My first day on the job, I documented on here actually was a complete nightmare. Sent to McDowells in Keighley for a 4am start, noone on site. Didn’t know how to strap a load, left yard without fuel card, I swiped the side of the box pulling out of the yard… all silly mistakes on my part but all made panicking like hell cos it was my first day and was just left alone in a dark yard.
Turns out my agency had told them I had 2 yrs experience so obviously McDowells just assumed I didn’t need any guidance. Everyone gotta start somehwere
Agency drivers generally fall into highly employable (but don’t want full time jobs) or completely unemployable. Some agencies rely on the latter but there are a few who are conscious of the consequences and therefore try to recruit the former. Unfortunately for the haulier, you dont know which category you are getting until someone turns up. If they turn up!
scanny77:
Agency drivers generally fall into highly employable (but don’t want full time jobs) or completely unemployable. Some agencies rely on the latter but there are a few who are conscious of the consequences and therefore try to recruit the former. Unfortunately for the haulier, you dont know which category you are getting until someone turns up. If they turn up!
The more experienced agency drivers will have settled into their summer routines before Easter, a new/ ■■■■ client will get whatever is left, unless they’re paying something that would entice those established drivers to give up a day or week to give them a try. £8/9/10 an hour won’t cut it, you’ll get what you deserve, unless incredibly lucky.
I was Driver 5 - bloody new fangled device’s - managed to jam in my Tescos club card in the end…it seemed to do the trick and hopefully I will have got some points to spend I need a new carrier bag anyway - same time next week?
I was Driver 1 in my first day alone on the buses.
Trained in a Volvo that would start in D.
Had a mentor with me for a couple of weeks on Enviro 400 diesels that would start in D.
First day on my own, Enviro 400 hybrid, won’t start in D. Fitter called me a ■■■■■■■■■ pressed N, and started it for me
the maoster:
I love 'em, every one through the gates just increase my bargaining power come the pay talks.
Yep.
I’ve seen this happening several times over the years at various places i’ve worked, just because they have a core of competent drivers gaffers get carried away with the idea there’s hundreds of A1 top class drivers out there just itching to come and work for them.
After a bit of ‘new blood’ recruitment and the £000’s worth of mayhem that usually follows, brings them back down to earth for a time.
Attn Mike68 please stop for a minute with the latest tales of half wits at your place, i dunno whether to carry on ■■■■■■■ mesen with laughter or bloody cry
What we it be like without the driving assessment and lengthy induction like the OP X20
In defence of the agency men there is a lot to know and learn as previously mentioned things can go very wrong very quickly with often tragic consequences the vast majority of the ones i know are competent and reliable with the odd exception, without question the the idle clowns are company men.
What i find hard to understand is why hauliers both large and small would allow someone they don’t know from Adam to take onto the public highway a vehicle worth as much as a house with a cargo of potential similar without any sort of training or induction.
Would you keep a yard full of Italian supercars and give the keys out to someone with bad teeth and a filthy high viz coat would you ****
I have come across " oldtimers " with really bad attitudes.
At ours we have some extra-long semi trailers that you have to pull forward until straight then flick a switch down near the parking brake before you can reverse it without the rear axle crabbing. Different makes of ELTs don`t necessarily have this switch in this location.
I noticed a new driver struggling with it one day and said to another oldtimer bod I`d go and help him only to be told " ■■■■ him … let him work it out himself ".
Childish attitude that could lead to a preventable accident so I went and helped him.
The most experienced drivers on here do not have knowledge of every type of vehicle / trailer / deck raising / tail lift / Moffat / Hiab / load restraint system / fridge control knowledge … I know I dont and Ive been driving trucks about 20 years.
In my experience of agencies and companies that use them is they all tell lies .
The agencies lie to both the customer and driver , to get the work and to get it covered .
The companies lie to get the work covered and what is expected of the driver .
As a driver you often get a feel for the company within a couple of minutes of arrival . If you are welcomed and asked if you have driven the type or model of vehicle before or similar loads then all tends to go smoothly.
If you are greeted with a grunt and a scowl and have a set of keys flung at you it doesn’t bode well .
I was lucky that I worked for far more good firms than bad firms , some of the worst companies are usually on the watch list with DVSA and always end up with the agencies from the lower end of the market .
As others have said expecting any new driver to know everything about the vehicles , the loads , the routes or company methods is absolutely ridiculous.
Many of the worst companies end up with the worst drivers because the good drivers won’t work for them .
The best thing about agency work if you are any good is being able to cherry pick your work and the agencies you work for .
The biggest regret I had with agency work was letting slip that I had London experience, I knew my way about but hated the place and soon refused to do multiple drops in the city .
If the OPs company keeps its attitude it will end up getting black listed by the decent agencies and the spiral to the bottom will continue.
Treat drivers like cr@p and you get cr@p drivers .
I well remember my first agency job - 20+ years since I had actually driven for a living, and that was in a four-wheeler; 10 years since I got my class one and never used it in anger.
I turned up at the Worcester depot at 6pm; hung around in the canteen for an hour and a half (I thought they had forgotten me) and then the TM came in and told me I had a load for Runcorn. As we walked to the office he asked was I familiar with ERFs; I wasn’t, so I got a 15 minute lesson on twin splitters. Then I set off in the dark and pouring rain to drive to a place I had never been before in a truck I had never driven before. How I got back unscathed is a bit of a mystery to me.
A few weeks later I was sent to Salvesson who had some nice new Actrosses. They used to allocate a tractor unit and then you waited for a loaded trailer, and I was really lucky to find the cassette tape which told me how to work the gearbox. They also had some ancient ERFs so I was a blue-eyed boy because I knew how to drive them. They had full-time drivers there who would rather be sent home with no pay than drive one.
Then I got sent to a local haulier at silly-o’clock in the morning. I wandered around for half-an-hour before I found a side door and the TM’s office, where I was moaned at for being 15 minutes late, had a bunch of keys tossed at me and told the paperwork was in the cab. A bad start and it did not get better; I should really have defected the truck with some dodgy tyres and a cracked screen, but I was green and eager to please then. The drops; all around North London were a bit of a mare and when I got back with an empty truck, all I got was “Where the ■■■■ have you been.”
I went to a firm that made wheelie bins; way out in the country, for a day’s work, which turned out to be a three day run to the Scottish Highlands and another that kept me hanging around for four hours before sending me home (yes I got my 8 hours).
The two things I learned to do before even starting the engine and doing checks, were to sus out the radio and find out how the gearbox worked. I have to say though, that the vast majority of full-timers that I asked for help, were happy to give it; whether to show how to set a fridge, or the best way into some delivery point, or how best to strap a load down. I did agency work for ten years and the dodgy jobs were few and far between.
As to the OP - I too think his boss was totally unrealistic. Don’t new staff get some kind of induction; there’s the fire assembly point etc? Wouldn’t it be good sense to make sure the new guy knew how to drive that particular truck and check that loads were secure before they left the yard? Maybe I am nieve but I would have thought a good employer has a responsibility to make all this stuff clear.
A modern lorry is an expensive and complex piece of kit. Why not make sure that the new guy knows what he is doing before “throwing him the keys” and hoping for the best. Lots of firms wont employ a new pass but an agency might. We were all new passes once.
alamcculloch:
A modern lorry is an expensive and complex piece of kit. Why not make sure that the new guy knows what he is doing before “throwing him the keys” and hoping for the best. Lots of firms wont employ a new pass but an agency might. We were all new passes once.
There are posts come up in the newbies forum fairly regularly where the op has been told by the agency not to say they are a new/inexperienced driver.
My first day out on my own was on a Saturday and there was no one else on site other than the security personnel. It started off with not being able to find the keys, they were under the bonnet I discovered. It was a Volvo L10 and I had only driven an Iveco when I did the driving assessment.
The journey from East Anglia to Surrey went smoothly until I left the M25 then one or two hiccups occurred.
This being in the days before sat-nav and I was trying to map read and remember the directions. I took a wrong turning but fortunately I found a roundabout, albeit a mini and managed to get back on course then followed a signpost that had been turned round and was confronted by a 9’ something bridge. I managed to turn round on an industrial estate and reached my destination in one piece.
The homeward journey was incident free I’m glad to say.
At this time I had held my C+E for seventeen years but had had no experience of driving them.
How is not uncoupling the lines before dropping a trailer,or not securing a load,or making sure that the thing is in neutral before trying to start it at least,an issue of ‘experience’.That sounds at worse more like a dodgy driving licence and DCPC,or just had a bad day and forgot in the case of not uncoupling the lines.
As for using digi tachos and weird modern automated transmissions I wouldn’t have a clue until I’d found out first how to use them.In which case I’d guess a new driver with only weeks of ‘experience’ could possibly know more than me in that regard.
As for the experience only bs.If every firm says the same thing how will you get the experienced drivers.Let me guess taking on and providing experience for inexperienced drivers is always the responsibility of another less important firm. In addition to the correct point made previously that there are too many variables within the industry,regarding types of operation,for anyone generally to realistically have experience of doing every possible type of job.
I’ve been to jobs where the truck has more cameras than Sky have at a football match and tells everybody in a 500 yard radius when you’re turning left yet when you went in they never even asked your name never mind looked at your licence or showed you what pallet or bundle of stuff you’ve never seen before corresponds with the pile of paperwork they shoved into your hand along with the keys. Even the people described in the OP could walk into fulltime jobs in these places but even they have enough sense not to.
scanny77:
Agency drivers generally fall into highly employable (but don’t want full time jobs) or completely unemployable. Some agencies rely on the latter but there are a few who are conscious of the consequences and therefore try to recruit the former. Unfortunately for the haulier, you dont know which category you are getting until someone turns up. If they turn up!
The more experienced agency drivers will have settled into their summer routines before Easter, a new/ [zb] client will get whatever is left, unless they’re paying something that would entice those established drivers to give up a day or week to give them a try. £8/9/10 an hour won’t cut it, you’ll get what you deserve, unless incredibly lucky.
I have known one client for 12 years. I have been on the same contract now since it changed over 2 years ago and now I am their shunter at weekends. I was on the contract for 3 years at a site that I have worked for 12 years on and off. At both places I am treated as one of their own but it takes time and effort to gain that respect. Agency drivers work from the reputation that they build for themselves
good_friend:
Anyone who gets into a new Renault, who hasn’t driven one before, can be stumped without being shown how to put it in gear.
Also the handbrake can be a surprise the first time you see it. It’s a plastic flap with a red light on it!
Absolutely!! The first job I did after some 10 yeas not driving artics was a bloody Renault. Yes I could manoeuvre it if only I could work it. I was expecting to see a blue park brake and the gears on a dial as in a Daf/MAN, but the Renault gear controls are a bit strange, so I totally concur with your views. I was driving stick changes 10 years previously.
In addition to the correct point made previously that there are too many variables within the industry,regarding types of operation,for anyone generally to realistically have experience of doing every possible type of job.