Posted By Karen Todd
Bob,

I don't work in the haulage industry but my husband is an HGV driver and these are a few of his rantings:

1) Digital tachographs - not sure about this one but will all tachos have to be this type in the future? I think the driver carries a memory card type thing with him which is his tacho and he can put it in the tacho in any lorry and it holds weeks of info at a time (no destruction of dodgy charts, no falsification of records).

2) Limits on driver hours (total working hours, not driving hours). He said something about the UK not implementing the spirit of the EC working time directive by having the opt out. If the opt out is done away with, there will be a severe shortage of drivers. He spends a lot of time sitting about waiting to be loaded or unloaded and whilst he is not driving, he is "at work". He has heard talk of bigger trailers, or lorries having to haul 2 trailers at a time like in the US.

3) General driver shortages. Apparently there is a shortage of HGV drivers, and also a high turnover of staff because they just keep moving to where the money is.

Karen

Posted By CHRISTOPHER HAYWARD
Burning issues in Road Haulage?

The Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2004 will become law on 10th May, probably.

This is important H&S legislation as it aligns the UK with ADR. Anyone wanting more info, drop me a line.