Drawbar Trailer Parking And Unloading.long

Hi people
After 15 years of artic driving I have been given a nice shiny new wagon and drag to play with!! The company I work for (marshall’s…The concrete kerb and whathave you company) like the idea that customers can have full loads ie 27tonne loads and the practabillity of a rigid delivery…Now I agree that servicing the customers need is of upmost concern but I am a little worried that health & safety and maybe the law are getting little left out in the rush to use our new tackle. The idea is that we go to a yard (say Jewson for example) that has limited access, leave our trailer in a layby and deliver the six wheeler truckload then return to the trailer and tranship the load back onto the six wheeler back into the yard tip it then collect the trailer and back home for another load…I don’t mind doing this on a building site where the trailer is “off road” but how am I fixed in law or even with the insureance company if anyone should get hurt when doing the above in a layby?? The transport manager** is having a meeting about this last? monday and is “getting back” to me. So where do I stand with maybe an unattended trailer and trans shipping a load (with hiab) in a layby. I dont want to wait till plod turns up to find out the answer :frowning:

I would say that if the lay by is where anyone can get within your working area, it is unsafe, but if you have enough space around you and can control what happens within your working area you would be ok…A building site can be just as hazardous as any other place to transship your load, as there can be a lot going on around you that you have no control over.
This is however only my personal opinion :open_mouth:

trev4106:
Hi people
After 15 years of artic driving I have been given a nice shiny new wagon and drag to play with!! The company I work for (marshall’s…The concrete kerb and whathave you company) like the idea that customers can have full loads ie 27tonne loads and the practabillity of a rigid delivery…Now I agree that servicing the customers need is of upmost concern but I am a little worried that health & safety and maybe the law are getting little left out in the rush to use our new tackle. The idea is that we go to a yard (say Jewson for example) that has limited access, leave our trailer in a layby and deliver the six wheeler truckload then return to the trailer and tranship the load back onto the six wheeler back into the yard tip it then collect the trailer and back home for another load…I don’t mind doing this on a building site where the trailer is “off road” but how am I fixed in law or even with the insureance company if anyone should get hurt when doing the above in a layby?? The transport manager** is having a meeting about this last? monday and is “getting back” to me. So where do I stand with maybe an unattended trailer and trans shipping a load (with hiab) in a layby. I dont want to wait till plod turns up to find out the answer :frowning:

Nothing changes,same old arguments even now.

Holy thread resurrection batman :open_mouth:

I wonder if his transport manager has got back to him yet? I doubt it :smiling_imp:

trev4106:
The idea is that we go to a yard (say Jewson for example) that has limited access, leave our trailer in a layby and deliver the six wheeler truckload then return to the trailer and tranship the load back onto the six wheeler back into the yard tip it then collect the trailer and back home for another load…I don’t mind doing this on a building site where the trailer is “off road” but how am I fixed in law or even with the insureance company if anyone should get hurt when doing the above in a layby?? The transport manager** is having a meeting about this last? monday and is “getting back” to me. So where do I stand with maybe an unattended trailer and trans shipping a load (with hiab) in a layby. I dont want to wait till plod turns up to find out the answer :frowning:

I used to drive a drag for Canute, more trouble than its worth !!!
If you can stay on an artic…do so.
You will find that you get sent to nothing but ‘rigid’ sites & a vast majority will be ‘drop trailer’ tips, put it this way…
You turn up at a site & cannot get it all in, have to leave the trailer somewhere (possibly miles away), then have to run the wagon in, tip, back to the trailer, tranship [ I turned up at a site in Sheffield once, couldnt get the trailer in so wanted to drop trailer across the road, tranship & take it all in at once, site agent was having none of it, told me I had to have a written risk assesment & a written method statement!!, the closest place I could have left the trailer was 2 or 3 miles away…[zb] to that!..he didnt get his blocks!]…It may be a novelty for a week but you will soon wish you hadnt touched a drag.
You get the usual " we’ve had bigger lorries than that in here"…my drag was 18 metres, they dont get much longer!, the front end was 11 metres but the rear axle was a lift so everything behind the 2nd axle was tailswing (makes it interesting trying to get in rigid sites…8 wheelers have far more traction too, 6 wheelers with a lift axle sit there spinning even with the diff lock in).
Pushing them backwards is fun too, very seldom you can get it in without at least one shunt no matter how good you are…talk about Caravan Club!!

If you need to change letters to get past the word censor, that is a clue it isn’t allowed :smiley: . Simon

Drags are longer than an artic, and bend in the most unpredictable ways. It sounds like a duff job to me.