Evil8Beezle:
Phone usage is rife, and something needs to be done about it.
I suspect car users are worse than us, but the consequences are clearly different.
You can barely make out the crushed car between the trucks, which to me is sickening…
I think this idiot deserves all he got and more, as it’s such a tiny stretch of motorway minutes before his destination, WTF couldn’t he wait?
I never understand why in law when “Multiple deaths” are involved, they don’t just do 6 years X the number killed… ?
Even when a judge says “blah blah 5 life sentances” it always seems to be “concurrent” rather than “consecutive”, so they are still getting a 25 year stretch, out in 15.
In that, the American system where you get 125 years - seems suddenly a lot more sensible.
Or as the late great Richard Pryor would put it “Agghh I’ll be 161 years old when I get out!”
F-reds:
I’ve used hands free phones, I’ve eaten butties, apples, drank coffee, and had a good old fashioned perv at whatever is visible through the window in the cars to my right, because I’m human, not a robot. And I’ve not caused an accident fatal or otherwise. If you’ve got even half an ounce of common sense in your head, you know that everything has a time and a place, and to do any of what I have mentioned on a nice clear road, or in badly congested traffic jam is fine really. But to do them in a changeable scenario such as a town centre or intersection is daft. That “driver” deserves everything he gets in my book.
Genuine question, why do you drink and eat when driving? 45 min break gives you plenty of time to brew and cook up or walk into the cafe…
F-reds:
I’ve used hands free phones, I’ve eaten butties, apples, drank coffee, and had a good old fashioned perv at whatever is visible through the window in the cars to my right, because I’m human, not a robot. And I’ve not caused an accident fatal or otherwise. If you’ve got even half an ounce of common sense in your head, you know that everything has a time and a place, and to do any of what I have mentioned on a nice clear road, or in badly congested traffic jam is fine really. But to do them in a changeable scenario such as a town centre or intersection is daft. That “driver” deserves everything he gets in my book.
Genuine question, why do you drink and eat when driving? 45 min break gives you plenty of time to brew and cook up or walk into the cafe…
Because raising a cup, or a bottle to your lips is not difficult, my mouth is in the same place every single day. Yes a 45 minute break does give you time for that, but I’m not a robot, I get hungry and thirsty at other times too. I can promise you I’d be a lot less attentive if I was thinking about how I was gasping for a swig of water or a nosh on my favourite yorkie bar…
Like I said, I’m not advocating that you do it when navigating a busy, ever changing city, but while you’ve got the cruise on, on a motorway, or sitting in a jam? Yeah that’s fine Andrew, really!
Time and a place for everything. And that is a genuine answer, I’m not digging at you for asking the question.
F-reds:
I’ve used hands free phones, I’ve eaten butties, apples, drank coffee, and had a good old fashioned perv at whatever is visible through the window in the cars to my right, because I’m human, not a robot. And I’ve not caused an accident fatal or otherwise. If you’ve got even half an ounce of common sense in your head, you know that everything has a time and a place, and to do any of what I have mentioned on a nice clear road, or in badly congested traffic jam is fine really. But to do them in a changeable scenario such as a town centre or intersection is daft. That “driver” deserves everything he gets in my book.
Genuine question, why do you drink and eat when driving? 45 min break gives you plenty of time to brew and cook up or walk into the cafe…
I drive a Scania 99% of the time Andrew, and before I set off my sandwiches and drinks go in the fridge under my bunk, and any chocolate bars or whatever go on the centre console piece near my left knee. If I get peckish or thirsty on a journey I simply reach down with my left hand and either open my fridge or grab a chocolate bar.
Don’t even need to take my eyes off the road at all. It ain’t rocket science fella…
eagerbeaver:
I drive a Scania 99% of the time Andrew, and before I set off my sandwiches and drinks go in the fridge under my bunk, and any chocolate bars or whatever go on the centre console piece near my left knee. If I get peckish or thirsty on a journey I simply reach down with my left hand and either open my fridge or grab a chocolate bar.
Don’t even need to take my eyes off the road at all. It ain’t rocket science fella…
As I said earlier you can still concentrate on the driving if you’re having a glug of drink or a bite of an apple but if you’re talking on the phone to someone your mind inevitably wanders even if you are still looking at the road ahead your mind is off somewhere else .
Don’t believe the hype and the ‘right on’ bs by the never do wrongs and the nanny state, and don’t get all ‘‘hot flushes and hissy fit’’ because somebody says they can drink a coffee behind the wheel. calm it down ffs.
You are not going to wipe out a family in a car everytime you sip a can of coke/bite a Twix/switch your kettle on or scratch your arse, let’s not get totally carried away here and keep things real.
As said, times and places, …2 examples.
M25 rush hour with idiots cutting in on you on junctions and convoys of trucks joining the Mway?.. Of course not.
M6 Tebay at 7pm?.. Different ball game.
It is like everything else in driving a truck…adapt and use common sense in every situation.
I personally drive with one hand on a steering wheel knob (not my nickname btw) most of the time, not being clever here, I just do, I always have…it’s power steering ffs.
I mentioned this once before, and some prick on here told me I was not fit to be driving and that I should drive like him, …apparentlly he drove like he was on a test all the time .
The guy in the accident was a total ■■■■…end of, but he carried all this stuff to the next level. Social media when driving can not be compared to the examples above.
You can be distracted while driving listening to a good track, a heated discussion, or a football match…On The Radio let alone a phone
So we better watch out for when the liberal lefties, the road safety ‘experts’ and any MP looking for popular votes latches on to that one…ie Let’s ban radios.
EddieMD:
I know I’m gonna get slated for this but I really think it’s getting ridiculous at the amount of things were being told we can and can’t do because someone thinks it’s wrong. Maybe it us wrong but every so often someone in government decides we need a new law cos if something usually high profile. How many accidents are there on the road and what percentage are actually and factually caused by this. I’m not condoning it any manner of means and like i said I’m gonna get grief for my views but they’re even telling us now we need MORE special kids seats to replace the already special ones we have, we can’t eat or drink while driving, can’t talk to people, can’t can’t can’t … personally I think there’s more accidents on the road because people don’t have any common sense anymore, we are continually having the decision making processes in our lives taken away from us so no need to think for ourselves. We used to deliver to places with a map in one hand and a bacon buttie in the other and there were probably less accidents than now by us as we had to think on our feet and took responsibility for the job we were doing.
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Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
I’ve just noticed your post mate while reading back.
I won’t slate you or give you stick, you have hit the nail on the head, spot on.
Too many knee jerk reactions after high profile cases.
EddieMD:
I know I’m gonna get slated for this but I really think it’s getting ridiculous at the amount of things were being told we can and can’t do because someone thinks it’s wrong. Maybe it us wrong but every so often someone in government decides we need a new law cos if something usually high profile. How many accidents are there on the road and what percentage are actually and factually caused by this. I’m not condoning it any manner of means and like i said I’m gonna get grief for my views but they’re even telling us now we need MORE special kids seats to replace the already special ones we have, we can’t eat or drink while driving, can’t talk to people, can’t can’t can’t … personally I think there’s more accidents on the road because people don’t have any common sense anymore, we are continually having the decision making processes in our lives taken away from us so no need to think for ourselves. We used to deliver to places with a map in one hand and a bacon buttie in the other and there were probably less accidents than now by us as we had to think on our feet and took responsibility for the job we were doing.
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Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
I’ve just noticed your post mate while reading back.
I won’t slate you or give you stick, you have hit the nail on the head, spot on.
Too many knee jerk reactions after high profile cases.
I too agree with the general thrust of EddieMD’s post.
But there is a big difference between the days of bacon buttie in one hand map in the other and changing gear with your third hand whilst rolling a rizla ■■■ up with the fourth, and now.
The difference being that the sort of idiots who caused the recent tragedies wouldn’t have done the job as it was, and if they tried it out wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes anyway.
You don’t have to spend more than a few hours on this very site to work out who, of the newer drivers and sadly some of the older buggers too, are lorry drivers, and who of the newer drivers simply wouldn’t have coped when the job was different, and you don’t have to spend more than 1 minute listing the number of people you work with whom you would yourself employ.
Yes we had idiots then just as now, but they didn’t last long, where now we see every day utter berks at the wheel of lorries who shouldn’t have been allowed within a mile of one, but the way the job and lorries drive now they can hold basic chauffering type jobs down, helped by so many managers and admin in the industry not having the first clue about their role in all this, as said by some here you can’t educate/train/skill-up cabbage/pork, but so long as some bugger can select D press the loud pedal and follow the directions of idiot nav, thats fine.
Unfortunately the system and industry itself has decided that lowest common denominator, or race to the bottom, is the way to run things, so instead of cherry picking and retaining, we dumb the job down to the ability of the most useless idiot that can be found and pay accordingly, we are all, including the general public at large, worse off for this.
Lorry drivers need an aptitude for the job, not everyone has it but its easier for those who don’t have it to get by now, instead of addressing the issue properly the answer is more automation reducing the skills required ever further and electronic surveillance.
How about people caught texting and posting on social meeja are made to post to all of their accounts and contacts about it. They could say something like: I’m a completely shallow selfish ■■■■■■ and I care more about posting my drivel than I do about whether other people go home to their families every day.
It’s all a problem with dumbing down.
Without wanting to sound like an old ■■■■, when I started out in this industry 28 years ago you had to have a burning desire to do it. There was no easy way in back then, you took your test and either went knocking on doors, or went and lied to the agencies, either way you were seen as new blood and got the short end of the stick, if you were lucky enough to get a full time job you didn’t get a new, or couple of years old truck, you got the 20 year old nail and knew you had to work up to something newer. You also got the runs and loads you knew had been turned down by the longer serving drivers.
I’m not saying it was better or worse but it was the way it was, and as such is discouraged all but those most determined to become drivers.
The bright side was that once you’d proved your worth to the other drivers then the flow of knowledge and help from them was what got you going, it was the nearest the industry had to a proper apprenticeship, and it worked well.
That’s all gone now, and any idiot who couldn’t pass the interview at McDonalds can now go and get a licence because there are plenty of firms looking for the dumbed down idiot drivers to mould to there H&S madness way of doing things.
Look at the posts on this forum, drivers who don’t know the tacho rules, don’t know how to navigate without a sat nav, obviously have no idea how to open their mouths to ask for directions or read a map, can’t operate a manual gearbox, even taking tests in auto trucks. Complaining at not being able to do a run before they’ve even tried.
Complaining at being given a truck more than a few years old. There is an almost endless of complaints now that would have seen you booted out the gate in days gone by.
There doesn’t seem to be any sense of pride in doing the job properly these days amongst the newer drivers. They aren’t passionate about the job (yes I appreciate there are exceptions but they are just that these days. Exceptions).
I’m bloody glad I’m out of the industry now, it wasn’t my choice but I’ve learned to accept it and see the bright side of it now.
It’s unfortunate for all those proper drivers still doing the job that the race to the bottom is going to result in ever more stringent controls being placed on you as the companies and regulation authorities have to do something to account for the idiots, and that means rolling out those controls and regs to everybody, including those who have a brain and a sense of pride and professionalism.
And to those I have some bad news, you’re a dying breed and will be eradicated from the industry as soon as can be achieved.
Tgtrucker:
And to those I have some bad news, you’re a dying breed and will be eradicated from the industry as soon as can be achieved.
Christ that post was music to my shell likes
What i can’t get me thick head round is why does the industry want, and i agree with you they do, to eradicate the old school can do attitude and competence it brings when learned, and this isn’t a dig at new drivers by the way cos old school attitude isn’t age or time served dependant, we all know good young blokes who have the right attitude and some old buggers who we wouldn’t pay in washers.
The dying breed are the only buggers who can be relied on to turn and just go do the bloody job without making a bloody great drama out of the slightest problem, fix the problems if its possible to do so and try to make the best of it without throwing a hissy fit or going of an a sicky with stress…if you haven’t worked somewhere with full sick pay trust me it’s a bloody farce out there, ■■■■ takers and wasters and the bloody management (when they aint milking the sick themselves) think the sun shines out these twerps arses
If you asked me even 5 years ago if i wanted to retire i’d have been averse to it, now i can’t wait for the next 4.5 to pass.
Juddian:
Christ that post was music to my shell likes
What i can’t get me thick head round is why does the industry want, and i agree with you they do, to eradicate the old school can do attitude and competence it brings when learned, and this isn’t a dig at new drivers by the way cos old school attitude isn’t age or time served dependant, we all know good young blokes who have the right attitude and some old buggers who we wouldn’t pay in washers.
The dying breed are the only buggers who can be relied on to turn and just go do the bloody job without making a bloody great drama out of the slightest problem, fix the problems if its possible to do so and try to make the best of it without throwing a hissy fit or going of an a sicky with stress…if you haven’t worked somewhere with full sick pay trust me it’s a bloody farce out there, ■■■■ takers and wasters and the bloody management (when they aint milking the sick themselves) think the sun shines out these twerps arses
If you asked me even 5 years ago if i wanted to retire i’d have been averse to it, now i can’t wait for the next 4.5 to pass.
Costs.
It’s cheaper for the big companies to have an endless supply of cheap new drivers than to look after professional drivers.
They’ve worked out it’s cheaper to run a system that prohibits drivers from changing a bulb than it is to pay for the repairs when an idiot mashes it up and wrecks the light unit. They know the proper driver will attempt his/her own repairs to get the job done, but can’t risk an idiot costing them more, so they dumb it down to the lowest level and build those costs into the rate. It’s only this way that they can control costs and budget. They don’t want drivers who think for themselves at that could muck up their budgets.
A decent driver could save them money, but how can they account for who in their fleet is decent? They want fixed costs and the best way to achieve this for them is to place ridiculous levels of control on everybody.
The only safe haven of a professional driver these days seems to be the smaller haulage companies, my last 14 years were spent at a company running 14 trucks, and it was run in a proper fashion, you dealt directly with the boss and he appreciated the effort you would put in and treated us all as professionals, and he also appreciated any extra work you did in terms of making sure deliveries went ahead smoothly and sorting any problems, and doing any running repairs necessary to keep the truck moving so the job got done.
I don’t mean extra in terms of bending rules either, just what would now be considered extra but used to be part and parcel of being a professional driver.
The result was he had a good bunch of drivers who would go out of their way to keep things running smoothly. He didn’t have any drivers who took the mickey out of the sick pay he offered, in fact I’ve never worked at a company with such a low sick day record.
In time all the smaller companies like these will be swallowed up by the bigger companies and the professional driver will be re-designated the robotic steering wheel attendant who will follow orders without complaint. The older drivers will fall by the wayside through natural process of retirement, or death, and the newer drivers will fall in line with big company policy as the majority will never have known what it used to be like.
As I said, I never intended to leave the industry, but now I have I can see there may be life after it. I would have full sympathy with any older driver who decided to throw the towel in, and I have lots for the newer drivers who came into it with a passion to do the job, they’re the ones who will suffer most from the changes going on now.
Tgtrucker:
It’s unfortunate for all those proper drivers still doing the job that the race to the bottom is going to result in ever more stringent controls being placed on you as the companies and regulation authorities have to do something to account for the idiots, and that means rolling out those controls and regs to everybody, including those who have a brain and a sense of pride and professionalism.
.
Exactly.
In my case it aint too bad, I am never stringently checked, never rang up to be asked ‘‘Why are you going that way’’ ‘‘Why have you stopped’’ tbf if I was it would be a ‘‘second word off’’ answer situation, if that did not work, jack …end of.
Many are treated this way, (including on my firm) some feckless types NEED to be treated this way.
Problem is, many firms are doing the same with the type of driver who have no rhyme nor reason to be treated in this schoolboy style spoon fed way, so they are being penalised because of the feckless and the ■■■■ poor cabbages in the job.
The same with all these Govt based regs, and bans, as it is impossible to legislate for the brain dead, the babies are being chucked out with the bath water.
Costs?
you wouldn’t bloody think it cost effective if you saw the bills for damage that has to be sorted out by the workshops due to allowing any fool who can navigate their way through the gate to drive specialist tackle that costs £thousands to put right once damaged, and on that note lorry mechanics especially in bodyshops has to be the safest job out there now.
EddieMD:
I know I’m gonna get slated for this but I really think it’s getting ridiculous at the amount of things were being told we can and can’t do because someone thinks it’s wrong. Maybe it us wrong but every so often someone in government decides we need a new law cos if something usually high profile. How many accidents are there on the road and what percentage are actually and factually caused by this. I’m not condoning it any manner of means and like i said I’m gonna get grief for my views but they’re even telling us now we need MORE special kids seats to replace the already special ones we have, we can’t eat or drink while driving, can’t talk to people, can’t can’t can’t … personally I think there’s more accidents on the road because people don’t have any common sense anymore, we are continually having the decision making processes in our lives taken away from us so no need to think for ourselves. We used to deliver to places with a map in one hand and a bacon buttie in the other and there were probably less accidents than now by us as we had to think on our feet and took responsibility for the job we were doing.
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Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
No slate off me either Eddie. I think it’s a good point. I saw a comedy sketch by some Australian comedian talking about gun laws. He was saying it’s all about playing to the lowest common denominator for the dimwits and crazies.
eagerbeaver:
There was a word mentioned earlier in one of the posts which is pertinent.
PRIDE. This is something which seems to be eroding day by day.
along with a proper interest in the profession in general,not forgetting the most important issue of being able to tie a fekn dolly knot!!!..
as the older dudes die off…the younger ones just line up like cannon fodder and attend to those steering wheels.
as others have said.time and place…make your tea,microwave it,butter a piece,eat,drink,phone,txt and be merry…theres no law to protect us from dipsticks,and lemmings on facebook etc.
they could always just make it illegal to be in charge of a motor vehicle between the hours of midnight till 06-00 sober…that way it would balance itself out.you seldom hear of 1 drunk driver crashing into another one…therein lies the problem…
dieseldog999:
as others have said.time and place…make your tea,microwave it,butter a piece,eat,drink,phone,txt and be merry…
Now I normally try and avoid biting at your wind ups DD
but seeing as I was the ‘Time and Place’ guy, for the record that wasn’t EXACTLY like I said it…as you know…
there was me thinking i was agreeing with you??..time and place…it makes no diff to me when im on the mobile…not glued to my ear though,but il quite happily make and take calls anytime im driving…but during quieter times,then if i think somethings acceptable in my own sense of proportion,then il quite happily do what i need to do.no point in trying to make life difficult when its bedlam on the motorway…but when it quiet,then theres room to move.i didnt think i was winding you up…just the usual overkill by the media as it always makes for sensationalism for the front page etc. dung happens 24/7…you only hear about the good stuff they decide sells papers or gets hits on their website so they make more off the advertisers.
