Increasingly, even if the driver is not aware of it, his whereabouts and behaviour are being monitored.
If you drive a new MAN on manufacturer’s contract hire, for instance, then MAN’s managing director can see how many mpg your truck does and whether or not the oil needs topping up. He checks up on how the various trucks are doing on his iPad while he has his breakfast.
The argument that a truck driver, working for a company and driving the company’s truck, is not being supervised by his employer really won’t hold water anymore.
I know loads of agency drivers who, on their return to the depot, have been summoned to the office for a ‘debrief’ because the traffic manager wants to know why they were stopped for five minutes on School Street at 8.43 that morning as revealed by the Isotrac.
If anything agency drivers seem to suffer more from this micromanagement than employed drivers do. It’s ludicrous to claim that they are unsupervised.
Unless you own your own truck, and find your own work, buy your own diesel etc, the chances are you are employed in the eyes of HMRC.