Sixties boy:
As previously mentioned the local council gritters are normally driven by road maintenance drivers and managers.
Normally they receive “stand by pay” and get paid for all hours worked, as it falls outside drivers hours regulations, they can work 24hrs, which is one of the reasons there’s always a picture of a gritter in a ditch or on it’s side every year.
Also the DOT provided motorway gritters are, or at least were in my time, distributed to the same County Councils and driven by the same road maintenance workers as all the other types.
We had combined highways and motorway depots at Sunbury, Godstone, Weatherhill and our depot at Ewell was the central Transport and Highways depot and we moved them around the different depots as required and brought the DOT ones back in together for return to DOT’s storage facilities in the Spring.
I think in our case Leatherhead Motorway depot has taken over the work of the old long gone Ewell depot and at least Godstone.
While Merrow covered the major trunk routes like A3 which is more or less motorway class anyway and in my time Merrow had the arguably superior 6x6 Maggie Deutz.
As opposed to the DOT 6x4 Foden S85’s which had recently replaced the old Atkinsons but the S85 was a nice wagon to drive.
As a driver based at Ewell I usually only moved all the different types around the County during the day earning a lot less than the road maintenance crews getting night rate overtime and call out premium on top of their road digging wage.
I’m retired so not really interested in doing full time work now… However …
A few hours driving a gritter for a bit extra spending money might be interesting so I had a chat with my local gritter manager…
Quiet shocked that I can drive a gritter and don’t need a driver card! (I don’t have one as they came in after I retired so I would be
using the good old fashioned tacho)
But then he tells me that I don’t even need to put a disc in the tacho and the gritters don’t have them anyway!
The mind boggles that rules for drivers can be ignored so easily…
Tomorrow I am driving an electric powered thingy that clears leaves, for that I am getting paid more than I ever had for
driving an arctic with a max weight trailer behind it…
Martin:
I’m retired so not really interested in doing full time work now… However …
A few hours driving a gritter for a bit extra spending money might be interesting so I had a chat with my local gritter manager…
Quiet shocked that I can drive a gritter and don’t need a driver card! (I don’t have one as they came in after I retired so I would be
using the good old fashioned tacho)
But then he tells me that I don’t even need to put a disc in the tacho and the gritters don’t have them anyway!
The mind boggles that rules for drivers can be ignored so easily…
From memory gritters were in scope of domestic regs like other council use HGV’s so log book not tachos.
But generally gritting is reserved for road maintenance operatives.
Martin:
I’m retired so not really interested in doing full time work now… However …
A few hours driving a gritter for a bit extra spending money might be interesting so I had a chat with my local gritter manager…
Quiet shocked that I can drive a gritter and don’t need a driver card! (I don’t have one as they came in after I retired so I would be
using the good old fashioned tacho)
But then he tells me that I don’t even need to put a disc in the tacho and the gritters don’t have them anyway!
The mind boggles that rules for drivers can be ignored so easily…
From memory gritters were in scope of domestic regs like other council use HGV’s so log book not tachos.
But generally gritting is reserved for road maintenance operatives.
Yep,
No need for DCPC card because youre not moving goods commercially. Gritters are Road Maintenance, and so are exempt from EU rules [gov.uk/guidance/drivers-hou ... erogations](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/drivers-hours-goods-vehicles/1-eu-and-aetr-rules-on-drivers-hours#exemptions-and-derogations) So no need for tacho card either. If a tacho is fitted you could use it as an alternative to log books but it isnt legally necessary.
Sixties boy:
Also gritting falls under “emergency” procedures, so you can ignore EU and domestic hours regs.
I did wonder about that.
“Exemptions
You do not need to follow the GB domestic rules if you:
are dealing with an emergency - for example, a major disruption to public services or danger to life” gov.uk/drivers-hours/gb-domestic-rules
Is all gritting an emergency?
Or, in some circumstances, could be?
Sixties boy:
Also gritting falls under “emergency” procedures, so you can ignore EU and domestic hours regs.
I did wonder about that.
“Exemptions
You do not need to follow the GB domestic rules if you:
are dealing with an emergency - for example, a major disruption to public services or danger to life” gov.uk/drivers-hours/gb-domestic-rules
Is all gritting an emergency?
Or, in some circumstances, could be?
No, most of it is pre-planned treatment following a weather forecast earlier on.
At our local authority, the drivers can be messed around due to sticking to domestic hours rules, eg start at 7.30 sent home at 9.00, come back at 14.00 - 23.00,
Carryfast:
From memory gritters were in scope of domestic regs like other council use HGV’s so log book not tachos.
But generally gritting is reserved for road maintenance operatives.
Yep,
No need for DCPC card because youre not moving goods commercially. Gritters are Road Maintenance, and so are exempt from EU rules [gov.uk/guidance/drivers-hou ... erogations](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/drivers-hours-goods-vehicles/1-eu-and-aetr-rules-on-drivers-hours#exemptions-and-derogations) So no need for tacho card either. If a tacho is fitted you could use it as an alternative to log books but it isnt legally necessary.
I can remember an argument involving private contractors like AJ Bull and Drinkwater saying that our in house bulk refuse transport was in competition with them so should be subject to tacho rules like them.I was still using a log book to drive them, like everything else, when I left so not sure how that argument ended but I think tachos were retro fitted to our ro ro multilift vehicles at least ready for any required changes affecting them.
Sixties boy:
Also gritting falls under “emergency” procedures, so you can ignore EU and domestic hours regs.
I did wonder about that.
“Exemptions
You do not need to follow the GB domestic rules if you:
are dealing with an emergency - for example, a major disruption to public services or danger to life” gov.uk/drivers-hours/gb-domestic-rules
Is all gritting an emergency?
Or, in some circumstances, could be?
No, most of it is pre-planned treatment following a weather forecast earlier on.
At our local authority, the drivers can be messed around due to sticking to domestic hours rules, eg start at 7.30 sent home at 9.00, come back at 14.00 - 23.00,
Thanks. That seems to make sense.
Plan to have enough staff to be flexible to deal with a “normal” winter? Shunt them around within the Domestic laws. (Horrible for the employees but legal)
But if there is excessive snow or whatever and ?ambulances can`t move? Then that might count as an “Emergency”?
