I often on here read about contracts (usually distribution) where the clients want to see your license and other information. Never encountered it before yesterday. Single days work on steel, couple of drops within a sixty mile radius. I need your driving license, your digi card and your dcpc (I resisted the quip about the motorcycle). Then came the ruck of forms with all their rules, regulations, operating procedures and other crud, which being a single days work I didnāt bother taking in too much. I am āold skoolā in making sure the load is secure, dropped off at the right places, customers kept sweet and the truck brought back in one piece and anything else is just piffleā¦
Now this was a new one for me ā¦ āYou arenāt allowed on the back of the truck under any circumstances.ā Now this load was some long bars about 25ft long in three or four large bundles, with a couple of mixed pallets on top and a couple of smaller pallets against the headboard. I didnāt enter into dialect about this instruction, nor the one about wearing a hard hat at all times outside the truck, as once out the yard I am the one doing the job and solely responsible for my own safety. Get to the first drop, all four lots palletised to discover they didnāt have a forklift and it has to be craned off. No problem, get on the back of the truck with the crane operator and help them to sling it. Second drop a crane off job for the long bars, but the guy has proper steps to get on the truck and a remote controller on the crane, so no need for me to get onto the vehicle.
Out of curiosity, has anyone else done a job where you arenāt allowed onto the back of the vehicle? For steel in particular it seems a strange instruction and simply not practical with some loads or drops. Or indeed has anyone had any weird instructions in general as to what they can, or cannot do?
Very common on tippers nowadays that you canāt get in the back. In one job Iād taken topsoil from Faringdon to near Newbury and had to ring for other work. I get told to go out Thatcham way for a load of flint back to base so I climb in the tipper to have a quick scrape out. During that time my TM rings me but I donāt hear it. I ring back, apologize and say I was shovelling out some soil. I then get told off for breaking a health and safety rule and that if the bodyās contaminated Iām meant to go to my base, clean out and then get my backload.
So that would be Faringdon-Newbury-Witney-Thatcham-Witney. Some ābackload.ā
I was also told off for cleaning out the body by borrowing a digger on site. Site agent let me, no complaints but a colleague reported me.
Yep . More and more common with the blame culture for industrial accidents.
I had a place that you had to have a safety hat on so I bought a bump cap as it didnāt state a hard hat.
You have to remember us old school drivers are a dying breed and SOME of the new up and coming drivers donāt have the on the job camaraderie training we had that allowed the use of common sense.
When the company makes you sign an agreement to not get on the back of the truck you dont get on the back of the truck.
In reality they have covered their arse but know drivers will ignore this rule to get the job done thus leaving them wide open if things should go wrong.
What they dread is a driver following this rule and causing em grief by either asking for permission in writing to get on the back of the truck or the load dont move as it cant be secured properly from ground level or upsetting customers by not mucking in.
Annoying though as im old skool to and love getting on the back of trucks and mucking in, but now work on boxes so not allowed on the back of truckā¦
Blame culture society we live but with some element of logic as we are after all just the driver not slingers or labourers, ironically when I did 5 years an a hiab I was all 3.
Is it h&s why container drivers donāt help unload, or just not their job? I always think fair play when I see the driver putting his curtains around and leaving the customer to it.
The license checks are for the Insurance companies to make sure you are what you say you are
ie qualified HGV driver and not a farm tractor driver,
as for the Health & Safety on site its to protect them against you making a claim against them in case you get injured
even thou its common sense most of the time, and no hard hat, no safety boots/shoes and no hi-vizs NO LOAD,
and what donāt help is most of the EU drivers trying to get on sites just wearing shorts, t shirts and clogs / slippers and no understand English, hence a crack down on all PPE equipment before entering each of every site because of these " No win No fee " and " whereās thereās a blame thereās is a claim " Plus you should have been told all that before you are offered any job / work
If you work on Containers and you got to pick up paper waste from SCA Recycling, you must wear trouser and not shorts and long sleeves and not short sleeves and a hard hat because it there Health & Safety rules,
which use to make me chuckle as with there yard itās always wet and slippy under foot
another indecent was at Coke Cola Milton Keynes when I asked to borrow a step ladder to replace some roof straps, which by the way I was parked outside and not on site, the H & S manager said NO ! no reason given
We go into Pallet Line, Solihull & I hate the place with a vengeance, they told me āyou are not allowed to get out of the cab in the tipping hallā, the forkies do everything, so I let them close the curtains, drove out & you have to turn hard right out of the building, as I turned, I noticed that the Chimps hadnāt stowed the curtain ratchets properly, increasing the risk of pulling the Suziās out, so now if Iām tipping, I get out & make sure that the ratchets are stowed properly, sod the silly little rules. We are not allowed on the trailer, so when I need to get on the back I make sure that one of the forkies is watching me, wasting their time, we are not allowed near the load whilst they are loading it, so when theyāve trapped my straps, I make them take half the load off again so I can strap the load properly.
Play 'em at their own game.
Thank God Iāve only got 10 more years left in this business.
I delivered the first load of petrol to a new filling station and a couple of days later one of the office jerks told me the place had not been inspected and never had a licence for storing petroleum products
It was some time later when I was sent to another new garage at the bottom of Cheddar Gorge. I asked if they had been inspected and issued with a certificate . They did not know what I was on about so it was on the phone to the jerk and I spent many hours sat in the cab watching the crumpet walk by waiting for someone to come from the south coast and do the inspection.
Iāve had it where you can only open one curtain at a time and must ensure the other side is fully secured before opening one side.
Come across the not allowed on the back before.
Also played one site against their rules on no shorts to be worn, as I was wearing shorts. I said no problem but how can I make this delivery since I have no trousers. His reply was go outside the gate un strap the load, open the curtains and we will take it then. So I politely informed him Iām not driving anywhere with an insecure load. He disappeared came back and asked my my waist size and length as he was going to their uniform stores to get my new trousers. Thanks [emoji12] theyāre not a bad pair either.
LIBERTY_GUY:
Out of curiosity, has anyone else done a job where you arenāt allowed onto the back of the vehicle? For steel in particular it seems a strange instruction and simply not practical with some loads or drops. Or indeed has anyone had any weird instructions in general as to what they can, or cannot do?
I deliver for Tata steel and we havent been allowed on the back for the last 5yrs or more,
fortunately most of my drops are to small farms or little fabrication places where H+S is unheard of
The good thing about containers is the variety.
I will deliver to everything from overly ā ā ā ā RDCās to places where Health & Safety is unheard of.
Overtime I have realised that H &S has nothing to do with safety and is more an ā ā ā covering exercise for folks who at one time in their life have been face down in a toilet bowl. Boy do they love it if they witness an elf and safety breach.
For my own pleasure I now wear safety boots that resemble trainers and usually get asked if they have steel toecaps a smug smile and kick of something solid reveals they are. But I live in hope that one day some ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā is going to produce a hammer and try and be clever by hitting the toes for proof. I do miss the days I was paid to kill folk.
Iāve delivered to 2 sites where the Site Agent/Foreman has told me I canāt come in as I was wearing shorts, first one I said āIām coming in or I drop it in the site entrance.ā (He had no forklift on site, so would have been snookered.) He quickly gave up.
The second I told him, āI have medical condition that forces me to wear shorts all the time, as my sweat glands donāt workā¦ā I offered to produce a doctorās note to that effect. He looked at me funny, and then relented.
The thing that gets me, is yes I am delivering to ātheirā site. But Iām not actually delivering to them, Iām delivering to contractors working on their site. So all they are going achieve is slowing the job down.
And really, what is thing about no shorts? They donāt say you have to wear long sleeves do they?? Same bloody thing. Swamp donkeys.
And to the OP. Only twice have I been told I canāt get on the back of the truck. First time resulted in 30 bulk bags of bark being placed in a very unhelpful place. The second resulted in my boss(previous) telling me to tip 10 bulk bags of topsoil offā¦
mac12:
If they say you donāt go on the trailer you donāt go on it, if you cannot unload itās up to the office to sort not you.
In many traffic offices, it is usually some spotty faced kid with little comprehension of using initiative, or understanding the bay needs to be empty for the next lorry to come in? Me as an experienced guy on the scene, assesses the situation and acts accordingly. Yep I climb on the back, but retain three points on contact whilst getting on and off there and remember at all times I am standing on a platform off the ground. Ultimately I risk assess my own environment.
If you think about it logically, if a company was truly concerned for our safety and wellbeing, they wouldnāt let us out of the yard, as it is the roads themselves that are the most hazardous parts of our job, or to be more precise, some of the people we have to share those roads with. Even being in a truck isnāt safe if another truck slams into you.
depending on the size of the yard would a zoned off load securing area be possableā¦? with movable steps for accsess .prob not a practical idea in all cases though although im all for commonsense when standing on trailer deck and do/ have done quite alot of it. i feel alot of H&S is aimed at the lowest common denominator anyone with any experience and sence knows what they are doing
depending on the size of the yard would a zoned off load securing area be possableā¦? with movable steps for accsess .prob not a practical idea in all cases though although im all for commonsense when standing on trailer deck and do/ have done quite alot of it. i feel alot of H&S is aimed at the lowest common denominator anyone with any experience and sence knows what they are doing
Then came the ruck of forms with all their rules, regulations, operating procedures and other crud, which being a single days work I didnāt bother taking in too much. I am āold skoolā in making sure the load is secure, dropped off at the right places, customers kept sweet and the truck brought back in one piece and anything else is just piffleā¦ 
Now this load was some long bars about 25ft long in three or four large bundles, with a couple of mixed pallets on top and a couple of smaller pallets against the headboard. I didnāt enter into dialect about this instruction, nor the one about wearing a hard hat at all times outside the truck, as once out the yard I am the one doing the job and solely responsible for my own safety. Get to the first drop, all four lots palletised to discover they didnāt have a forklift and it has to be craned off. No problem, get on the back of the truck with the crane operator and help them to sling it. Second drop a crane off job for the long bars, but the guy has proper steps to get on the truck and a remote controller on the crane, so no need for me to get onto the vehicle.
