So around a week ago I had a stone go through my headlight. It left what looked a bullet hole. Naturally I reported this to the transport manager. All the lights still work but over time the lens has cracked further to the point where the glass will full out leaving the bulbs exposed.
I raised this with the TM again only to be given a corse amount of abuse saying the truck is fine to drive. This is against my better judgement as I’m sure it’s illegal & should be repaired on first logging it as damaged?
I’ve tried to google it but it only mentions that if I’m pulled by the police I am given 14 days to repair it? However that was for a car & wondered if it was different for an truck.
Any advice on if I should carry on driving it or not is welcomed.
My boss for the better word a bully & likes to show you up if you don’t have all the facts.
You are correct. The headlamp should be replaced before further use.
Now welcome to the “real world”. If it is a smaller operator, personally I would do my best to keep the job moving. So I would use the truck in daylight hours but would be looking for the light to be sorted certainly within a couple of days. It’s not a huge job.
However, you describe the boss as a bully. There is no way would anyone bully me into using the truck whereas asking nicely might produce a more pleasant response.
It’s this weekend we put the clocks back an hour. So I just wanted a good working set of lights for the dark evenings but he can’t see my point. Blasted boss - twit
Wow what a boss , now lets think, shall we replace that headlight glass soon as and keep the rest of the headlamp intact, or shall we tell our driver to carry on with it so the whole light unit fills up with crap and is scrap, maybe with any luck vosa spot him and slap a prohibition on it.
My present lorry picked up a bullet hole first week out, didn’t affect the light pattern cos the glass is clear, i glued the hole up so it was waterproof and they replaced the glass at the first inspection.
Anything wrong like this you don’t tell the boss verbally you write a defect out and hand it in, keeping a copy if able, if not note of the defect number and defect on your daily check sheet every day until its fixed, when the crap hits the fan you’re in the clear.
We sent a fitter out to a unit one night last week who’d picked up a hole in one lens on the road and didn’t want to carry on as it was raining (and after dark). If we couldn’t have picked up a lens from MB on route could have ended up with a wrecker recovery, which would have cost some pennies.
The lens is just that a lens .
But once broken it’s not doing it’s job correctly and should be replaced as soon as.
Report it defect it and keep notes.
Given it’s normally just half a dozen screws it should only take a max 30min to change the unit .
, now lets think, shall we replace that headlight glass soon as and keep the rest of the headlamp intact, or shall we tell our driver to carry on with it so the whole light unit fills up with crap and is scrap, maybe with any luck vosa spot him and slap a prohibition on it.