Today I walked into our office to be confronted by our chief driver trainer brandishing a piece of paper that he wanted me to sign. “What is it?” “an infringement for speeding “ he replied. I looked at it and it cited 91kph for one minute. I knew exactly where this had happened so I refused to sign it.
His response of “well you were speeding “ was met by my “no I wasn’t, it’s a 60mph limit for my vehicle there as you well know”. Anyway he then went on to say that it was a construction and use offence due to the speed limiter fitted, which I rebutted with the old “powered to a speed in excess of 56mph and I was coasting downhill”
I told him that yes, I had contravened company policy and I’d happily accept any sanctions they deemed fit, but I simply wasn’t signing an infringement as I didn’t consider it to be a legitimate tachograph infringement.
Yes I was being arsey for arseys sake and I could’ve simply signed it and promptly forgotten about it, but it irritated me and I decided to take a stand.
Thoughts on this are welcome either criticism or agreement.
There could be an issue of fairness if other tachos in the fleet are set at 92kph or more to trigger an overspeed event. Ask for evidence that the entire fleet is set at 90kph before signing.
Sounds like poor communications all round.
What the driver training was referring to was “overspeed” rather than excess speed
As a good trainer, they could have approached it differently snd you’d both have had a better outcome.
Perhaps I need to come and help the company on developing the compliance systems I can understand completely how signing under those circs was not a good idea. We could have tried the calm rational response “yes by all means I’ll sign the form, but could you explain to me what exactly I’m signing for and the consequences”. That’s being completely proactive, polite and not obstructive
I don’t care for such things as trivia as these silly infringements. I just sign them and get on with my day, don’t think anything more about them. I don’t think anything less of anyone refusing to sign them as that is up to them, nothing happens either way.
Noremac:
There could be an issue of fairness if other tachos in the fleet are set at 92kph or more to trigger an overspeed event. Ask for evidence that the entire fleet is set at 90kph before signing.
Easy. There’s a calibration sticker somewhere in every cab. They will all say calibrated to 90kph - you will never find one calibrated to 92kph.
However… that’s not to say that the scope of the 90kph can’t necessarily be altered by for example fitting low (but legal) tread tyres on prior to calibrating, then putting new tyres on after. Or simply asking the service centre if they can chuck a couple of clicks on it, wink wink, and they may or may not oblige.
On subject I was forever getting them at my old place. Same argument - construction and use blah blah. In the end I decided to play them at their own silly game and request further training - a condition of holding an operators licence - and any firm ■■■■ enough for this will want to show the TC that they are proactively managing this heinous crime and will document that drivers have been given refresher training etc.
Except when it boils down to it that’s extra work for the driver trainer which won’t cut much mustard with transport when you have to spend half a shift with a driver trainer not doing any work, or when he has to spend half a day actually doing something. The issue quickly stopped after that
Nowadays being a supermarket plobber I can almost guarantee I never go swift enough to register an overspeed
Some might agree some might disagree but here’s a fact:
The speed limit maybe 60 but your vehicle is limited to 56 therefore you are committing an offence of exceeding your limited speed under C&U regs
I bet you work for the yanks that are taking everything over
Done same with me and i did exactly same as you,it’s a company policy by all accounts but I wouldn’t sign it either…
If he was being a tool about it, then that’s just him showing poor management skills. From the sounds of it I’d imagine him to be the kind of person who gets carried away with himself because hes been given a bit of a “position”. But it’s more the job of the TM to speak to you about any infringement and I’d hope they would have a more sensible approach.
Getting these reports signed is a bog-standard thing for any decent TM to do, I’ve just done a bunch of them today for last month. I still get my drivers to sign for a monthly analysis report even when everything is 100% hunky dory, which is always accompanied by positive comments to show it’s appreciated. Nobody objects because they all know its par for the course, and they all know the gaffers need them to toe the line, because they all know why I was brought in help the company and they all know there’s an big audit next year which is crucial to the company’s survival.
Any decent auditor expects to see signed analysis reports for all drivers and would raise the issue with a TM if these were filed away without evidence they’d been shown to the drivers. I’m confident Acorn will tend to corroborate this.
Every TM has their own policy on overspeeds, some are harsher than others, for me working with a “family run business” a lot depends on the overall compliance of the individual driver, and how well they’re liked by the bosses; genuine slips are taken in context, but so are the ‘taking the mick’ regular events. Speeding from site to site doesn’t impress the gaffers, as evidenced by our most heavy-footed driver getting spontaneously made “surplus to requirements” last week.
justpassing:
Some might agree some might disagree but here’s a fact:
The speed limit maybe 60 but your vehicle is limited to 56 therefore you are committing an offence of exceeding your limited speed under C&U regs
I know a company with vehicles limited to 53mph but permit them to be driven up to 56mph. Are they complicit in the offence then?
It’s only the speed limiter being fitted that stops them going over 60mph, the engines are more than built for it. Just like a lot of wagons straight off the production lines are capable of heavy haulage even though they’re only going to be pulling 44T generally, just because speed limits and weight limits are applied doesn’t mean the machine isn’t built to handle more.
The speed limit is 60mph, the vehicle can’t be powered passed its limited speed, overrun downhill isn’t powered passed the limiter!
Dvsa look for overspeeds of more than 5 minutes that are more than 10km/h over the limited speed to indicate that the limiter might not be working and it’s not just from the overrun downhill, so further investigation would be required.
If it was speeding they would coin it in at the bottom of windy hill and all the others, they wouldn’t pass up on that!
justpassing:
Some might agree some might disagree but here’s a fact:
The speed limit maybe 60 but your vehicle is limited to 56 therefore you are committing an offence of exceeding your limited speed under C&U regs
There are offences about fitment and maintenance of speed limiter, but simply exceeding the stabilised speed limiter speed is not an offence under C&U.
By coincidence, the offence does not exist in the DVSA categorisation if offences and enforcements. Over speed is different to excess speed
It’s just a load of hogwash, the vehicle is limited to company policy so your still street legal for the minutes you went over their rules.
Get them to change the routes where you don’t have to go down any hills, ha ha.
Hard to believe the job has come to this but if you don’t read the fine print in the contact it can be a mistake, for all you know it might be there that you have to sign, just saying like not saying you haven’t
I can understand completely how signing under those circs was not a good idea. We could have tried the calm rational response “yes by all means I’ll sign the form, but could you explain to me what exactly I’m signing for and the consequences”. That’s being completely proactive, polite and not obstructive
.
stuff em…