He may be thick but blame lays at management for negligence.
They paid peanuts and got monkeys and didn’t have the common sense to give the driver what he needed.
Also 7.5t multi drop is all rush rush, he got told his height wasn’t a issue in the area and believed it.
I don’t know many drivers that carry a tape measure with them and if he told them I need to pop to B&Q or home to get a tape measure they would of said fine, don’t bother coming back.
Not everyone can turn down jobs like you guys can, some people are desperate for work.
I know your still going to put all the blame on the drive but management needs to do their bit as well because there will always be guys who get bullied by management into going places that other truck drivers refuse to go down and taking trucks out that are clearly unfit.
When I was on agency a guy for a building firm tried to get me to take a truck out with no working reversing gear. I obviously didn’t but he said the last guy had no issue driving it. I have no doubt he found someone else to drive it. VOSA needs to crack down on firms that are not following the rules.
Christ’s sake, if a bloody lorry driver who uses vehicles of various heights, not marked, hasn’t got the nous to have a tape measure in his bag then we have reached a new low, we are now through the bottom of the barrel and into the depths of the rocks below.
Yes i always carried a tape measure until the company supplied me with a height stick, bloody car transporter driver with no method of measuring the load isn’t going to be CT driver for long.
adam277:
I’m not condoning the driver here but it can often be a fault of management.
When I was FLT driver someone just started driving a 7.5t he had no idea what the height was so asked management who told him we don’t know but don’t worry there are no low bridges in your area/route. Few hours later he comes back with a crushed truck.
In the ideal world you would refuse to drive it unless you knew the height but in the real world you would know if you didn’t drive the truck they would get someone else and you have to feed your kids and pay your bills. When people are living hand to mouth its not so easy to be picky and play by the rules.
So he drove a high truck and did not know what height it was, he comes up against a low bridge, and it did not occur to him to use caution on approach, maybe get out and look, and avoid any contact with it.
Or maybe he just didn’t see it eh.
And you’re sticking up for him, and passing the blame to his boss?
Come on mate ffs, there is no excuse for thick.
If you look he would of gone under if it was nt a arched bridge , that the point rob , make the bloody thing max height for full width , it can be a bloody nightmare getting into the centre of that bridge as there qued down harlaxton road into grantham and none of the sods including the Mrs want to stop before the bridge and let you get across to the centre as they que under bridge
adam277:
He may be thick but blame lays at management for negligence.
They paid peanuts and got monkeys and didn’t have the common sense to give the driver what he needed.
Also 7.5t multi drop is all rush rush, he got told his height wasn’t a issue in the area and believed it.
I don’t know many drivers that carry a tape measure with them and if he told them I need to pop to B&Q or home to get a tape measure they would of said fine, don’t bother coming back.
Not everyone can turn down jobs like you guys can, some people are desperate for work.
I know your still going to put all the blame on the drive but management needs to do their bit as well because there will always be guys who get bullied by management into going places that other truck drivers refuse to go down and taking trucks out that are clearly unfit.
When I was on agency a guy for a building firm tried to get me to take a truck out with no working reversing gear. I obviously didn’t but he said the last guy had no issue driving it. I have no doubt he found someone else to drive it. VOSA needs to crack down on firms that are not following the rules.
So drivers today need led by the hand do they?
Are you saying they can no longer think for themselves, and do managers have to tell them about every potential hazard on route, and if not they are to blame?
‘‘Better watch that 90° bend on that road son, and there’s a school further on, look out for kids on road, not sure of bridge height but watch you don’t write off the truck eh’’.
At least if he had stopped off at B&Q for all of 2 minutes (aka initiative, what we ALL had to use once over) at least he would have got the job done.
As for ‘‘bullying’’ no sympathy, they only push you if you have no balls, as long as you work to the law in terms of hours and breaks, there is ■■■■ all they can do.
I agree about VOSA and cowboy outfits, but I still say drivers are their own worst enemy.
Juddian:
Christ’s sake, if a bloody lorry driver who uses vehicles of various heights, not marked, hasn’t got the nous to have a tape measure in his bag then we have reached a new low, we are now through the bottom of the barrel and into the depths of the rocks below.
Yes i always carried a tape measure until the company supplied me with a height stick, bloody car transporter driver with no method of measuring the load isn’t going to be CT driver for long.
No pride in the job in my opinion J. I cannot for the life of me understand why drivers are hitting bridges.
Apart from hitting a pedestrian/cyclist or other road users, bridges represent the biggest hazard. Yet we have cabbages steaming through them at full pelt
If it was an automatic 12 month prison sentence, do you reckon there would be a reduction in bridge strikes? Of course there would.
Because human beings comply far better when there is an incentive to do so. The drivers that have pride and intelligence don’t hit bridges. The SWA’s that suffer no comeback whatsoever simply carry on regardless…it’s about time a prison sentence or at very least, loss of LGV entitlement starts happening in my view.
adam277:
Also 7.5t multi drop is all rush rush, he got told his height wasn’t a issue in the area and believed it.
It’s clearly an artic and is height might not have been an issue.It looks like he didn’t even attempt to move over to centre of the road to get the marked clearance of the bridge.Can’t blame the guvnor for that.
Until they bring decimal measurements and imperial into line there will be a problem. Everyone has a 10 inch ■■■■ but they can’t judge how long that is. [emoji23]
In the ideal world you would refuse to drive it unless you knew the height
Perhaps that’s where the problem is. I thought the driver was supposed to know,using a measuring device
He’s not hit the top of the bridge he’s hit the arch to the side , look at the markings above his tri , there’s clearance above tri clearly in pick , so as I say if it was max height full span he’d of been fine , if you can accuse him of anything it’s he’s wrongly positioned
adam277:
Also 7.5t multi drop is all rush rush, he got told his height wasn’t a issue in the area and believed it.
It’s clearly an artic and is height might not have been an issue.It looks like he didn’t even attempt to move over to centre of the road to get the marked clearance of the bridge.Can’t blame the guvnor for that.
Wheel Nut:
Until they bring decimal measurements and imperial into line there will be a problem. Everyone has a 10 inch ■■■■ but they can’t judge how long that is. [emoji23]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
i do…its exactly the size of mine…minus 5 centimeters…
I am partially with dozy on this. Sometimes the arch bridge gives you a height, with markers on where the height is, but the width of those markers is nowhere near the width of a truck. The advertised height should be the whole width of the road rather than a few inches in the middle. That could prevent a lot of arch bridge strikes.
Rowley010:
I am partially with dozy on this. Sometimes the arch bridge gives you a height, with markers on where the height is, but the width of those markers is nowhere near the width of a truck. The advertised height should be the whole width of the road rather than a few inches in the middle. That could prevent a lot of arch bridge strikes.
But the big reflective sign posted above the opening which says “use centre of road” should have been a big enough clue.
adam277:
Not everyone can turn down jobs like you guys can, some people are desperate for work.
The guys who are “desperate” are usually the club plant pot brigade that struggle to hold onto a decent job because of their own incompetence.
Exactly.
Rather than stick up for them and make excuses to blame everybody else rather than them, for their pathetic ■■■■ poor ways, get them out of the industry completely by raising the bar of driver selection at grass roots level…, because it’s clueless ■■■■ s like those that give the likes of you and me a bad name.
Rowley010:
I am partially with dozy on this. Sometimes the arch bridge gives you a height, with markers on where the height is, but the width of those markers is nowhere near the width of a truck. The advertised height should be the whole width of the road rather than a few inches in the middle. That could prevent a lot of arch bridge strikes.
But the big reflective sign posted above the opening which says “use centre of road” should have been a big enough clue.
I’m not saying it’s not. But I do think it would be better as well as showing the height for the centre, it should display what the maximum height is at the edge of the carriageway so you know rather than just guessing, so you if you are in something that is not far off the marked height then you know what you’ve got to play with outside of that centre line.
Rowley010:
I am partially with dozy on this. Sometimes the arch bridge gives you a height, with markers on where the height is, but the width of those markers is nowhere near the width of a truck. The advertised height should be the whole width of the road rather than a few inches in the middle. That could prevent a lot of arch bridge strikes.
Really? How many such bridges do you know of? I’ve never seen a set of markings that are less then a standard trailer width.
In the ideal world you would refuse to drive it unless you knew the height
Perhaps that’s where the problem is. I thought the driver was supposed to know,using a measuring device
He’s not hit the top of the bridge he’s hit the arch to the side , look at the markings above his tri , there’s clearance above tri clearly in pick , so as I say if it was max height full span he’d of been fine , if you can accuse him of anything it’s he’s wrongly positioned
I was talking in general Doze,but I agree with you in this case about his position. But when a full-span bridge gets clobbered,what chance has an arch got.
I’m paranoid about hitting a bridge because it’s an ‘absolute offence’. There’s no mitigation, you either did it or you didn’t. When I load I measure it and measure it again. I don’t want to be the one that wrecks the truck,damages the bridge,and gets my guvnor an astronomic bill from Network Rail.
Juddian:
A tape measure costs what a couple of quid, probably Poundland do one that would suffice, to reach the top of the vehicle just attach the end of the tape to a stick with a bloody nail or even sellotape, job jobbed a height stick that cost you exactly £1.
You don’t even have to do that. Read it off the trailer and if necessary add the vertical distance with a tape measure (which I carry) to the height of the box.
Warning - measure it at the highest point, which isn’t necessarily the king pin! (usually the front of the box unless you’ve set up the suspension/loaded it wrong). Also note that the difference between loaded and unloaded is about 3" vertical height, unloaded being higher of course
In the event of pulling a lower trailer do make sure that the cab mounted air deflector is not the highest point. Something overlooked by Gist Bellshill (now Eurocentral). They helpfully put the various tractor unit unit fifth wheel heights on a panel taped to the inside of the cab roof but the clown who designed it forget to allow for a trailer lower than the air deflector (doh)!
