during our working day.

First, we need to clear up a common misconception. A professional driver in the EU is not generally limited to only 4.5 hours of driving per day. Under Regulation (EC) No 561/2006, daily driving time is normally limited to nine hours. It may be extended to a maximum of ten hours twice during a week. The 4.5 hours refer to something different: after no more than 4.5 hours of driving, a driver must normally take a break of at least 45 minutes, unless a rest period begins instead. Under the legal conditions, those 45 minutes may be divided into at least 15 minutes followed by at least 30 minutes.

And the working day does not automatically end afterwards. A new driving period can begin after the qualifying break. Daily rest is another separate concept: it is normally at least eleven hours. Under certain conditions, a reduced daily rest period of at least nine hours is permitted. EU law also contains weekly and multi-week rules, but the daily routine alone is enough for our thought experiment to demonstrate how much more complex reality is.

It is particularly important to distinguish between driving time, working time, breaks, periods of availability and rest. These are not different names for the same timer. Working time can include driving as well as loading and unloading, cleaning, technical maintenance and other work directly connected with the transport operation. A driving break, on the other hand, generally cannot be used for driving or other work and is intended for recuperation. Availability is another category again.

And this is where a real tachograph would fundamentally change ETS2.

EU Regulation 165/2014 describes a digital tachograph as a system that records, among other things, distance travelled and vehicle speed, time, driver identity, driver activity, as well as events and faults. Drivers record or select activities such as driving, other work, availability, and break or rest separately. Modern smart tachographs add GNSS position information. The second generation also records information such as border crossings and loading or unloading events for enforcement purposes.

But perhaps the most interesting difference compared with today’s ETS2 is a small piece of plastic: the driver card.

A real driver inserts a personal microchip card into the digital tachograph before driving. The card identifies the driver and stores their activity data. The European Commission states that driver activity can be stored for at least 56 days. The vehicle and the driver are therefore two different layers: the recording equipment is installed in the truck, while the driver card belongs to the individual.

That would be enormously interesting in ETS2. Today, we can leave our Volvo in Hamburg, switch garages and five minutes later take over a Scania in Munich. With a genuinely driver-based system, however, our previous driving time would not suddenly disappear. We would be changing the truck – not the driver.

And this is where our thought experiment begins. SCS Software has not announced such a system. The official information for Update 1.60 mentions Rest State and Mandatory Break, but no functioning digital tachograph, driver card or corresponding activity-recording system. Even where detailed ETS2 interiors visually reproduce equipment or dashboard areas corresponding to real trucks, that should not be confused with such a gameplay mechanic.

Still, imagine how it could work.

It is 06:00 in Hamburg. We get into our truck and first have to insert our virtual driver card. The tachograph signs us in. At 06:05, we leave the yard with a delivery heading towards southern Germany. From this point onwards, there is no simple ten-hour countdown to sleep. Instead, the system tracks our simulated driving time.

A tight delivery suddenly becomes a different kind of challenge. A traffic jam outside Hanover would not merely be annoying because our ETA is getting worse. Time spent stationary because of traffic still counts towards driving time. Germany’s Federal Office for Logistics and Mobility explicitly explains that traffic-related stops at traffic lights, level crossings, junctions or in congestion are included in driving time.

After no more than 4.5 hours of recorded driving, we would normally need our 45-minute break. Now we have to plan. Can we reach a suitable rest area in time? Do we stop there for the full 45 minutes? Or do we take at least 15 minutes first and another minimum of 30 minutes later?

Suddenly, an ETS2 rest area would have a completely different value.

Today, it is often primarily a fuel station, sleeping point or scenery beside the motorway. With a real tachograph, it could become part of our strategy. The parking area five kilometres ahead might matter more than the fastest route. One bad decision could leave us running out of permitted continuous driving time before reaching a suitable stop.

Activities away from pure driving would make the system even more interesting. In a simplified game implementation, refuelling could potentially be treated as other work. The same could apply to coupling a trailer or certain loading and unloading activities. A known waiting period could potentially fall into a different category depending on the circumstances. Even shunting and workshop visits would raise new questions.

These are possible gameplay ideas, not features announced by SCS. The correct legal classification in reality also depends on the specific circumstances. That is precisely why a game would probably need to simplify the system rather than reproduce every possible working situation exactly.

A driver card would become even more significant if we were inspected.

A real tachograph does not forget history after the last motorway stop. Since 31 December 2024, Article 36 of the tachograph rules requires drivers, when requested during relevant roadside checks, to be able to produce records for the current day and the preceding 56 days. Depending on the technology in use, the relevant evidence can include driver cards, analogue record sheets, manual records, printouts or other available data. The European Commission explicitly explains that inspections are therefore not limited to the current journey.

In Germany, the Federal Office for Logistics and Mobility, alongside the police and occupational safety authorities, is one of the bodies responsible for monitoring drivers’ hours rules during roadside checks. Company inspections, meanwhile, fall under the responsibility of the relevant regional authorities. Inspectors can analyse tachograph and driver-card data, while transport companies are also required to retain records and make them available for inspection.

Transferred to ETS2, this could create a completely new kind of roadside inspection. A police check would no longer only ask whether we are currently driving at 92 instead of 80 km/h. Our virtual driver card could theoretically be analysed and reveal a violation from several journeys earlier. Did we start yesterday’s break too late? Was an activity recorded incorrectly? Have we repeatedly pushed our available driving time to the limit? Again, that would only be a hypothetical game implementation – but suddenly our driver history would actually matter.

The real tachograph system is continuing to evolve as well. New relevant heavy vehicles in the EU have already been fitted with Smart Tachograph Version 2 since August 2023. Retrofit deadlines then followed for vehicles used in international transport; since August 2025, relevant heavy vehicles operating internationally within the EU must generally have version 2 installed. Since 1 July 2026, EU driving and rest time rules and the corresponding smart-tachograph requirement also apply to certain light commercial vehicles above 2.5 tonnes and up to 3.5 tonnes when used in international transport or cabotage. For our classic ETS2 tractor-trailers, that final point is mainly background information – but it shows how current and extensive the real enforcement system has become.

That leaves the crucial question: Would this actually make ETS2 better – or would Euro Truck Simulator become Euro Truck Bureaucracy Simulator?

There are strong arguments in favour. We would have to plan journeys more carefully. Rest areas would matter. Traffic jams would have real consequences. An extra quick delivery at the end of the day would no longer always be possible. Fleet management, driver and vehicle could become more closely connected. For players who deliberately aim for maximum realism, this would create an entirely new challenge.

And Update 1.60 at least shows that SCS is willing to move time planning further into actual gameplay. ETS2’s fatigue system used to be much simpler at its core: eventually we became tired and then slept for a predefined period. Today, recovery and mandatory interruption can be considered separately, and we can even choose our wake-up time more precisely. An optional tachograph would conceptually be the next major step – not because SCS has announced one, but because the game’s systems now provide much more room for such an idea.

But the arguments against it are just as strong. The real rules are complicated. Driving time is not working time, working time is not availability, and a 45-minute break is not automatically a daily rest period. There are also different types of operation, exceptions and additional national and European rules. Someone who simply wants to drive a load from Hamburg to Munich in the evening could find a fully simulated legal framework more frustrating than immersive.

And professional drivers in particular might say: I already deal with this all day – why would I want to manage my virtual driver card in the evening as well?

The biggest technical problem, however, lies in the game itself. ETS2 does not reproduce Europe at a 1:1 scale. Distances and time are heavily compressed. If SCS simply applied the real 4.5-hour value unchanged to accelerated game time, we might have to stop very frequently in real playing time. If the values were scaled to match the game world instead, the mechanic would be easier to play but would no longer be an exact reproduction of European drivers’ hours law.

Perhaps that is exactly where the most sensible solution lies: an optional Hardcore Tachograph mode.

Players who simply want to drive could keep Rest State and Mandatory Break. Those wanting more simulation could insert their virtual driver card at the beginning of a shift, manage different activity modes, plan their 4.5-hour driving blocks and risk consequences during inspections. The real rules would need to be presented clearly and in places adapted to the game’s accelerated world – but their core could remain intact.

Because Update 1.60 already makes ETS2 more realistic. A real tachograph, however, would do something fundamentally different: it would turn the question “When do I need to sleep?” into “How do I organise my entire working day?”

And that could change our journeys far more than another truck, another DLC or another rest area.

Would you enable a real tachograph mode with a driver card, 4.5-hour rule and inspections – or would that already be too much real working life in your simulator? Should SCS reproduce the real timings as closely as possible, or adapt the rules to ETS2’s accelerated game world? And would you take the full 45 minutes at once – or actually plan 15 plus 30 minutes strategically into your journey?