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Posted By NSO
Knowing that high winds can and do blow high sided vehicles over why do people in our positions still allow people to drive them in such weather conditions, when 24 hours later the risk has all but gone. How many deaths are allowable for the sake of meeting a delivery? I recently drove along the A66 which was supposedly closed to high sided vehicles only to see truck drivers were paying no attention to the instruction and no one was there to police it. Am I being unrealistic and unreasonable? Do transport companies have transport/driving policies?
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Posted By Glyn Atkinson
Don't forget one man haulage drivers who work for any hirer on agency terms - no drive, no pay!
They would possibly be the ones who might take a risk as no one else is in charge of them on the road !
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Posted By NSO
Wouldn't it be interesting though if insurance companies decided not to pay for load and vehicle recovery. It may make them think twice, but then again.
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Posted By Linda Westrupp
As a previous poster says, they may have no choice. A friend of mine is a lorry driver and rang his boss to tell him that the police were advising drivers to get their wagons off the road. He was told in no uncertain terms to keep driving or he wouldn't have a job when he got back to the depot. What are drivers supposed to do in that situation?
Linda
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Posted By Merv Newman
The driver should obey police instructions. If there is an accident then insurance could refuse to pay out.
Losing your job for obeying the law would be constructive dismissal.
Merv
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Posted By anon1234
Must agree with Merv on this one.
Merv, just to get you in the mood for the weekend - thinking of a nice bottle of St Emilion waiting for me when I get home
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Posted By Richard Chalkley
Linda,
In that situation, I'd join a union and then take the employer to court.
I find it amazing that in this day and age someone can get away with that (or am I just being an idealist?).
Richard.
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Posted By Merv Newman
Linda,
you little idealist you. There are many managers out there who will use threats, implicit or explicit to force employees to do dangerous things.
And there are many employees who will do dangerous things just to keep the production going. Even going against written management instructions to "put safety first"
Anon,
Did the weekend shop this morning. Came home with two bottles of St Emillion. Don't know what I'll do for tomorrow though.
Merv
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Posted By Pete48
NSO,
The better ones probably do.
The worst ones don't care.
The foolhardy always ignore rules.
The oppressed always take risks, they have no choice.
My employer insisted that I did not go out on any visits on Thursday and I only drive a 4x4!
Reason, genuine concern for my welfare and a recognition that it would likely be a waste of my time due to traffic chaos, missed appointments and clients cancelling anyway.
Good business is good safety in action eh?
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Posted By angela westwood
Hi there
my partner is a LGV2 driver but thankfully spent the day at home on thursday
sad to say that it wasn't because of a caring employer who felt that the adverse weather predicted could cause problems for its lorry drivers.
Unfortunately it was my fault - he had to book a day off from work to ferry our daughter to school and back as Mum was negotiating a hairy and scary drive to and from the Midlands from the south west in order to take the unit C Nebosh exam.... wonder if NEBOSH will give all candidates who made the effort on Thurday to travel to exam venues extra brownie points seeing as they didn't cancel?
yeah we can all dream.. :)
Angela
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Posted By Mick154
Just got to reply to this
Thirty years in transport so I have some experience.
Like all companies we all talk good H/S but when it come to the point sometimes H/S goes out the window. Transport is one of those times, because your company needs its raw materials so that you can produce thing that you can put in into the market for sale. Also you have to feed your family and cannot manage for just one day or so, the shop has to be open 24hr just so we can all live in the high standards that we have become accustom to. So you see transport has to keep moving.
So if you don’t like to see drivers working in adverse weather then you as H/S Managers write in your company’s policy to stop movements of High Sided Vehicles during these conditions, and where a driver follows local police advice to park up them no disciplinary action will be taken. Just like when we work at heights we don’t let them go up if the wind speed reaches a give speed such as 12 meters per second, we would not send anyone up in a MEWP or use a crane, the docks do stop their cranes lifting but don’t stop transport movements???
A lot of new drivers to the industry don’t know how or have never been shown how to drive in bad weather. Curtain sided vehicles if not closed correctly with the correct tension on the straps acts like a sail, so in any adverse weather these have to be correctly secure before moving and regularly checked along the route. Also with the new modern fleet of vehicles they are on air assisted suspension and they don’t talk to the drive as the old ones did on springs where the vehicle told the driver what was happening and the driver could react, but not today. Most don’t even know about weight distribution of the load this also has a great effect on the handling of these vehicles.
Shall stop there don’t get me going on transport issues
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Posted By John Carr I am a solicitor investigating a potential claim for a professional Class 2 driver who sustained a spinal cord injury after the (unladen) refuse vehicle that he was driving was blown off course at the height of the forcast Gales on Thursday 18th January. I would be very interested to find out whether and if so the extent to which other local authorities or operators of other gooods vehicles generallly took their fleets off the road on that day. I expect a fight from the insurers and would like to be in a position to be able to at least point to some other operators commercial or from public authorities (refuse collectors ideally) who stayed off the road on 18th Jan. On behalf of my client and his family any ideas or thoughts at all would be most welcome. Many thanks John johncarr@carrssolicitors.co.uk
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