I was going to put this in another post (Has Health & Safety gone completely mad or what !?). Have you ever been banned from a company? If so, what for? This is my most recent ban…
Being agency, I went into Wiseman’s Droitwich a couple of months ago. No assessment whatsoever. The traffic office gave me a 55 plate dual-fuel DAF CF to go somewhere or other down south. I’ve never ever driven a dual-fuel motor before and this one was crap; it couldn’t make up it’s mind whether it was going to run on diesel or gas, except on hills. It decided to run on gas when going uphill and I was down to 10mph on most hills.
Anyway, I reported this to the traffic office and they said it was common. The next night I was assigned another 55 plate dual-fuel DAF CF to go somewhere else. This truck was OK, no problems whatsoever.
The following night I was assigned the vehicle I had on the first night. I refused to drive it on the grounds of H&S. My reason being that it was unsafe due to it’s inability to climb hills and that a reduced speed of 10mph on a motorway was dangerous for me and other road users.
It was quite funny… You should have seen the shock and horror on the faces of the people in the despatch office. An agency driver refusing to drive a vehicle? It was unheard of! I could see staff whispering to other staff coming into the office, ‘that’s the driver who’s refused to drive a lorry!’. When the traffic supervisor announced I had to see the Despatch Manager (DM), it caused more gossip amongst them.
Anyway, I walk into the DM’s office and the conversation went something like this:
DM: What’s the problem?
Me: I’ve never ever driven a dual-fuel motor before and it can’t make up it’s mind whether it’s going to run on diesel or gas, except on hills. It runs on gas when going uphill and I’m down to 10mph on most hills. The vehicle is unsafe due to it’s inability to climb hills and that a reduced speed of 10mph on a motorway was dangerous for me and other road users. Furthermore, I have never been trained to drive a dual-fuel vehicle and if anything should happen concerning the fuel system I wouldn’t know what to do!
DM: Unfortunately, it’s the only vehicle we have available other than the Volvos and you haven’t been trained to drive the Volvos. The Volvo uses the i-Shift automatic gearbox for which you need to be trained.
Me: I’ve driven many Volvo FMs and FHs with the i-Shift gearbox or the 3-over-3 manual gearbox. Let me clarify this… I need to be trained on a vehicle I have driven many times but I don’t need to be trained on a vehicle I’ve never driven, is that right?
DM: I only have your say-so that you’ve driven a Volvo before and, frankly, that’s not enough.
Me: How do I get trained to drive a Volvo then?
DM: Firstly, you have to be a full-time employee…
Me: There we have it, you run a two tier system that discriminates against agency drivers?
DM: No, it’s part of Wiseman’s H&S policy. If you don’t like it, there’s the door!
Me: See ya!
I’ve now earned a lifetime ban at Wiseman’s Droitwich. I’m not losing any sleep over it. I didn’t want to work there in the first place!
Bob
), going off route. nothing unreasonable but enough to get a ban yet they wont even pull in me for a ‘chat’ 
from Netto, just make sure you offset all the pallets slightly when you put them in a line after taking them off your trailer. It stops the warehouse FLT guy from picking up 3 pallets at once and they’ll start bursting vessels in fury. 
. The ban comes when they tell you that you’ll have to move them all and put them exactly in line. You say “not my job” and make noises about you shouldn’t even be pulling them off the trailer. They will tell you that you will be banned from site if you don’t do as they say, so call their bluff. You’re not very good as this militant stuff are you Malc?