I was heartened by the early answers on this thread then appalled by some of the later ones.
Firstly the Company dismissed the driver but what did they do to ensure he had adequate 'access route instructions' first, to his delivery?
Absolutely nothing. All it takes is a phone call to a delivery point to find the recommended access for an HGV to a country location.
Secondly, so many road signs are now obscured by trees and branches it's so difficult to see them until the last minute. If by then you have committed an artic and made that turn in to a road, there is often only one way to go, forward.
Finding space to turn approx 56' around in a country lane isn't easy.
Reversing is just not possible sometimes as the space needed at the front end just isn't there to make the trailer go back from where it's just come!
Whilst I agree this driver was less than diligent in his reading of the road, it's true that we all have a lapse of concentration at times, and wish we hadn't taken that decision. In an artic it's very often not 'undo-able'
To lose his job was unforgivable and quite frankly, speaks volumes for his Employers, who clearly wanted to distance themselves from any blame ar embarrassment.
Once again the lorry driver is villified.
At least 20% of my deliveries are only accessed by passing signs saying 'Unsuitable for HGV's' but it is the only access to them.
If I get it right, I'm good, but Wo Betide me if I get it wrong.
Pat
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I agree mistakes can happen and shouldn't automatically lead to dismissal. I didn't comment on this case as we only know the incomplete story that we read in the paper, and even that might not be accurate.
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I find that with TomTom Fastest is fastest and shortest involves any track down which a vehicle can travel, and with no happy medium. I have lived in my present location for 10 years and the other day I did a shortest A to B route which took me thru villages and hamlets I had never seen or heard of and within 15 miles of my house! I think the trick may be to select the "Avoid Motorways" planning option
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I manage to program my TT to avoid shortcuts by setting the speed at 55 mph maximum, thinks I'm a truckie.
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We have a low railway bridge near us, the county council have errected big in fact very big signs at both ends of the road at roundabouts to alert truck drivers that the bridge is low. At least once a week an HGV is seen trying to reverse back up the road to avoid the bridge. Its obvious that these nits of the road just do not look where they are going.
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Just an insight into what needs to be done by any HGV Driver when approaching a roundabout that is not familiar.
Select the correct exit from the plethora of road signs
Select the correct lane
Check that lane is clear and someone will let you change lanes.
Check mirrors for cyclists on near or offside of the trailer.
Check for any pedestrians anywhere near the edge of the pavement
Check for traffic from the right is it indicating?
If not, try and guess which way it may be going?
Check for traffic coming towards you from 'over' the roundabout and see if it's indicating.
Try and find a suitable gap to prevent impeding other traffic flow, whilst trying to persuade the automatic gearbox to select a higher gear.
Check mirrors again and again for those who have got impatient and decided to squeeze up the inside/outside of you.
Just as the other HGV drivers on here will tell you, this is an automatic practice that we follow at every roundabout but it is largely a matter or prioritising. Vehicle and people safety comes first and very often reading a road sign positioned in the END of the road we're turning into, has to come last.
Low bridge signs should always be positioned on the approach to the roundabout and not in the end of the road, so we have an alternative option open to us before we have committed ourselves to a manouvre.
If that makes us nits then so be it, but at least we manage to reverse out safely.
Pat
We have a low railway bridge near us the county council have errected big in fact very big signs at both ends of the road at roundabouts to alert truck drivers that the bridge is low. At least once a week an HGV is seen trying to reverse back up the road to avoid the bridge. Its obvious that these nits of the road just do not look where they are going.
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>>If that makes us nits then so be it, but at least we manage to reverse out safely.
Wrong because they have to reverse half mile causing the whole area to become at a stand still with other vehicles trying to avoid the sutuation. It puts the road under stress as this road was never intended for such large vehicles, the grass verges get damaged and are left in a dangerous state with mud all over the road. The Driver of the HGV then tries to find an alternative route again using his sat nav usually ending up in the housing estate. No excuss.
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Then perhaps as a local resident it would be approriate for you to be contacting your local authorities about having the signs re-sited to a position where alternative routes can be taken?
A suggestion to erect a sign saying 'Alternative route avoiding low bridge' perhaps?
Pat
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"Firstly the Company dismissed the driver but what did they do to ensure he had adequate 'access route instructions' first, to his delivery?
Absolutely nothing. "
Pat, unless you know more than has been said in the press reports you are guessing by saying that.
The second part is patently not true from the reports - the villagers have said that they have a problem for some time with satnavs and have had extra signs errected - in view of what has been happening its hardly likely that the villagers would have allowed newly errected signs for the sole purpose of preventing lorries entering their village get obscured is it?!
In this case the lorry driver is clearly at fault, end of...
As regards his punishment, as I've said before (and I assume your reference was to my post, amongst others), if he has been warned in his instructions about this sort of thing when using a satnav (has he?) and maybe even done it before (has he?) then the sack is appropriate - as we don't know I feel that it is unfair to vilify either him or the firm by making assumptions... though these days it is quite difficult to just sack people and if you are right then he will win an industrial tribunal, won't he.
Perhaps we should leave the guesses and wait and see if there is any follow up to the story giving us more detail...
Edited by b308 on 01/11/2008 at 09:27
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Absolutely nothing. " Pat unless you know more than has been said in the press reports you are guessing by saying that.
It's not a guess, it's simply from experience.
Routes to deliveries are all part Lorry Drivers job, whether we use Sat Navs or not is down to us and if we're prepared to buy them!
The back up from the Traffic Office ends when you are handed a Delivery Documant with an address on it, when in reality, they could do an awful lot more to prevent this sort of thing.
We regularly get deliveries only to find they can't be accessed by anything bigger than a Transit van, but despite the cost involved it never seems to get checked first.
Another gripe is why don't firms with difficult access ( low bridges/narrow lanes) insist that Suppliers print Access routes on the delivery notes?
Perhaps we should leave the guesses and wait and see if there is any follow up to the story giving us more detail...
There won't be.....
The Firm has publicly sacked him, the results of any tribunal won't be quite so publicly available, will they?
Cynical, yes but in reality it's what actually happens.
Pat
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As regard to a company supplying notes to direct drivers to use suitable routes, they are wasting their time. We recently have had a large housing development in the area it was part of the planning that deliveries would only use one route.The delivery companies informned by word and printed on delivery paperwork the only route to use to their drivers ( I have seen the documents ). But when it comes down to it the driver ignored this and just drove wherever he liked. Despite warnings from the local authority and fines impossed the drivers are a law unto themselves, this is the kind of thing HGV drivers deserve the reputation they get.
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I though HGV drivers had better training, and a tougher test (that includes prohibitions and restrictions) than the rest of us?
Seems not to work a lot of the time.
Said it before and I will say it again. The standard of HGV driving is getting worse by the year.
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<< The standard of HGV driving is getting worse by the year. >>
Is it my imagination, or are there more and more foreign trucks on our roads?
Also, more western European drivers driving UK registered trucks?
If so could this be (part?) of the reasons?
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Regarless of how much training, how good the instructions are, how clever the Sat Nav (spawn of the devil, should be made illegal in HGV's) is, and how many clever dicks there are in the traffic office, it all depends on how competent the driver is, you cannot make a silk purse etc.
In the thread about fuel tanker drivers we had posters here screaming for blood, 'just drivers, they shouldn't be so greedy/ paid so much/ replaced by cheap foreign drivers/ go get em Hoyer' etc.
Same people complain when driver who possibly wasn't up to the job does it wrong, well if you want top quality staff then in this game, like many others you have to pay the extra and take your pick.
Some years ago i attempted to train one particular chap to drive and operate car transporters, after one day out on the road i refused to continue as this fellow hadn't got a clue how to drive a truck, whoever passed him at test deserves a kick up the backside, a truly terrifying experience i assure you.
My opinions were ignored and the guvnor himself taught him.
A matter of weeks later this chap stuffed the loaded transporter into a railway bridge not far from Oilrag's stomping ground, luckily no one was hurt but it could have been disastrous, and for what?
There are thousands of HGV licence holders out there, declining number of old fashioned true truck drivers IMO though, watch some of em attempting to reverse somewhere awkward for a truer picture.
And by the way Sat Nav's are useless for HGV's, experience and knowledge and a good helping of common are the real requirements (and a salary worth losing to get the best always helps)
EDIT....AE yes the test is pretty tough, but as in car driving courses, the emphasis is on passing the test only, not teaching the pupil to be a competent truck driver.
Edited by gordonbennet on 01/11/2008 at 11:57
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It's not a guess it's simply from experience.
Pat, you do yourself no favours by saying that - its a guess, pure and simple - you sound more like one of NuLabs spin doctors with those sorts of comments... You are assuming that the driver is a poor down-trodden beast of burden... he may be, but on the other hand he could one of those know-it-alls who doen't take any notice of what he is told - we just don't know, do we... so I don't risk guessing as that could wrong the innocent party... think about it!
As for an IT I may be wrong but I think that most of the results are in the public domain - and they can, and do, overturn unfair sackings which is what this would be if you are right...
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"stuffed the loaded transporter into a railway bridge not far from Oilrag's stomping ground,"
I remember it GB..
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Pat you do yourself no favours by saying that - its a guess pure and simple -
An educated guess, I'm aware of who he works for.
As for an IT I may be wrong but I think that most of the results are in the public domain - and they can and do overturn unfair sackings which is what this would be if you are right...
I agree, but it won't appear on the Front Page with photo's will it?
It's a sore point with Lorry Drivers that when it all goes wrong, we make the news and take the flak without the background ever being known.
Take this case at the firm I work for just this Summer.
One of our drivers was given a delivery to an Egg Farm south of Reading, way out in the sticks, on an artic with a low trailer of 13'10''. We do run them up to 16' high.
He used his bridge map to check the approach, he used a local A to Z and found what appeared to be the best road in only to find a weight limit with no access.
After an hour of negotiating tiny lanes, he then found a route in with a weight limit but this one was 'except for access'.
So one would expect that to be the recommended route.
Off he went, only to be confronted with a 13' 3'' bridge and the delivery point being just the other side of it. Low bridges on minor roads arn't shown on the Bridge Bashers Bible, as we call it.
He walked down to the firm ( a small egg farm) and was asked why he hadn't read his delivery notes properly and used the other access THROUGH the weight limit.
They then both looked at the delivery notes and found there was NO information on there whatsoever.
The Salesman who was driving a car was told when taking the order he MUST put specific delivery instructions on the paperwork. He didn't.
Consequently our storage customer wasn't aware of this, neither was our traffic office.
What followed was a stressful and expensive 4 hours trying to get an artic turned round.
First he tried to reverse back, but a tree branch dropped between the unit and trailer.
A Farmer turned up and went to fetch a chainsaw to remove the branch.
The farmer suggested he drove into a stubble field ( with a lorry weighing 42 tonnes gross weight) and tried to do a very big circle as apparently there was a Grade 2 listed building on a corner on another route that artics can't get round.
He did this and promptly sank into the 'dry' ground. The Farmer fetched a tractor to tow him round but that got stuck too.
He then had to phone another local Farmer who had a bigger tractor and eventually that one managed to get him out.
This episode cost a mornings work for 3 people, late/failed deliveries for our customers, damage to the field and to the tree.
Not to mention one of our very experienced drivers who was absolutely ready to give up driving lorries forever, over it.
The Farmer sent a bill to our Boss for £250, ( cheap at half the price) with a letter saying it happens all the time, simply because the firms taking the orders cannot follow instructions for delivery.
Our firm passed the bill on to the supplier who paid it with a red face, but had it have needed a wrecker or a crane, just how much would that have cost?
More important, had an irate local resident have phoned the local paper can you imagine what the headline would have read?
Idiot Driver Follows Sat Nav Again?
Just a normal day in the life of a lorry driver!!
Pat
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Idiot Driver Follows Sat Nav Again? Just a normal day in the life of a lorry driver!! Pat
Pat, I have no doubt you can produce other examples as well, thats not the point in this case... it seems that the driver has ignored clear road signs and done damage to people's property and caused problems for others... he may be at fault, he may not, the results of the IT (if there is one) will tell us - we are discussing this case, not others, so I stand by what I have said and no amount of other examples is going to make a spot of difference, is it!
Using your methods as I work on the railways I can also give you plenty of examples of the opposite to your story, and on clearly signed main roads as well, which have really pink fluffydice off me and my passengers, but I won't 'cause there's not a lot of point, there are idiot drivers out there and also very good ones... lets wait and see, eh!
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 02/11/2008 at 13:55
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Did the lorry driver never think when planning his route "I will give them a quick ring on the phone"
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Should that be necessary when clear instructions had already been issued when the order was placed? I think the blame clearly lies at that point and we cannot be expected to make repeated phone calls to check everyone else has acted responsibly in the long chain before it gets onto a lorry.
And the point is.............the access was actually through those same forbidding roadsigns you condemn us for ignoring!!
It will make interesting reading now to see how you manage to blame the lorry driver on this one:)
No doubt the sales Rep who called and took the order and delivery instructions in his Repmobile will remain blame free!
Pat
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No doubt the sales Rep who called and took the order and delivery instructions in his Repmobile will remain blame free!
No, clearly he has responsibility in your scenario. Bear in mind however that without the salesman your lorry driver has no work and is on the dole. The fatc he sold the order means he did the primary part of his job well.
Also clearly where a driver is delivering somewhere he has never been before, has looked on the map to see its in the wilds of nowwhere, and has experienced poor access on other jobs before, alarm bells might ring.
In this case where the root cause is the salesmans failure, a contributary factor may be the drivers lack of common sense. Is a two minute phone call too much to ask? I bet plenty of other truckers do it.
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I'm afraid on this occasion i don't agree with you Pat.
We have been doing this job long enough to know full well we should totally ignore any salespersons/traffic office staff's opinions of what should be our approach routes to any destination, and often take with a large pinch of salt the end users opinions too.
Most of them havent the foggiest idea of our problems, and long may it continue to be so, as it keeps many of our jobs in experienced hands where they belong, and helps to keep idiots out of the driving seat too, the ones that can't go anywhere without a sat nav or directions, and as for turning round....those of us that have done farm and rural works deliveries over the years have all had to perform several mile reverses, often in the dark, it goes with the job, you just get on with it.
I've had to get a helpful policeman to hold up the traffic, whilst i reversed over Oxford St before now when making rental car deliveries in the Grosvenor Square area before, and because of bad parking couldn't make turns and had to reverse back to go another way.
This sort of thing will always happen, most of us just don't make a big deal of it, i'm quite sure Pat/pda doesn't, she would never have lasted the years she has on the job if she fell into the other category.
The average logistics company traffic office staff wouldn't have a clue what sort of problems Pat's colleague encountered, and i'm firmly of the opinion that they keep well out of it too, and leave it to the person doing it, a good supply of telephone numbers (together with the names of intelligent people at the problem delivery points) is all i require together with a correct address (delivery, not invoice) and postcode.
I'll give you a small example, we deliver vehicles to a small company in the back streets of East London that you have to approach in very narrow housed lanes and turn just before (25yds) a 13ft bridge and again into a parallel road with long 14'6" bridge, now when we are loaded we are well over 15ft so we have to arrive before 6.30am and unload and turn around afterwards sharpish otherwise when people start parking there for the day we would be stuck and wouldn't make any of the turns. (some strange females, i think, hanging around that place at 6am for some reason, can anyone think why)
Now can you imagine the pigs ear most logistics experts would make of that, and the ensuing chaos that would follow, as there's not a hope in hell of getting out any other way.
Half of the trouble is that many drivers will not invest in decent maps, i keep several different sorts as some are better than others for showing roundabouts and junctions and minor turnings etc. They are the tools of the trade, sat navs are not.
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Half of the trouble is that many drivers will not invest in decent maps i keep several different sorts as some are better than others for showing roundabouts and junctions and minor turnings etc. They are the tools of the trade sat navs are not.
Very interesting post, Gordon; a very informative description of the navigational skills of your trade.
But I'm surprised that you dismiss satnav entirely. Sure, the current generation of satnavs doesn't include much of the detail needed for your work, and although they are likely to improve in the future, it'll probably be a long time before they would completely replace all the detailed data from your library of paper maps and guides ... but so long as you have done that research, doesn't satnav still have a role as a live guide? For large chunks of a long journey, I'd have thought that your route would be a a fairly straightforward selection of motorways and A-roads, where a satnav can give useful advance warning of junctions and so on. So why not use satnav for the bulk of the route, and then paper maps etc for the last bit, but retain the satnav as a location indicator, having turned off the directions?
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. So why not use satnav forthe bulk of the route and then paper maps etc for the last bit but retain the satnav as a location indicator having turned off the directions?
Yes it can have its uses in that context, but only as a locator of an area in a strange town where you have no idea initially where in the town a road may be,
unfortunately the sat nav will give no clue about the severity of gradients (can my vehicle make that downhill left hand turn onto another road without planing most of the road surface off, my truck will rip most of the surface off if i get it wrong), the possible tightness of turns (a good map will give clues there), the relative positioning of bridges, hump back bridges a major consideration, the feasibility of turning should the delivery point be inaccessible from the delivery address road, often the delivery access point to the premises can be several turnings away from the actual address, the other side of that bridge that can mean a long drive through a major centre for 200 yards.
The planning ahead is hugely important, the good driver has so much to think about, vehicle and load sympathy, consideration for residents and other local users, i cannot stress just how vital an aware and conscientious driver is to some of the jobs out there.
Think how much planning has to go into the low loader special deliveries of cranes and large objects, i've yet to see one of those chaps using a sat nav, but i may be wrong, hopefully we will hear.
Yes i know i'm talking rather more unusual delivery routines here, but not every truck driver's job is travelling from a huge RDC to an equally huge supermarket every day.
The driver should be aware by following his/her own route choice exactly where they are at any moment, and that does not happen with sat nav, the driver just chauffeurs the vehicle around head in the clouds and when all of a sudden the road is blocked by accident or a unplanned for bridge ahead, or in my case low trees to worry about far more, then the driver invariably hasn't the faintest clue where they are in their journey.
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No one with any sense can doubt the wisdom and profundity of what gb is saying. The satnav is obviously a useful tool, but not something that should be allowed into the hands of the easily hypnotised. The driving skill and basic nous of the driver are the crucial factors.
There's a Tesco near me buried in a block in Portobello Road. Its goods entrance is down an HGV-length, HGV-height and just a couple of feet (well, four, say) more than HGV width dark narrow tunnel exiting in Westbourne Park Road just round the corner, fifty yards from a traffic light in a busy London two-way, two-lane bus-route street with car parking on both sides.
The drivers, who don't usually have a mate, reverse their colossal trailers into this tunnel at all times of the day. I know for sure that I couldn't begin to do it at any time. Well, I guess I might manage it with luck, but the road would have to be cleared, I would need many people watching the back end, and it would certainly take me at least an hour. Watching these guys doing it coolly in about a minute while waving cheerily to the backed-up traffic is always a pleasure. Chapeau!
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As some of you will know from my previous posts, I drive an 8-wheeler bulk tipper round West Wales delivering animal feeds. It follows that I have to make considerable use of minor roads; in fact on some days the only time I get onto an "A" road is the last couple of miles in and out of the mill.
I don't use a Sat Nav; they are virtually useless on this job. I use a combination of OS maps, the Phillips county maps and on odd occasions Multimap. Many of my deliveries are made before or after daylight hours, and farmers are not noted for advertising the whereabouts of their premises by use of signs. If in doubt I phone them, but that depends very much on whther they have mobile reception, or even have a phone at all!
To take issue with Altea Ego's post above, if I obeyed every sign which said "unsuitable for HGV's" about a third of the farms in my area would not receive a delivery. The majority of drivers who use narrow country lanes do so because they have absolutely no option; they certainly do not do so in order to admire the view.
I strongly suspect that the biggest problem with the OP's incident was lack of experience on the driver's part. We've all been there.
I agree entirely with gb's comments; my thanks also to Lud for pointing out that there is a degree of skill involved in our much-maligned (usually by people who don't have an HGV licence) trade.
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>>>>No, clearly he has responsibility in your scenario. Bear in mind however that without the salesman your lorry driver has no work and is on the dole. The fatc he sold the order means he did the primary part of his job well.<<<<
I would seriously doubt the amount of profit on two pallets of tinned tomatoes after the bill for his inefficiency had been deducted :)
Sat nav wasn'r used at all on this occasion, just a good old combination of paper maps.
Can I also make the point that oblong, blue signs, stating 'Unsuitable for HGV's' are only advisory and not mandatory in the OP scenario.
Pat
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