Beverley Bell has suspended the vocational licence of Gary Smith for 11 days. There are 2 more cases being passed to her Scottish counterpart.
The crime■■?
Using a mobile phone at the wheel Now don’t get me wrong, I ride a bike, one of my worst nightmares is some innatentive car driver talking to his passenger as he answers a call
However, the car driver will get a £30 fine, a slap on the wrist and can go on and knock someone off a motorcycle
The Truck driver who was using the phone is out of a job for 11 days as well.
The above case is reported in the Commercial Motor, it also mentions that the drivers work for William Armstrong (Longtown) Havent they got enough problems by buying W Martin Oliver?
Why should 2 brothers who go to a wedding be treated so differently?
One drinks 6 pints of beer and gets pulled on the way home, the other drinks 3 double whiskies and gets pulled on his way home too.
The beer drinker who works in an office is banned for 12 months and fined 200 quid. His truck driver brother got banned for 12 months with the same fine, then gets a further 6 month ban from the ministry, which will cost him his job anyway.
Hard not to sound holier than thou, and it is right what you say about it not being a level playing field, and i ocasionaly take the phone out of its cradle when the hands free seems to be playing up, but you could say that because it is not only your means of getting from A to B, but your livelyhood at stake aswell that you should be more careful.
The hands free in my unit is a waste of space and the person im talking to cant hear me but i dont take the phone out of its cradle when in towns or roads where you need both hands I just tell them I will call them back when ive pulled over, but i must admit i do on motorways and i dont really see an argument from the police point of view as their equipment if im not mistaken has to have user involvment, ie. telephone has to be held or radio pressel switch has to be pressed, or maybe its back to that same old adage "one rule for them and one for us.
i’ve recently seen two near misses with drivers on their mobiles the last one was an artic driver going up the hill towards j30 on the m1, mobile crane moving slowly, inside lane lights flashing, me and quite a few others spotted him early and moved into the middle lane, matey follows another artic right up to the crane, first wagon gets flashed out, leaving matey, who’d obviousley not seen the crane, doing 50+ going straight into the crane which was doing maybe 20, he jumps on the brakes and swerves up the hard shoulder, missing the crane, i honestly don’t know how he’s not run straight into it! that could just as easly been a woman and kids in a car he was running into the back of! if your going to drive an hgv even an 18toner you’ve got to except a bit more responsibilty than if your nipping to the local shops in your car. after all the equipment is out there, i use a proper hands free that cost me about fifty quid, one with it’s own loud speaker and microphone that mount in the cab and it works fine, plenty loud enough.
as for the greater penalties, you accept that when you get behind the wheel!
A Bluetooth will set you back £30 + its a far better investment than penalty points and a fine, if you get a good enough phone all you have to do is press the button on the headset and say the name of who you want to call therefore you done even have to touch the phone at all.
However what I meant was that the TC seem to have far greater powers than any other judiciary.
Speeding in a car carries points and fines, in a truck it carries an additional ban.
Overloading a builders van costs a fine. a truck driver will lose his licence for the same offence.
Drivers hours offences will be tried in a magistrates court, then you will be hauled in front of the TC for an additional punishment.
If you have a vocational licence, then you should be tried by a court with specialist knowledge, not a semi retired farmer or librarian, especially when it comes to losing your livelyhood.
At the risk of needing a ‘tin hat’ and a very deep fallout shelter;
Wheel Nut said:
Speeding in a car carries points and fines, in a truck it carries an additional ban
No; it doesn’t always follow that a truck driver will get an automatic ban after a speeding conviction. However, as the holder of a Group 2 vocational licence you are required to inform the TC of any convictions. Repeated convictions for the same thing will, more than likely, result in a Driver Conduct Hearing, which may result in a warning, a suspension of vocational licence or in the worst cases vocational licence revocation.
Wheel Nut also said;
Overloading a builders van costs a fine. a truck driver will lose his licence for the same offence.
Again, not always the case. Dependant upon the percentage and actual overload figure the ‘first time’ offender may not even go to Court, instead a ‘warning letter’ will be issued. Repeated offences ‘start the ball rolling.’
Wheel Nut said;
Drivers hours offences will be tried in a magistrates court, then you will be hauled in front of the TC for an additional punishment.
As per the above; not always the case. You have to inform Traffic Area Office of any convictions relating to Drivers Hours and record keeping, but you will not necessarily always attend a driver conduct hearing.
Wheel Nut said;
If you have a vocational licence, then you should be tried by a court with specialist knowledge, not a semi retired farmer or librarian, especially when it comes to losing your livelyhood.
I assume that this one is aimed at the Magistrates and not the TC’s. Whilst it is true that some Magistrates do not have specialist knowledge on the HGV industry, the TC’s certainly do have the knoweledge, otherwise they wouldn’t be TC’s. Many ‘offences’ do not carry points or licence suspension or revocation. However, legislation allows anybodys licence (car drivers and bikers included) to be suspended for such things as failing to pay maintenance or fines.
When we apply for our Vocational Licences the form make it quite clear that we are required to have ‘good repute’ if we gain a string of convictions, how can we say we have good repute? The hours and overloading regulations are there to help ensure a ‘level playing field,’ in other words; that a driver or an employer doesn’t gain an advantage over his/her/their competitors by forcing fatigued drivers to work or by exceeding the safe working limit of a vehicle. Although the system appears extreme in some cases, do we really wish to return to the carnage that was the industry in the 50’s and 60’s.
Now where did I put that key for the fallout shelter door?
im totally with wheelnut on this that beverly bell the power seems to have gone straight to head she is always in the magazines its as if she likes reading her name in print.
While I have been guilty of using a mobile while driving in the distant past, I allus use the hands-free kit now and it really me off to see other drivers using their hand helds because I can guarantee 99 times out of 100 they will be driving erratically at a non-constant speed and often weaving around too. They are allus oblivious to what’s going on around them when they’re on them as well.
I personally welcome the fixed penalties that the plod enforce, it’s just a pity that the plod don’t seem to be around to do any enforcing.
I had a XF come flying past me through the road works on the M6 at Staffs recently and then pulled in front of me and slowed down to less than my speed. Ultra annoyed at this I pulled out and started coming past him as he was doing well less that 40mph with nothing in front of him. We got to one of those areas where the florescent studs move you over into another lane and on this occasion it was to the nearside.
I could see that the driver of the XF was holding his phone to his ear and didn’t bother following the path of the studs and carried on going straight on. I couldn’t move over because there was traffic in lane 3 and had to resort to blasting the horn for a good few seconds to get the driver’s attention. Thankfully he realised and swerved across before my nearside mirror collided with the side of his box. If he hadn’t been on the phone then he would have been concentrating better on what was happening on the road.
i must admit that i have used the phone whilst driving and think i am in complete control…there is no doubt that they do distract you from your concentration…some drivers however cannot handle the phone and drive at the same time. you notice this when they are veering towards you on the same side of the road. I have been looking at the blue tooth system but it means changing my phone to a more expensive one…about £100…at present i have the normal ear piece thingy that still needs to be placed in the ear whilst driving, so nothing lost and nothing gained.
i use a bluetooth and they are excellent you dont know they are there and are crystal clear.
as it happens my phone is broken so ive borrowed a cheap nokia of my mum and the first thing i did was go on ebay and buy a wire earpeice i got it all delivered for £2.50 and it came 2 days after i bought it.
the problem is you never see the police about to inforce the mobile phone ban.
One Crime = 1 Punishment
This should not go from courts then on to T/C
It should either be the courts or the T/C that decide on the offence and punishment not one then the other.
bazman:
Got to agree with “Wheel nut” on this one.
One Crime = 1 Punishment
This should not go from courts then on to T/C
It should either be the courts or the T/C that decide on the offence and punishment not one then the other.
Steady on Barrie
Its just a pet hate of mine about TC and Customs power.
it does seem that the tc’s don’t work to any sort of guidlines when handing out punishments for offences more how they’re feeling on the day and giving a woman power of any sort is a recipe for disaster, anyone remember margaret thatcher?
bazman:
Got to agree with “Wheel nut” on this one.
One Crime = 1 Punishment
This should not go from courts then on to T/C
It should either be the courts or the T/C that decide on the offence and punishment not one then the other.
Steady on Barrie
Its just a pet hate of mine about TC and Customs power.
They annoy me as well,
Drivers get the worst of everything they can throw at us.
As usual
Now don’t get me wrong, I ride a bike, one of my worst nightmares is some innatentive car driver talking to his passenger as he answers a call 
me off to see other drivers using their hand helds because I can guarantee 99 times out of 100 they will be driving erratically at a non-constant speed and often weaving around too. They are allus oblivious to what’s going on around them when they’re on them as well.
