Last night I did a run from Lancashire upto Glasgow and back, and I really should have been in bed. I’ve caught flu off the missus and I felt absolutely horrendous but the company I work for penalise you heavily financially for having even 1 night off work (lose a weekly attendance bonus, a monthly bonus and also get your Xmas bonus taken off you at the end of the year, not to mention missing out on the night’s pay.) So like an idiot I crawled into work, but in hindsight it was the wrong decision and I only made myself more ill and I wasn’t really fit to be driving for 8 hours. So it got me thinking, what is the worst illness people on here have driven through? What do you do if you’re tramping and not due back home for a week and you are REALLY ill, it’s not as if you have the option to phone in sick and not go in.
Ive never really had any type of illness when driving that’d make me think about taking time off.
But, my main point. It sounds like you need to find some work with another company who care about their employees a bit more. Can’t say I’d be hanging around a firm that punishes you for being ill. Nobody wants to take a day off, but if you’re ill then what choice do you have?
Lumbar spinal stenosis. Couldn’t even walk from the truck to the goods in office. It was at that point I decided to take some time off.
For the flu and other stuff what works for me is Day Nurse but it has to be the liquid not the tablets. That makes driving with flu far more bearable and you feel like a normal person. You know when the 4hrs is up and you’re due for your next dose as you start to feel like crap again. I’ve tried other alternatives but only the real deal Day Nurse seems to work for me.
I agree with Hammy about being treated better by your employers. By all means lose a nights pay and that weeks attendance bonus but losing the month and Xmas bonus for just one day off is ridiculous.
As with all things there are ■■■■ takers on both sides.
Those on good salaries paid full sickness, some can’t help but take the ■■■■, don’t like me run i’ll have a sickie, can’t be arsed have a sickie, they treat it like an extra months holiday every year, must think they’re MP’s or council workers.
You can understand companies taking measures to stop this, but your lot seem to have gone too far.
I once went to the yard late on Sunday night as was my custom and a short while after getting in to the truck and settling down for the night started to feel very ill and nauseous so packed my stuff up and staggered back to my car and drove the 15 minutes back home again and no sooner had I got in the door, I was over the toilet being violent sick for quite some time and had the next day off work. The boss was annoyed, especially as he knew I made it in to work to start with and then went home again, but even he had to admit once he’d calmed down that you can’t drive a truck while vomiting.
I once caught an extremely nasty flu at the start of a trip south in to the US. I left the yard feeling fine, by the time I got to the usual walmart stop to stock up on food in Maine I was feeling off, like when you know you’re coming down with something, you can feel its going to happen but its not really affecting you by that point. As the day went on I got worse and worse and parked up a bit earlier for the night but still at a point where I could make my delivery with an early start in the morning.
I woke up at about 2am feeling sick and having to rush over to the building to have diarrhea. This happened 3 or 4 times and I just couldn’t sleep, it was painful to lay down so I ended up getting some very bad sleep sat upright in the drivers seat with my head against the curtains on the side window. When the time came I hit the road and had to stop every hour out of pure exhaustion and somehow managed to drive the 300 miles or so to my delivery before they closed for the day, they were very understanding and tipped me immediately. I then went over to a truck stop about 15 miles away after clearing it with my company and told them I’d contact them when I was well enough to drive again. My head hit the pillow at about 6pm that evening and I didn’t get out of bed for over 30 hours, I don’t remember a thing about it, all know is I went to sleep at 6pm Tuesday night and woke up early on Thursday morning feeling pretty much back to normal again.
I have to admit I was quite worried at the time as it was in the middle of one of those huge outbreaks of Swine flu and the news reports from the areas I were in were full of reports of fatalities etc.
Having something like that and being stuck out in the truck is a very unpleasant experience as any one can imagine. Had I being at home when I came down with it, there’s no way I’d be setting off on a long haul trip, or any trip for that matter.
Only medication I used was during the summer. Think it was while we were doing Latitude festival and it was scorching hot. Picked up an absolutely banging headache. I now put it down to sun stroke as I was out in the sun ■■■■ near all day unloading the truck then setting up the gear etc without a hat on.
Slammed down a couple of those co codamol tablets, an offshoot of codeine opiate painkillers. Totally legal & over the counter. Big bottle of water and 2 of those soon cleared it but they were scarily addictive tablets. I’ve heard people talk about how addictive any kind opiates can be both legal and illegal but until you’ve experience that crave for “just another one to make me feel better” you can’t understand it.
Lucozade tablets as well, they’ll fix most things!
drove for a month or so suffering from random gallstone attacks right up til having the bloody thing removed, worst ones had been bent over in a laybay puking and ■■■■■■■■ at the sametime. lovely sight for passing motorists. another guy working for us broke his left foot, so carried on working doing rdc work with a brace on, and after that mended, he broke a rib and carried on. other drivers at the first sign of a sniffle, runny nose or headache dissapear behind self assessed sick notes…
Call in with man flu, look after No.1 and don’t take any crap off 'em !
People seem to really struggle with what flu is as too many idiots talk about colds and flu interchangeably. If you feel under the weather, sore throat/runny nose but can drive a bit or drag yourself into work you have a cold or virus not flu.
If you have flu you aren’t driving anything but a bed until you’ve shaken it off which can sometimes take a couple of days or more. If someone said there’s a winning lottery ticket at the bottom of the stairs if you just get out of bed and get it and you could manage to do so you haven’t got flu it’s a cold or virus.
You would have to be an idiot to expect someone to drive a truck with flu, most likely judgement will be seriously impaired as a minimum but, it’s not helped by an army of malingerers who who tell people they’ve got/had flu every time they get a headache sore throat and runny nose.
If I end up with the flu next week, I’m blaming you sprinter si. [emoji23] [emoji23] How dare you bring your lurgy north of the border with you!!!
In my experience to stop for a rest when coming down with flue is a no no as I just can’t get going again ,however I never seem to learn from it .
I had felt odd and not right and thought I had a rare case of indigestion and chest muscles were tight , like a pulled muscle. Stopped in the wagon with about 20 miles to go to get back home to base, got out and heaved up on the hard shoulder and felt like death on my hands and knees and found breathing difficult. Boys in blue stopped about 10 mins later and breathalysed me , no alcohol at all …they gave me a bottle of water and after about twenty mins I felt slightly better.
They let me drive off…■■■■ knows how I got home in the wagon , more by luck I reckon. Most of it was motorway or dual carriageway. Dumped wagon outside the door.
Went to bed clothed feeling really awful and sweating / shivering …My missus who is a doctor comes home , checked me out and called 999. Ambulance to hospital. It was a heart attack brought on by an infection caused by a virus in the cough I had.
And that was the last time I drove a truck , just over 4 1/2 years ago.
Moral of the story…be sensible if you feel ill !!!
not me but trucker i know keeps getting short blackouts followed by a fit . happens at home
these gradually getting worse each time
hes been to doctor but wont tell them the real detail in case his licence is taken away. iv told him you got to fess up
corij:
not me but trucker i know keeps getting short blackouts followed by a fit . happens at homethese gradually getting worse each time
hes been to doctor but wont tell them the real detail in case his licence is taken away. iv told him you got to fess up
I know one too. De more Energy Drinks he has they more Black-outs.
Its the Sugar,and no Doctor could help,if its comming from that. Only changing Eating and Drinking habit were helpfull.
But,Yes. There are hundrets other Things possible and i never sugest not consulting a Doctor. Just giving an Idea regarding Eating/drinking
I tore my Achilles tendon when down in Freiderickshaven and couldn’t walk for ten days but luckily got the truck back to the UK and it finally gave way with absolute agony two days later after getting home then leg in plaster for two months. I actually got the job of here just to help someone out and did it on the cheap but lost out mesen enormously as couldn’t then do my own job 
(thankfully the unit was a Renault Premium and fully automatic)
left n.i. not feeling great…spent night on the norse viking,never ever eat on that boat,so couldnt blame it…felt grimmer as the day went on…ist grub was chips at 7pm…watched them sail out of the door vomiting them up shortly later…dropped fridge into stone,spent 3 days drinking water and ■■■■■■■■ rings round myself out of the door…phoned and said id call when i could last an hour or more between spewing and ■■■■■■■■…lifted a load,over on the fery,dropped it and bounced home…no idea what it was other than food poisoning and flu all together.worst ive ever been.there was some bug going about that was killing the oldies etc and they had closed the hospitals because of it. to be fair to the dude i was working for,he told me to bounce from stone to cairnryan and just get home if i was bad,but i couldnt have cost him the diesel and the ferry… theres some bosses that have a heart.
damoq:
If I end up with the flu next week, I’m blaming you sprinter si. [emoji23] [emoji23] How dare you bring your lurgy north of the border with you!!!
Haha, to be fair East Kilbride is usually cold enough to kill off most living organisms, including any viruses, so I think you’re probably safe.
With regards to my employers, with most jobs there are positives and negatives, we stay with our current employers if, after taking everything into account, the positives outweigh the negatives. As for me, jobs like mine don’t grow on trees around here, the money is good, it’s secure, the job’s a piece of ■■■■, my daily commute is only 8 minutes and I’ve worked for them for 15 years. But their stance with regards to attendance bonuses has always been the same and they will not budge. I’ve kicked up a fuss about it but they will not budge. A few years ago I had 2 weeks off when my Mum died, they took my £50 Xmas bonus away due to the time off. I kicked up a right stink, but their answer was “you have to have 100% attendance for the year, regardless of what the absence was for, it we make an exception for you then when we’d have to make one for everyone.” Last year the same, 1 day off all year due to having to stay off to look after my wife who was basically too ill to stand up without assistance whilst she fought off a 24 hour virus, again no Xmas bonus. It’s not the money I’m bothered about, lets be honest £50 isn’t exactly a vast sum of money, but the principle is all wrong. I’ve made my feelings known but it’s a case of like it or lump it, and as the job has so many other things going for it, I put up with it. Besides it’s cost them in the long run, as I’m paid hourly let’s just say that I’ve dragged a few runs out to make up for the sense of injustice. In their defence, they have allowed me to have Wed/Thur/Fri off this week as holidays so that I don’t lose any bonuses.
One good thing to come out of this bout of illness though is my discovery of Night Nurse. An earlier poster mentioned Day Nurse, well I’d never used either of these products until now, and I can safely say that unlike a lot of expensive products on the market, Night Nurse is amazing stuff. I struggle to get to sleep at the best of times, never mind when aching all over and snot running down the side of the face, but this stuff knocks you right out and you definitely feel better the next day.
i wont work if im ill i think its irresponsible on 2 counts 1 if its flu or the like all your doing is spreading it to other people and 2 if you not well you cant concentrate fully on driving its not like working in an office where you can carry on without endangering other peoples lifes the reasonable thing is to take the time to get better which is why i strongly believe that all company’s should pay sick pay when a doctor signs you off its about time we had decent terms and conditions of employment its not always about the headline hourly rate
I think that driving while, knowingly, being ill would not count as mitigation in the event of an accident. Driving while under the influence of drink or drugs (Night Nurse?) or being medically unfit to drive is an offence.
Are you fit for duty?
The trouble is, we all tend to soldier on out of a sense of duty and self-respect.
Euro:
I think that driving while, knowingly, being ill would not count as mitigation in the event of an accident. Driving while under the influence of drink or drugs (Night Nurse?) or being medically unfit to drive is an offence.
Are you fit for duty?
The trouble is, we all tend to soldier on out of a sense of duty and self-respect.
You need to be Physically and Psychically Fit to operate a Vehicle.