I did a days work though agency this week. Double manned, other guy ‘advised’ me that the companies vehicles were always getting pulled up by DVSA, with several drivers fined recently and the company itself contributing to this.
I was offered some more work with this company, but decided to decline, as don’t want regular pulls by DVSA. I’m not sure how the OCRS (traffic light) system truly works, but do others think I made the right decision to decline further work there?
On the subject of OCRS, does anyone know if a driver can look up a hauliers reputation anywhere online before taking up an offer of work with them, as really don’t want to be working for dodgy operators?
F-reds:
It doesn’t matter if you work for a dodgy operation, if you run legal.
I can make sure my drivers hour records are in order and ensure I keep to speed limits etc, but it is the hauliers vehicles that get pulled by DVSA, as they have no idea of who is driving them. I don’t want to be a ‘suspect driver’ just because of the haulier and have to endure endless regular pulls.
For ‘dodgy operations’ I have zero control of how the vehicles are maintained, or even what weight is actually loaded onto them. Most dodgy hauliers are usually dodgy in multiple aspects.
A haulier can check a driver out via DVLA, references from previous employment, insurance databases, credit reference checking and even CRB checks, but is seems somewhat unfair that a driver cannot readily check that a haulier is legit with an equally good record, as regards compliance with transport legislation.
Not sure whether drivers can see online what colour band a haulier is on the DVSA OCRS scoring system. If we are all allegedly ‘professional’ drivers now, courtesy of the drivers CPC, shouldn’t we able able to check? Some of us have clean licenses and want to keep them that way.
as far as am aware there is no way a driver for a driver to check the ocrs score of a firm apart from asking the firm themselves too show what there score is
Accept the job and turn up for work. Check the vehicle and load. If all is well then crack on.
If truck, trailer or load is not right, ask to get it sorted out before you do your job. If they refuse then call your agency and they will send you somewhere else or home.
Honked:
Accept the job and turn up for work. Check the vehicle and load. If all is well then crack on.
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Sadly, if a hauliers fleet is ‘flagged’ on the DVSA alert system, it means you’ll get pulled up anyway. For the haulier I mentioned in the first post, it would appear this is a weekly and sometimes daily occurrence for their drivers. DVSA use ANPR cameras too, linked to their own database, so they know which fleets to target.
Accept the job and turn up for work. Check the vehicle and load. If all is well then crack on.
If truck, trailer or load is not right, ask to get it sorted out before you do your job. If they refuse then call your agency and they will send you somewhere else or home.
Get paid either way. Happy days.
I think in practice you are going to struggle with this. Unless you have some form of physical proof that what you are contesting is correct then the agency is going to side with their customer. A haulier of this sort will have some employee saying that all is OK so you don’t know what you are talking about. Result no money for the day and probably no jobs offered for the rest of the week.
The only way round it is experience and turning down any work offered at Three Wheels on my Wagon Logistics. Select half a dozen or fewer of the agency’s customers and tell them that those are the only ones you will go to.
I would say you have two options, 1. Tell the agency you don’t want to work for that company anymore, if they’re dodgy the agency will know anyway.
2. Turn up & do all your checks, if your happy take it out, if you get pulled look upon it as an extra hours pay. If they want you to run illegally just refuse & go home, then it’s not your problem.
corij:
your oppo ,the other driver, is flanneling you- for one reason or another
Nope not at all. He was a really nice down to earth guy. He was genuinely upset at getting pulled up so often himself too, as company wasn’t like that when he started there a few years ago. Another driver there I spoke to later validated what he had said about their drivers being pulled all the while by DVSA.
BillyHunt:
I would say you have two options, 1. Tell the agency you don’t want to work for that company anymore, if they’re dodgy the agency will know anyway.
To be fair to the agency, this was an entirely new client to them and they said they had heard mixed comments on this company. Needless to say I have chosen option one, as don’t work for potentially dodgy clients anymore.
Here are the details of how the OCRS works gov.uk/operator-compliance- … e/overview
As you will read, getting pulled and having a clean check will lower your score
If the operator is dodgy then your agency will know, when I was on agency they knew they could send me to these places as I would drive anything with a radio mortgage to pay, kids to feed blah blah.
Now I work for one company cards in so don’t have the hassle of driving crap anymore.
What does it matter if you get pulled? If your so keen on your clean license, nothing will be wrong and you’ll be on your way, still being paid for all the time you were stood still.
Now, if the question you are actually asking is, “I’m lazy, any chance of checking the OCRS? As I’m not confident of my own abilities.” Then that’s a whole different ball game.
Last time I saw figures, VOSA still pulled green operators too
F-reds: What does it matter if you get pulled? If your so keen on your clean license, nothing will be wrong and you’ll be on your way, still being paid for all the time you were stood still.
Surprisingly many of us don’t want any encounters with those money grabbing leeches and see them more akin to the ‘safety cameras’ that also don’t make the roads safer either. Not unsurprisingly most employers would still expect you to fit the same number of drops in or get the same number of loads in, even though DVSA had taken a hour or more out of your day.
Yep I take great pride in having a clean license and there are still employers out there that won’t take you on unless your license is clean. The way I see some idiots drive other people’s trucks out there, can’t say I blame them.
F-reds:
Oh and in answer to the title,
No. Not if you didn’t need the work…
It’s the hassles I don’t need - not the cash.
Not all bad though. Made a contact off that yesterday that got me an interview for a potential permanent role.
One of their drivers was fined over £2400 by DVSA, told me that himself, guy I was working with had already told me that painful fact though. Another one of their drivers had fines of over £900. Company had been busted too.
Liberty Guy aint letting nobody have the opportunity to dip into his wallet to that extent.
Christ, even street robbers and violent criminals don’t get hit with fines like that.
F-reds:
They weren’t fined for not tucking their shirts in were they??
They must have done something very wrong! Simple really.
No idea what the £900 fine the other driver got fined was for, but the big hitter was for drivers hours offences. Company obviously chose to ignore the continual ‘infringements’ warning that was coming on on the weekly digi card downloads. Company was making money out of it after all and of course you can always blame the driver one hundred percent, even though you putting undue pressure on them, by keep chasing them on the phone every hour or so to do even more.
Personally I’d tell them to cough (or something similar sounding) if they kept hassling me on the phone (or just switch it off), but some people have mortgages, others are close to retirement age and have to put up with constant crud and pressure off some hauliers. There were also maintenance issues, but didn’t delve into those, as truck I was driving seemed ok. Nothing fell off it in 10 hours.
Don’t really see what your worried about if your Digi card is clean, your running legit, the vehicle is legal and the load is secure.
Anytime I’ve been stopped by them they have been fine, just do a check let you go if there is no problems. It’s not like they are out kicking in your back lights then wanting to fine you £100 or finding make believe faults so they can fine you.
Even when i was caught red handed doing something stupid they gave me the benefit of the doubt because the rest of my cards were ok. Though i was prob very lucky that time.
End of the day its made out they are a law unto themselves but they ain’t really.
For the haulier I mentioned in the first post, it would appear this is a weekly and sometimes daily occurrence for their drivers. DVSA use ANPR cameras too, linked to their own database, so they know which fleets to target.
mortgage to pay, kids to feed blah blah.
