I just wonder if the average person knows just how many miles many people will routinely drive on business. or how many hours.
The first time that something "big" happens involving a business driver then everyone will wonder why such driving is unregulated. My mate works in the transport industry and has always thought it a bit of a non-sense that lorry drivers in his company are limited to the hours they can drive, but he can drive the length of the country and back in a day in his car to check their tachographs, to make sure they are not driving as much as him!!.
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Much easier to regulate Lorry drivers and force them to follow guidelines as they have alot more to lose if they break the rules.
Heavy regulation of those "nuisance" HGVs that get in everyone's way looks good to those who "want something done" about high accident rates on roads.
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It was the access to on line auction catalogues, that was causing me to drive even MORE miles, everyday.
I'd be looking for stock, in sales I'd never have considered, previously. & I, too, prefered to koip in my own bed, rather than stay out.
So my round tripp, would easily be 300 miles, with the pleasure of standing in an auction hall, for a few hours, to break the journey.
Oh yes - I was barmy, then, too.
How I envy the guys, Sally traffic refers to every afternoon!!
VB
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Don't the working time regs (sort of) cover this? IIRC, it is employer's duty to ensure that htere is an eleven hour break between finishing work and starting again, plus the limits of work per day.
Therefore in this situation, drivers would drive alternate days to comply with the rules, if not for common sense.
Could be wrong
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The directive will restrict working to 8 hours a day on average, with no opt out as it is 'night work'. So an employee/director could only do 3 nights a wee on average.
You also have the 11 hour break problem.
Plus I think that the Health and Safety bods would look dimly on a contracted 15 hour day driving up and down motorways. Particularly if there was an accident when almost home after a 14 hour day.
Personally I think that it is a typical money before common sense idea.
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My late father's first job involving driving - rather than being in charge of factories - saw him cover 67,000 miles in his first year and at a time when motorways were virtually unknown.
He used to say that the driving was fitted in between work but he managed to get home every night 99 times out of a hundred despite covering a vast area of the UK; what really galled, however, him was that the Inland Revenue used to quibble at his two gallons a week private motoring use claim.
Even pointing out that he clearly had no great desire to go pleasure driving other than for essential family matters, it took some time to persuade the powers-that-be that the two gallons merely represented a quick visit most nights to the pub for a well deserved pint.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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As someone who travels 220mls a day commuting - I would hate to do anywhere near this sort of driving. I spend more time in the car everyweek than I spend awake at home.
I don't like filling up every other day, but this would be filling up every day, probably twice somedays!
When I was looking after a fleet, it was number one priority to cut down the amount of hours a driver would do in a day - but if first call of the day was to Lincoln, and then an emergency came in for Carlisle, then thats a long drive! I think HSE guidelines were max of 2 hours between rests.
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Without mentioning this thread, I've just been talking to a friend in the pub. He spoke of doing 190,000 trouble-free miles in a Renault Laguna over three years. I told him he was lucky, in view of the Laguna's reputation, and that it was a hell of an annual mileage. He said, yes it was, and that's what made him so ill that he left the job and then had a prolonged period of sick leave.
The most I ever did was about 35k a year as a rep in the North before the M62 was completed. I am so glad that job didn't last more than two years.
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