A Day in the life....... (picture heavy)

…of a multidrop driver.

Having seen people do their own daily/Long distance diarys i thought i’d do one of my own. Maybe not as exciting but still.

Headed off to work with this cracking sunrise

This is my regular steed, 16 year vintage with too many miles to count. All ally body so sadly wont rust away. Mercedes running gear so pretty reliable. Only problem now is finding parts, Merc don’t stock them so most have to be sourced 2nd hand.

All mod cons, heater, steering wheel…err, thats about it.

Fluid checks, most of the oil is on the floor as per normal

Quick glance at the counter reveals todays drops

Looking pretty full

Final few packages on and its time to mount the camera and head out.

A normal 30 min trip to Bicester now takes in excess of an hour due to the traffic at Oxford. Cant wait till the new bridge is open.

9am First drop, lovely girls here sadly no pics

I get a roughly 50/50 split of commercial and residential deliveries, the latter taking 3 times as long to do. Typical new build estates, no parking anywhere!

Needless obstructions

Company responsible for providing the data for all traffic controls, cameras, speed humps etc.

Had to snigger at this scaffolders slogan.

Love this place, reminds me of my RV trip across the US 2 years ago

Came out to find Mr Lowes had abandoned his truck whilst he went in search of his drop.

10:30 am and 32 drops down

Few old wrecks at Bicester Commercials

Found this outside OCB Recovery, no engine in it. Some nice recovery gear here but unfortunately all out.

Someones new pride and joy at the local paint shop.

Bicesters most radioactive building

Quick trip out to some rural farm units gets me stuck behind this for 4 miles

Time for a visit to RAF Bicester, or whats left of it. The main hanger is now home to the local Gliding club

The big warehouses on the edge of town is where you normally find some nice motors, today is no exception

Then this beauty was coming off the bay at Fresh direct

Normally straight in here but not today, Mr courier didn’t have a collection reference so they made him sit there till his boss got one. Its ok, i’m not in a hurry

Only thing of interest was their tug

Next drop find our bulk vehicle dropping off a pallet.

While i have these, every single one is empty. No one knows why they ship them from the US

They go straight in here

12:30 and 65 drops done

Straight after lunch i tackle the town center, major redevelopment going on so its complete carnage

Bit of a walk for this one

Above the newsagents is a salon who have 20+ boxes reguarly. And they aint light.

Numpty number 1, “oh there’s a truck in the way so i’ll drive round it” no luv, i’m stopped at traffic lights

Numpty number 2, 4 attempts it too the red Rover to get out of the space

Surprisingly quiet at the back of the high street apart from this Argos truck

See the next drop?

Nope, down this tight alley

3pm, 85 drops done & almost time to start collections

First collection of many and for once and empty van

Down to the printers for a couple of dozen boxes, a copy of Trucking and as much free ■■■■ as you want

Van starts to fill up again rather fast now

Finally back to the depot for about 1800

Todays figures: 101 deliveries, 19 collections. 327 packages in total.

Apologies for the amount of pics, couldn’t make attachments for all of them.

i honestly dont know how you do it , 101 drops plus collections ■■? you’re a better man than me i’ll tell you that , it would drive me mad …

Enjoyed this hope you get a good wage for that, did parcels for 2wks no not ever again would have killed somebody if i had to do that all the time …i seemed to become invisible when ever i got out of truck gggrrrrrrr… lol…
did distance multi drop for 2.5 yrs when i came to canada only about 10 -14 out and usually 5-6 on way in still about 8-10 th miles a month…
my BIL has worked for ups since he came out of the army runs out o nuneaton area. jimmy

i wish my van was that organized when i did multi drop, but doing 100+ deliveries a day in a transit is like a game of hide and seek in the back.

Think you might have posted in wrong forum us old timers can`t get up & down the stairs

hi nickyboy, i take my hat off to you, i cant imagine doing 100 drops, and then collections ,i used to work for ups doing bulk deliveries,max ten drops,used to be empty by about 10.30 most days , then into bed until 2.30 then start collections, finish 4.30. when ups started useing those hand held computer things it was time for me to give up driving for good lol . anyway i bet your as fit as a butchers dog with all that whooshing about lol
cheers diesel

Good post and a good read Nickyboy and credit to you getting that lot done.Another instalment would be nice.

Good post, full of admiration for what you do, I couldn’t do it, most I ever did was about 40, and I hated that with a passion.

iI’m also rather taken aback by the age of the van, I thought a big company like UPS would replace them every few years!

A realy good post, I didnt realise just how much work you guys do in a day…

• • • • • • and I used to think I was a hero doing 40 deliveries and about 15 collections around Portsmouth a few years back, hope you get paid well for that.

Fair play to you “nickyboy” its horses for courses and you are defo a top man at your trade for sure! One thing about the Americans they get their pound of flesh out of their vehicles! 16 years old and still on the front line,not bad,and says a lot about Merc quality.Anyway well done mate! very interesting.Bewick.

like the way its set out in the back,just pick your parcel out,igot my own van transit size tryin to get on that type of work but only done it a couple of times.been on the wagons 23 years need a change for a bit !!!

Good one nickyboy, good read and always a bonus with a shed load of pics. Cheers.

hi,
really enjoyed that.a very good post .at last i know that those “robocop” ups vans have merc running gear ,i have wondered for years exactly what they were .
regards andrew

Good diary, thanks for posting.

My considered assessment of you’re job is - ■■■■ THAT!

Thanks for posting that - refreshing change. Frightening amount of drops/pickups though

Thanks for the comments, quite why its ended up in this forum though i don’t know as i never normally go in here. My bad.

Its bloody hard work, and you do get messed around a hell of a lot. I’ve got to the point where i’m not bothered any more, i’m single so working long hours suits me fine. I can imagine its harder for the chaps with families etc and it tends to be them so say ■■■■ it and walk out when things get silly. We have a lot of drivers defect to TNT just for an easier life, when you see things like this taken around 10am and he’s got an almost empty van you can understand why.

On the subject of the vans, they do run them into the ground to get their moneys worth out of them. They cost in the region of £50k when new and every one is bought outright and never sold on. The bodies are all aluminium so don’t rust and are resprayed every few years, they are also washed each and every night by a team of washers. UPS is very protective of its image, if any vehicle is sold at the end of its life i.e tractors, Sprinters etc then they are sprayed white as any incident involving a brown vehicle could be linked back to UPS even though its not owned by them any more. The shade of brown paint used is also protected by special rights etc. These old vehicles are slowly being phased out more due to emissions and the availability of parts, the whole London fleet had to be replaced to meet the LEZ regulations. Personally i prefer mine, its not limited so can do 65 with a tailwind and believe it or not its easier to drive. I’m just glad i’m not in the US where they still have 30 year old vehicles on the front line, the old line “if it aint broke, dont fix it” springs to mind.

This was a fairly typical day, this week was a lot quieter with an average of 88 deliveries a day so was back nice and early for a change. Busiest day over Christmas was 114 deliveries and that was after giving more than 20 to the other Bicester driver.

Sadly it doesnt get much more exciting than that but i keep my camera with just in case. I’ll keep you posted with any “interesting days”

Well done Nick, its a thankless job.
Ive done multi drop work & not long finished a stint at DHL.
My aera was Stoke & its just not a job I could do full time.
Still had the pokey holes & back streets to contend with, not to mention housing estates & town centers.
DHL thought it would be great fun to do it with a 45 footer every day…It wasnt!

Horrible job usually working with horrible people.
Im hoping to get back on the distance work next week if all goes well at my interview on Monday, multi drop aint for me.

Brilliant picture diary, brought back memories. Thanks

What is it and how does the drop counter work?

The van seems difficult at the collection, when they bring you a pallet and you have to carry everything up the steps.

Do you load your own vehicle or is it loaded overnight. We had to sort our delivery documents out on the previous evening but the night loaders loaded the vans which were normally 12 tonne Bedfords or Leyland Freighters.

Wheel Nut:
Brilliant picture diary, brought back memories. Thanks

What is it and how does the drop counter work?

The van seems difficult at the collection, when they bring you a pallet and you have to carry everything up the steps.

Do you load your own vehicle or is it loaded overnight. We had to sort our delivery documents out on the previous evening but the night loaders loaded the vans which were normally 12 tonne Bedfords or Leyland Freighters.

Sorry old bean, didn’t realise you had posted this.

Everything is loaded by hand, we don’t deal with pallets. Its only one step into the van at the rear, nothing like the climb up in to the back of a conventional 7.5 tonner plus the guys normally chuck them in to me. Most stuff goes in the front door, its only bulk collections like that which go in the back.

Everything is loaded early morning, the loaders start at 3am just as the first of our trunkers arrive, we normally have 5-7 thousand packages a day and ours is one of the smaller depots. Everything is loaded in drop order based on a load chart that is devised by the driver and load team. The loader scans the chart for the road name and places it on the correct shelf, places like industrial estates all with one road name are loaded in company order so the loader finds the road name then the company name and bangs it in the correct place. Typically a loader will have 3 vans to load so its pretty fast paced.

We have no delivery paperwork, everything is electronic. When trained on the job you have to learn to constantly know where everything is in your van and what your next 5-6 drops are. A seasoned professional can tell from a 5 min check where pretty much every pkg is going or at least the area to within a few streets.