Every fleet has them, truck drivers who know best. At 2pm Derek (not his real name, which is Eric) bounded through the confectionary warehouse making for the exit. He’d loaded his truck, parked it up, hung the keys under ‘E.Smith’ and was planning an afternoon doing whatever it was he usually did on a Tuesday afternoon during March.
As one of the longer-serving drivers he’d been able to secure the sweeter routes, which were closer to home. Starting at 6am on a job-and-knock he usually left the premises at 2pm baring disaster. He was known for his incessant moaning about anything that upset his finely balanced universe. Part of his route included the schools, so during the school holidays the number of drops on his route halved. Other drivers who delivered to coastal towns saw their loads double as all known outlets increased their sweet orders during the holidays. “Derek,” came the shout. Reluctantly he turned to see who shouted his name. Recently appointed transport coordinator Dan (not his real name, which is Stan) followed up his hail of the company’s foremost driver. “You delivering around Swindon tomorrow?” Derek and Dan both knew this was a statement of fact rather than a question. Rhetorical, if you like. “Can you put this pallet on the back and swing by Wootton Bassett (not yet Royal)...” Other drivers would be coming back past Wootton Bassett later on, why couldn’t they do it, argued Derek. Dan stood his ground, and finished with a statement of the obvious. “You are a delivery driver, are you not? Well go out and drive and deliver.” Derek reclaimed his keys, opened up the truck, loaded the pallet, then hung up his keys again and trudged out to his car and drove home at approximately 2.15pm. We didn’t hear the last of it. For weeks Derek recalled the bitter experience until we knew it verbatim. The rest of us worked more traditional trucker hours, namely for 6am to 6pm and then some if it was required. I was one of the drivers Derek referred to in passing Wootton Bassett on the way home. Yet it would’ve been another four hours before I could make the drop, and that was only if the pallet was stacked on top of another. When I next saw him he made it clear to me that as I was passing I should have done it. I bit my tongue. Then he told the driver next to me that I should have done it. He bit his tongue. Dan also got it in the neck with constant barbs about his organisational skills. Derek moaned to Dan’s supervisor, which led to an impromptu meeting by the coffee machine. The only thing the company was worried about was getting the orders onto the trucks and out of the building. Who took it was not something worth debating. Dispirited Dan delegated accordingly. I got the pallet next time around stacked on top of another. I duly arrived at the store four hours later, much to the chagrin of the shop owner. Derek’s chuntering made life difficult for Dan and the other drivers who had to pick up the slack, while he continued to finish as normal. Delivery routes became lopsided. Often the further away the destination was the more drops were added going to and coming back from that area. More local routes didn’t have that option. After I left I got word that one driver who travelled to Cornwall every day was stopped by VOSA (not their real name, which is DVSA) outside Plymouth for repeatedly going over his 15 hour spread and not filling in tachograph charts. Dan walked point on this and then fell on his sword or was pushed out the window by his employers. The incident led to an enquiry by the local Traffic Commissioner who gave the company six months to get its house in order. Leniency was proffered because it was an own-account business, not one for hire or reward. I suppose the truth was that there was a lot wrong with the transport department of the company as a whole. Dan didn’t have the ability to stand up to Derek, not without his line manager. Other drivers worked more hours for the same salaried pay and didn’t stand up to Derek either. Dan had to consider Derek first, the rest didn’t matter, and the company didn’t expand the fleet to meet the extra demand but simply piled more freight onto the truck and drivers that were there. Staff turnover was high. Disgruntled drivers simply left to be replaced by more unwitting fresh meat. I lasted 10 months. Rather than address the issues between management and drivers the company simply recruited more teamsters until VOSA intervened. Derek outlasted Dan and was rewarded with an office job, eight to four, as the transport coordinator. Surprisingly he was quite good at it.
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Haulier’s part of the ‘gig economy’ might have more rights than they realise thanks to a plumber12/2/2017 Major blue-chip companies using sub-contractors to haul their wares might have to rethink their approach as a landmark ruling threatens to topple the apple-cart. Anyone who sub-contracts their rolling stock to one customer should’ve been following the Pimlico Plumbers Vs Gary Smith court case fearing the worse.
The ramifications of the Gary Smith victory in the Court of Appeal reversed how many saw the working and economic relationship between him and Pimlico Plumbers. He worked as a self-employed contractor leasing a van. He is part of what is called the ‘gig economy’, a phrase defined as “a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs". Gary Smith works five days a week for a single firm. The Court of Appeal upheld as earlier verdict that Smith as one of Pimlico Plumbers long-serving plumbers was a worker - entitled to basic rights, including holiday pay - rather than an independent contractor. Where will this leave the legions of small hauliers who work for just one customer? There are thousands of them taking stones out of quarries, trailers from ports, parcels from warehouses, chickens to slaughterhouses, milk to dairies, recycled material to power stations... These one-man-bands source medical insurance themselves, pay for their own holidays, fund their own pensions from the pence-per-mile offered from their customers. Pimlico voiced their unhappiness about the decision, Smith sounded as though he was vindicated. What is more, Government is preparing to act. There is to be an “independent review into modern employment practices – specifically the burgeoning gig economy – will report in the summer and will likely make a range of policy recommendations for new regulation” (sourced from the Guardian). A worst case scenario is that agreements, like a franchise where a haulier is duty bound to supply transport to its sponsor, could be forced to change to reflect the outcome of Pimlico Plumbers Vs Gary Smith. More likely could be a rise in collective agreements where a client provides a sister company to also offer work for a sub-contractor so it negates the ‘one-client’ scenario. Either way, life may not be so straightforward. Back in the day, yes, I’m down with the 30-somethings, when analogue tachographs were king I used a stopwatch to record my daily rest period. The paper disc recorded everything.
The stopwatch was employed after an employee in Vehicle and Operator Services Agency colours (now the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) with a magnifying glass spent an hour examining two weeks of ‘graphs before declaring that on three occasions I’d not taken the required ‘daily rest period’. “By how much?” I asked. “It does not matter,” he replied with a more serious tone implying that insolence would be met with a larger fine and a spell on the naughty step, “you have not taken the required daily rest period, therefore you have driven illegally for an accumulative period of eight hours.” I ventured again with a more serious tone suggesting I was prepared to wait all day if I had to for an answer. “Using an ‘accumulative’ estimate, by how long are my breaks short of the required time set out in law?” My foe was grinding his teeth. He reiterated my offence using a slower more deliberate pace of speech usually reserved for ex-Pats ordering fish and chips in Alicante. I took a deep breath and began my reply. Tiring of the debate his colleague waded in with: “Approximately six minutes.” Conversation then switched to criminal intent over error of judgement. The fact the offense was thrice showed, in their eyes, I’d deliberately shortened breaks to gain an ‘advantage’. I was eventually fined but no points. Shortening breaks is not something you can do with digital tachographs but watching the minute tick over then moving a short distance before it reaches 30 seconds without recording any extra driving time is. The minute is dictated by the majority of activity within it. For example, 31 seconds of cross hammers plays 29 seconds of driving equals a full minute of cross hammers on the recorded time despite the vehicle recording movement. This is why is queuing in traffic you can lose several minutes by crawling, stopping, crawling, stopping as traffic you move along. Of course you can print and record any ‘incident’. If you did that every time you stopped at temporary traffic lights or waited for a BMW driver to park you’d be littered with hundreds of tear offs at the end of the week and causing ecological mayhem with an increased demand for paper. You lose some but you also win some. How many of you move a truck from a parking space to the fuel pumps, or off a loading bay when tipped, while maintaining a ‘daily rest period’? A ‘colleague’ said that today (27th April 2016) while on an official break 'this person' used two movements, the first came after 15 minutes so it was a hiding to nothing, to inch across the motorway services from a wideload parking space to the pumps while maintaining a daily rest period. My ‘colleague’ estimated that more than 15 minutes were saved. Fifteen minutes spent queuing for the pumps, handing in the fuel card, filling the tank, swearing at someone, having a wee, assessing the meal deal and any two-for-one offers, paying, getting back in the cab, checking the phone then going. How can this be right? Drivers lose time all day long, and as they are governed by time, it needs addressing. Digital tachograph manufacturers need to up their game and dissect a minute into four 15 second sections or even six 10 second periods, so that drivers have a more accurate accounting system for their time on and off the road. Analogue tachographs were accurate, digital tachographs need to be accurate too. DVSA helped police convict the owner and mechanic over the fatal Bath tipper crash, now it’s the turn of the government’s watchdog in the dock. It says much about our society that keeping order or maintaining control within a community can be done without accountability or reference to an external authority. In most cases the punishment is severe enough to deter the crime.
By and large we go through each day sticking to the rules we know about and being fortunate enough to avoid breaking the ones we don’t. If we get caught most of us accept the consequences. This ‘self-policing’ best defines the process by which hauliers operate. Tachographs monitor drivers and the truck, and scheduled servicing plots the upkeep of a truck, both help a Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) traffic officer to flag up any discrepancy. So, how could a company like Grittenham Haulage Limited slip through the net? In December 2016 owner Matthew Gordon and mechanic Peter Wood were found guilty of manslaughter at Bristol Crown Court after a tipper truck crashed in Bath killing four people; four-year-old Mitzi Steady, Robert Parker, Philip Allen, and Stephen Vaughan. Truck driver Phillip Potter, whose lorry crashed on 9th February 2015 causing the deaths, was cleared of dangerous and careless driving The one party missing in all this is the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). It helped the prosecution. Speaking to ITV News back at the time of the crash, DVSA stated “while this is on-going we are unable to comment further”. However, during the case DVSA chief executive Gareth Llewellyn stated that “DVSA’s first priority is to protect everyone from unsafe drivers and vehicles”. He continued: “It’s the responsibility of drivers and operators to make sure that their vehicle is roadworthy at all times and anyone who fails to do so is putting themselves and other users at risk.” In January 2017 it revealed that a public inquiry into Grittenham Haulage Limited concluded in December 2015 but the verdict was delayed until after the court case finished. Traffic Commissioner Sarah Bell disqualified the firm and Gordon from holding or obtaining an operator's licence for two years. All will prove academic. She referred to the operator putting commercial concern ahead of compliance as a “breach of trust of the highest order”. DVSA said Grittenham Haulage Limited and its owner and mechanic failed to observe the rules, did not set aside proper time for quality management and control of the transport operations, ran more vehicles than authorised, and sought to keep clients serviced regardless of the law. Prosecutor Adam Vaitilingam QC was more damning and told the jury that Gordon was granted an operator's licence in December 2013 - the first time he had run such a business. "His operation was a shambles from start to finish," he said. So, I ask again, where was the DVSA prior to February 2015? Did it have knowledge of what was happening? And if not, why not? The reason DVSA did not know about the fragrant law breaking and disregard for compliance was because the rules are self-policing...by the operator. Unless a DVSA traffic officer pulled over a Grittenham Haulage wagon it had no contemporary way of knowing. Of course, the law of averages suggest DVSA might have eventually have waved one of Gordon’s truck onto a weighbridge. DVSA is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Transport (DfT), and like any governmental department it merely states its remit ad nauseam; “We help you stay safe on Great Britain's roads by setting standards for driving and motorcycling, and making sure that drivers, vehicle operators and MOT garages follow roadworthiness standards.” Fear of the naughty step best sums up interaction with DVSA employees. They are not interested in liaising with truck drivers, transport managers or the bosses. CPC Operator’s License meetings and seminars are autocratic, get pulled over and you’re only allowed out of the cab if they find something wrong, and even at the CV Show when they showed off their hired tractor unit decked out with twos and blues they merely illustrated their resolve to catch delinquent drivers. If a traffic officer relaxed and spent 10 minutes with any truck driver they’d come away with a fair idea of who sails close to the wind. I am not even going to ask why traffic officers spend much of their time hiding when on patrol rather than being visible and alert. DVSA needs to change its approach to governing the road haulage industry if something like this tragic accident is not to be repeated. The Secret Trucker has moved...sideways. See link for all previous posts http://secrettrucker.weebly.com/
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August 2021
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