I’ve worked for a Bulk Tipping company for the past 14 months - they are a fairly new company (three years old).
They are about to issue the drivers (they employ 7 full time and numerous part time/casuals) with new contracts setting out their terms and conditions of employment.
One T & C that has caught my eye states that "Where a driver has been negligent and caused damage to the company vehicles he will have the ‘insurance excess’ deducted from his wages on an ongoing basis until the amount has been paid back to the company.’
Now I now we are all professional drivers and accidents shouldn’t happen, but I live in the real world and when guiding 44 tonnes around ancient farms and non-lorry friendly mills day in and day out, the occassional dent/scrape may happen (not that it has happened yet) and the cost of repair to the various tractor unit panels can cost a small fortune so…
What I need to know is this legal? And (if it is) how common place is this type of agreement within our industry?
As the title says, please advise or give your opinion…
If it’s in the T&Cs of employment and you sign it, then yes it’s legal. Bottom line here is that you need to get all your drivers together and say we ain’t having none of it. The more drivers that do nothing and shrug their shoulders at this kind of thing, the more commonplace it will become across the industry. Time to make a stand, chap, or vote with your feet.
Never heard of that one mate. If thats what they want, don’t take lorry anywhere tight without them telling you your ok to do so!! Any damage is down to them then. Simples
Rob K:
If it’s in the T&Cs of employment and you sign it, then yes it’s legal. Bottom line here is that you need to get all your drivers together and say we ain’t having none of it. The more drivers that do nothing and shrug their shoulders at this kind of thing, the more commonplace it will become across the industry. Time to make a stand, chap, or vote with your feet.
i suppose if you owned the trucks that are getting damaged you d be quite happy to pay for the damage with your exess ?
Don’t sign it mate most commercial policies have an excess between £1000 and £2000 way out of your average drivers league!
A mate of mine works for Pollock Scotrans and they operate the same system, some drivers have signed but most have not (all new drivers are made to sign) as you can imagine if something is bumped in the yard Mr Nobody has done it.I would’nt work for a Company that expected an employee to subsidise it.
Rob K:
If it’s in the T&Cs of employment and you sign it, then yes it’s legal. Bottom line here is that you need to get all your drivers together and say we ain’t having none of it. The more drivers that do nothing and shrug their shoulders at this kind of thing, the more commonplace it will become across the industry. Time to make a stand, chap, or vote with your feet.
i suppose if you owned the trucks that are getting damaged you d be quite happy to pay for the damage with your exess ?
lolwut?! Random post is random. Or is it another case of people reading things that aren’t there…
I worked for a firm where we were asked to agree to this, we all refused to, and we never heard of it again.
As I said to my boss, "When you ■■■■ up and send me to the wrong address, or give me the wrong reference number, or give me the wrong PIN number for the fuel card (insert other boss-type muppetry here), does anyone stop that from your wages?
The now demised SMS Transport deducted £1500 from a drivers wages because he overshot the pin and hit a fridge with the back of his cab. Do you want that?
Regardless of the contract I thought it was illegal to deduct anything from wages except tax & national insurance.
Any deduction should be made after the wage has been paid ie - the driver voluntarily pays from his net wage when mutual agreements have been made.
Saying that, I would not work for any company that asked for that in the first place. I have never knowingly hit or damaged anything in the last 10 years but on principal I would say no!
They do this for any new drivers at our place who have had their licence for less than two years, personally there would no chance of me signing this kind of contract and I would imagine many others at ours are the same.
It’s getting more and more common, I know a few firms that do it, and I won’t work for them on the basis that I go to work to earn money, if I have an accident, I’ll feel bad, I’ll fill in the forms, I’ll deal with whatever I’ve hit, but that should be the end of my responsibility.
sammy dog:
Rob K:
If it’s in the T&Cs of employment and you sign it, then yes it’s legal. Bottom line here is that you need to get all your drivers together and say we ain’t having none of it. The more drivers that do nothing and shrug their shoulders at this kind of thing, the more commonplace it will become across the industry. Time to make a stand, chap, or vote with your feet.
i suppose if you owned the trucks that are getting damaged you d be quite happy to pay for the damage with your exess ?
Erm, when I share the profits, I’ll share the risks. If a driver is regularly causing damage, they’re usually shown the door, I don’t know any driver that would deliberately cause damage (I don’t know the stobby arsonist) as most go there to do a days work and get paid.
We pay enough out to do this job, do we really need more?
As someone else says, how often have you gone driving round looking for somewhere because of wrong addresses, wrong company names, wrong reference numbers etc etc etc, fuel is bloody expensive and trucks use it fast, so I bet they cost more money than in accidents tbh
For what it’s worth, I am with alot of other posters on this one. As long as you don’t sign the agreement that states you are responsible for the excess in the event of an own fault accident then you will be ok.
However if you are required by the company to sign the agreement with their T/C’s then like some have stated it may be a case of looking for a new job.
Accidents happen and that is why we have insurance in the first place.
Do they have alot of accidents?
A heavy haulage company that I used to work for as a transport manager, did have alot of accidents, but unless it was utter stupidity of the driver then the company took the hit (no pun intended). It was viewed as an occupational hazard sometimes. We did run 2nd men and pilot cars with the largest loads, but unfortunately sometimes you cannot take into account every eventuality.
Bottom line is I would doubt if it would stand up to legal scrutiny, but on the other hand you don’t want to run the risk in the first place if you sign on the dotted line.
There are two basic scenarios that happen when damage is caused to a vehicle, something hits you, or you hit something.
If something hits you or causes you to hit it, then that would be covered by the insurance and the excess would be claimed from the third party, so no deduction from the driver’s wages.
If you hit something and it’s your fault, the company has to pay the excess, in my mind, the driver should pay, there are no excuses for hitting things, especially stationary objects like posts and things, sure lorries have blind spots, but in my 25yrs of driving lorries I’ve never been teleported next to a post, it was there when I drove in, so I should notice it and remember it’s there when I start manouvering, if I can’t see it, then I should get out and look, the same applies to other vehicles, they’re not in your blind spot all the time, so you shoul see them as they enter the blind spot, if you don’t see them leave the blind spot, they’re still there
If you think it’s acceptable to smash company vehicles up, like in the case of jumping the pin that Harry mentioned, well, you shouldn’t be driving lorries for a living
dri-diddly-iver:
Regardless of the contract I thought it was illegal to deduct anything from wages except tax & national insurance.
It’s illegal to deduct anything from a wage, apart from the normal tax and NI, unless prior consent has been given and by signing the contract they would be giving consent. Think of company pension schemes where the money is deducted from the wages, if it was illegal that would not be possible.
At the beginning of July we switched from weekly to monthly pay and to cover the period between the last weekly wage and the first monthly one they advanced us 3 weeks wages, based on an average of your weekly take home. We had to sign agreeing to them deducting one third of that advance from our monthly pay in August, September and October. Us signing the form makes it legal for them to deduct it, don’t sign the form, as one of our drivers did, and no advance was given as they wouldn’t be legally able to get it back through the wages.
Express Pete:
I’ve worked for a Bulk Tipping company for the past 14 months - they are a fairly new company (three years old).
They are about to issue the drivers (they employ 7 full time and numerous part time/casuals) with new contracts setting out their terms and conditions of employment.
One T & C that has caught my eye states that "Where a driver has been negligent and caused damage to the company vehicles he will have the ‘insurance excess’ deducted from his wages on an ongoing basis until the amount has been paid back to the company.’
Now I now we are all professional drivers and accidents shouldn’t happen, but I live in the real world and when guiding 44 tonnes around ancient farms and non-lorry friendly mills day in and day out, the occassional dent/scrape may happen (not that it has happened yet) and the cost of repair to the various tractor unit panels can cost a small fortune so…
What I need to know is this legal? And (if it is) how common place is this type of agreement within our industry?
As the title says, please advise or give your opinion…
had it in contract at nightfreight,i thought it was a good idea,it made you a lot more carefull whilst out driving,never paid it as didnt have accident,and boss was good about it,hed let you pay it back at a tenner a week,didnt want it all in one go
Express Pete:
I’ve worked for a Bulk Tipping company for the past 14 months - they are a fairly new company (three years old).
They are about to issue the drivers (they employ 7 full time and numerous part time/casuals) with new contracts setting out their terms and conditions of employment.
Hello mate - this implies that you already have a contract and they want to make you sign a new one. If this is correct the contract you already have is legally binding and they cannot make you do this. They can offer to buy your old contract from you and the price is negotiable and its up to you not them.
If you were employed without a contract being signed; you are under no obligation to sign one now as that was the conditions that they employed you on even though you have none. It was a casual contract.
Personally I would hold my nerve and tell them to “go do one” as there is nothing that they can do about it.
My firm have tried to implement this I have the contract in my lorry it’s been here unsigned for months.
My firm has got new management and has gone from a good firm that you had to be recommended to get on to a meat in the seat operation and there’s only five of us left on the old pay scheme where you can earn good money and they are trying to squeeze us out.
But they are reaping what they sow as they have had 38 blameworthy claims so far this year plus numerous small claims that have been settleed privately and the lorrys nearly all have dents and scrapes on them. So I can see why a firm would want to do it.
I know accidents happen and we all make mistakes but we had one driver who had three in a week that takes the ■■■■
Or is it another case of people reading things that aren’t there… 
