Bin Wagons - Help?

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

Hello everybody,
i hope everybody had a good Christmas and I wish you all a Happy New Year for Sunday night Monday morning!!!

My agency has just phoned me asking if I will drive a Bin wagon for Wigan Council tomorrow morning at 6:30 am. and again
on Saturday morning.
No problems really, I dont have any other work and I have a Cat C licence.
BUT I have obviously not driven a bin wagon before, so I am a bit apprehensive.
Advice please guys and gals.
Do I need to use my digital tacho card or is it out of scope?
What do I do about breaks?
Does it take a bit to get used to the steering or is it exactly the same as other rigids?
What advice on reversing into and out of back alley ways/ in and out of side roads?
Can the crew be trusted as banksmen or will I have to take things ultra-careful?

When the agency asked me to do it, I just couldn’t refuse, could I?
What will I do with all the tips?
All puns welcomed during this festive season.

Thanks in advance,
landy lad

2

Usually a nice easy number [tongue in cheek] take it steady, the lads will direct you, remember though your the driver not them, they’ll remember that if you scrape something. always drive forwards when collecting, use the camera, watch the weight, the lads will want more on even if driving on the rims especially this time of year you’ll fill up quickly. Keep your arms and head clear of the ejector when tipping.

No tachos required.
The steering is the same as other rigids of the same axle config, you could end up with any axle config from a 4x2 to a 10x4 with any combination of mid lifts and steering axles. Don’t worry though you should get a feel for the vehicle in the first couple of miles on the way to your start point. Just remmber that you will have a lot of swing with the ejector on the arse end, and that can come round very quick with a rear steer.
For cul de sacs, alleys and such (where you can’t turn at the end) reverse to the end and drive out collecting on the way, the lads should bank you in and watch for traffic & peds.

Most important of all, DON’T EAT YER BUTTIES WITH YOUR GLOVES ON!

3

I did a few days on the bins

Auto 6 wheeler - stick back for forward and stick forward for back … weird

The regular guys on the truck guided me everywhere - they were fantastic - if they did not then the runs would have taken ages!!

4

Thanx MadBaz.

Good point about butties and gloves, I dont want to drop them onto the dirty floor!! :stuck_out_tongue:
Glad I asked for help, 'cos I never even thought about how to tip the load and i never even thought that i will have to make the decision about when to go to the tip. How will I know that I am getting close to my weight limit?
I hope somebody shows me how to work the crusher and how to tip the load.
On a typical day at this time of year, how many trips to the yard do you think I will be expected to make?

Gosh, I suppose its nothing like doing house to house multidrop or delivering stuff to B&Q stores general freight multidrop is it?

Thanx again madders,
all the best for New Year,
Landylad

5

Just watch the tail swing on tight turns

6

The lads will show you how to tip load . Probably going to be looking a three trips to landfill rather than the usual two. Dont worry too much about weight , compacter will struggle once your fully loaded.

7

Make sure you get the thumbs up from the digger driver at the landfill before tipping , if you bdont and then tip in the wrong place they will not be happy. Happy digger driver means faster turnaround and also help if you get stuck in the soft stuff :wink:

8

Just remember…the big open bit at the back is for the rubbish!

Although with the bin men round my way it seems they throw crap in both ends!

Just remember to always stop on the white line down the middle of the road, never ever pull into a gap to allow other road users by, and generally be as much as an obstacle as you can to everyone else…you will look like you’ve been doing it years!

:smiling_imp:

9

And if your tipping on landfill watch for bricks getting stuck between double rear wheels as they make a mess of car windscreens when they fly back out :open_mouth:

Oh and if cars are parked both sides on narrow roads then wing mirrors are fair game, good hunting :grimacing:

10

LandyLad:
Gosh, I suppose its nothing like doing house to house multidrop or delivering stuff to B&Q stores general freight multidrop is it?

:smiley:

Its not exactly multidrop, but when you hear some parcel driver moaning about his 100+ drops and 30 odd collections just smile smugly and remember your days doing 500+ collections :sunglasses: , and probably with a bit more care!

11

Righto thanks to everone who replied, it was good advice, especially about stopping in the middle of the road and not letting people through and being in tha way all the time. That’s exactly what I did most of the time and now I know why the Bin fellers do it. There’s just no chance of doing a bin round in less than a day if you obey all the niceties of roadcraft, DSAdrivestyle or just letting everybody else go past whilst your loaders are standing at the kerb doing the green cross code.
I will never ever call binmen again and I’ll be a lot more patient with them from now on. Its not an easy job to do.
The driver needs to be looking in 4 places at the same time - namely rear camera, Left and Right mirrors and forwards. Thenthey wagons are mostly automatics so you have to go into Neutral as soon as you stop so that the bin tipping things have enough power diverted from the engine to tip the bins and crush the rubbish. So you are constantly going into N and D or R because you didnt see a customers bin hiding behind their car and you flew past it.
Anyway I thought I should do a little diary of my two days as an agency driver on the bins in case anybody is thinking about it as a job.
Thats what my next post will be in about half an hour.
Thanks guys and gals.
Landylad

12

Diary as promised.
Friday; I arived onsite at 06:20. Knew where to go because I did my class2 training and test at Atherton and most test routes cover the Wigan area.
Spent an hour or so being inducted and shown how to operate the controls specific to a bin wagon. (must have missed something important - see later on).
Spent rest of the day shunting wagons around the yard and refuelling wagons as they returned to the yard from collections.
This was useful because there was a real mix of makes, weights and types of wagons and I got to shunt/manouevre and reverse lots and lots of different types of bin wagon.
All of them were automatic.
Day 2 Saturday; I arrived onsite at 06:20 again. Was given keys to a wagon and two loaders were found for me. We were given a photocopy of a street map of an area of Wigan and our round was highlighted in red highlighter pen. I hadnt been around those streets when I did my class2 training so I asked some other guys how to get there and It wasnt far away from the depot and it was easy to find.
Off we went and got there at 07:10 still in the pitch dark. We started loading rubbish straight away, but after 10 or so bins, the loaders came to the cab and told me that the equipment was too slow. They told me to push one of the buttons. It diverted the engine power to the load mechanism and they tried again. No, still too slow. They then told me to put the gearbox into Neutral whilst loading otherwise pressing the special button wasn’t enough on its own. Things speeded up a lot from then on.
A few yards further on, I saw one of the loaders scratching his back a lot. I drove on past a left turn and the loaders ran up to me and told me to reverse into the road I had just passed on the left! When they touch their own rear shoulder, that means BACK IN HERE.
So I did and it was really hard to judge because the mirrors were full of rain and it was dark and there were lots of Christmas decoration lights flashing on and off into my face.
So I took my time. The rear camera helped a lot, but it wasnt as easy as it was in the yard in broad daylight yesterday. I did notice that the wagon tended to be a bit lazy when turning in reverse and I had to really concentrate and once or twice I needed a shunt forward to get in.
We tended to reverse into cul de sacs all the way to the end and drove forwards to get out and loaded whilst driving in the forward direction. Its safer for the loaders that way.
Lots more of this kind of stuff until 10 o clock when we stopped at a pie shop for breakfast.
We finished our break and we were off again. One of the bins was dragged into the back of the wagon NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN! Apparently it happens a lot.
Something else that happens a lot is the bin spills some rubbish onto the floor at the back of the wagon. When this happened to us, the loaders just stand at the back expecting me to know that has happened and expecting me to drive forward a metre or so in order for them to clear it up. But I didnt know so I just waited for them to move away but of course they didnt and they had to come to the cab to tell me to move forward. we must have done that about 10 times and lost about 8 minutes time during the day because of it.
One of the cul de sacs into which we reversed had a good few flats and some sheltered housing for the elderly. That meant that one of the loaders had to go and get the bins out for a few customers so he was away from the wagon for a good few minutes, so the other loader asked me to help him.
I got out of the cab ond helped him to get about 20 bins near the back of the wagon and he showed me how to load them. I did a few with him and got back into the cab and off we went forwards loading all the way.
As the day had progressed, I could definitely sense the effect of the load becoming gradually heavier and heavier by the minute. It was harder to get the auto box to move off and steering became a little more heavy and lazy with each street visited.
When we had finished the round I dropped the 2 loaders outside the depot for them to clock off and I carried on with the wagon to the local tip. I was stopped at the entrance gate by another council worker who said that I couldnt be allowed to drive into the tip and empty the wagon because I had not had that particular subject of training during my induction - a Health and Safety issue I think.
So I got out of the cab and waited at the gate whilst he tipped my load for me. When he came back to the gate, we swapped again and I drove back to the yard, parked up, clocked off and handed in my documents. (Veh. Safety check sheet, round map and Domestic hours drivers log sheet)
Then off home and to my friends house to do this post cos I dont have internet at home.
A really good couple of days new experience and an eye opener for me.

Happy New Year to you all,
LandyLad.

13

LandyLad:
Righto thanks to everone who replied, it was good advice, especially about stopping in the middle of the road and not letting people through and being in tha way all the time. That’s exactly what I did most of the time and now I know why the Bin fellers do it. There’s just no chance of doing a bin round in less than a day if you obey all the niceties of roadcraft, DSAdrivestyle or just letting everybody else go past whilst your loaders are standing at the kerb doing the green cross code.
I will never ever call binmen again and I’ll be a lot more patient with them from now on. Its not an easy job to do.
The driver needs to be looking in 4 places at the same time - namely rear camera, Left and Right mirrors and forwards. Thenthey wagons are mostly automatics so you have to go into Neutral as soon as you stop so that the bin tipping things have enough power diverted from the engine to tip the bins and crush the rubbish. So you are constantly going into N and D or R because you didnt see a customers bin hiding behind their car and you flew past it.
Anyway I thought I should do a little diary of my two days as an agency driver on the bins in case anybody is thinking about it as a job.
Thats what my next post will be in about half an hour.
Thanks guys and gals.
Landylad

Absolute ■■■■■■■■ mate, if the loaders weren’t lazy ■■■■■ and actually moved the bin more than 2 ft in any direction there would be no need for these stinking wagons to totally bring towns to a standstill due to there inconsiderate ways.

Sounds like they have you brainwashed though…

14

This sounds like a good topic for a forum wide discussion!

Let’s have a Mass Debate.

Someone has started by himself though. :smiley:

15

Sounds as though you enjoyed it■■? :wink:

16

That was a good read,it’s always good to learn abit about other jobs eh.
Nice one. :slight_smile:

17

DonutUK:
Absolute ■■■■■■■■ mate, if the loaders weren’t lazy [zb] and actually moved the bin more than 2 ft in any direction there would be no need for these stinking wagons to totally bring towns to a standstill due to there inconsiderate ways.

Sounds like they have you brainwashed though…

Is anyone gonna bite :open_mouth: :laughing:

Glad you enjoyed it Landlad, sorry forgot to mention most are Allinson autos and the hydraulicy bits work better in neutral. As for getting out of the way of other traffic, you did right, most car drivers have a basic understanding of a bin mans job (if the bins aren’t emptied, ■■■■ builds up) and even if they don’t like it they are usually patient enough to wait till there is a suitable passing place.

18

MADBAZ:

DonutUK:
Absolute ■■■■■■■■ mate, if the loaders weren’t lazy [zb] and actually moved the bin more than 2 ft in any direction there would be no need for these stinking wagons to totally bring towns to a standstill due to there inconsiderate ways.

Sounds like they have you brainwashed though…

Is anyone gonna bite :open_mouth: :laughing:

Glad you enjoyed it Landlad, sorry forgot to mention most are Allinson autos and the hydraulicy bits work better in neutral. As for getting out of the way of other traffic, you did right, most car drivers have a basic understanding of a bin mans job (if the bins aren’t emptied, [zb] builds up) and even if they don’t like it they are usually patient enough to wait till there is a suitable passing place.

The problem is that you don’t just hold up car drivers…have seen bin men block ambulances in, fire engines, funnily enough though never a police car!

But they also block buses…yes, buses…you know those that people rely on to get to work, that run to timetables, that end up anything from 10 to 20 minutes late on some routes on bin days!

Some professional courtesy, from one professional driver to another, would be appreciated…instead the so called professional in the bin lorry seems to think it is extremely big and clever to inconvenience as many other road users as possible.

And lets not get started on the ridiculous excuse that the bin was “too full” because the lid was an eighth of an inch off shut for not emptying it…and the complete inability of loaders to return a bin to anywhere within 3 metres of where it started…or even on the pavement in some places.

And yet, bin men of today will tell you they have it tough…with the bins with wheels that they have to push to a machine which picks it up and empties it for them…i can remember when a dustbin was a metal bin that the bin men had to actually, now brace yourself, actually carry to the lorry and, shock horror, lift it up and empty it themselves. Then they managed to get it back in your front garden…all without a hi viz in sight! Just a donkey jacket.

Like every other aspect of local councils, they have become overpaid, underworked, lazy, and look for any excuse not to do their job.

Now though, things are starting to bite with the recession, and our poor local bin men are having to have their working week reduced from 5 days to 4…but still on the same money, and without actually doing any extra work! Not sure how that works unless they only had 4 days worth of work anyway but used to spread it over 5?

Our local refuse depot was a ghost town after 2pm, everyone went home, Fridays it was 12. They started at 7 most mornings…i know this because i used to work next door to it…7-2 and 7-12 on a Friday…such a tough job.

:smiling_imp:

19

Hiya DonutUK,
strangely enough, my gut reaction is to agree with you about the working practices and over-the-top softening of manual work over the last 20 or so years. I do agree that we all have it a lot more cushy than we did when I was just starting work back in 1970.

On your other point about blocking emergency services, well I just can’t ever support anybody doing that sort of thing. When any of us see a set of blue lights ahead or behind, we should immediately and instinctively begin to think about what we can do to let them through as quickly and as safely as we can. If that means pull over and mount the kerb, than so be it. Its one of the main reasons why we are expected to make constant forward scans and rear observations using mirrors every few seconds or so. Its why the DSA fail many car Learners and we should all do it as naturally as breathing.

Buses - well I found that bus drivers would usually see the potential for being inconvenienced quite early and would typically pull over to the left voluntarily for a minute or two and flash me indicate their tolerance for a bit.
Car Drivers - Well on Saturday car drivers were idiots who couldnt seem to see more than a metre past their bonnet. They will quickly drive into the gap I need to squeeze past the bus and expect me to reverse out of their way, which I didnt do as it is a bit dangerous when two guys are wheeking bins towards the back of the wagon. Once or twice car drivers actually drove FULLY on the pavement on my left hand side (from behind) to impatiently get past, thus saving about 3 to 4 seconds of their journey with the potential to kill or maime a child or other pedestrian who wouldnt be expecting a car to be doing 15 mph on the pavement completely hidden from view by a big bin wagon.
But nothing I have said in this specific post has actually defended against the earlier complaint about bin wagons causing unnecessary obstructions in town centres - I dont feel qualified enough to comment much more, having only done it for a day or so.
BUT, what about having bins emptied overnight in the early hours of the morning in areas where there is a potential to disrupt the flow of traffic?
What about having them emptied on Sundays? - Extra wage costs?
Maybe a downside of this is the noise generated by bin wagons disturbing people’s sleep?
Maybe another downside is that there are likely to be more poorly or double parked vehicles blocking side roads thus stopping bin wagons getting through.
If we had the money, we could develop Electric engined bin wagons which would be almost silent. Maybe we could also develop small tender vehicles akin to Moffat FLTs which could be dispersed from a mother ship bin wagon driven by the loaders to collect down tight or difficult side roads and the mother ship bin wagon could be safely parked out of the way.
Just the mad ramblings of a pipe dreamer maybe, or maybe we need some radical lateral outside the box thinking on transportation and council services?

Lets keep this discussion going. Pile in gals and guys with more comments.

There’s always two sides to any viewpoint, so lets hear them.

LandyLad

20

Mount the kerb!!!

Just because you see blue lights does not mean you can break the law !