wire:
I know that…They should have their own parking areas though.
Really?.. So you are saying that a portion of every truckstop should be reserved for reefers only?
The first time that you could not find a space to park because you were not pulling a reefer and only reefer spaces were available you would be even more unhappy than you are now.
Not really.
Stanley Knife:
I have two opinions on that Fileep. First the driver should have been sacked for sheer incompetence in not resetting the fridge - £20k of goods is a lot of stuff to lose.Stan
The driver might have been doing the job for many years and it never made that mistake before, would you
you sack him for one error?
OR maybe he was new learning his way, trying to find delivery points, remember his hours, sure give him a bollocking, and if he’s any good he’ll never make that mistake again.
Of course if he does then they’d be a case to get rid of him, but for one error?
Coffeeholic:
ncooper:
The answer would be to switch the fridge to cycles, mostly they will then stop, at least for the duration of a break.I know what you are saying about the break but if I have one parked beside or near me on a night out I prefer it to be on constant. The fridge running constantly doesn’t bother me at all but the stop starting and the warning noise before it starts does cause me to wake up.
Yes, I can sleep through a fridge running continuously.
I once spent the night in a Scottish gale, one of the ones that blew several dozen lorries over.
I was surrounded by glass (greenhouses) yet I was woken up by the fridge…because it had broken down and stopped 
It was keeping cucumber plants warm in winter and would only run for 10 minutes at a time after that.
The rest of the night was joylessly spent running it every hour 
It was one of those few times when I temporarily wished I was in a different job.
Regards,
Nick
If you can sleep through an anologue tacho clock ticking you can sleep through anything
That warning buzzer seems to be exactly the same pitch as an Italian mosquito. 
bubsy06:
If you can sleep through an anologue tacho clock ticking you can sleep through anything
Make sure both the first and the second driver modes are set to rest and with a lot of units the ticking should go away. It’s when the unused second driver mode is left on POA or Work that the ticking is the worst.
Coffeeholic:
bubsy06:
If you can sleep through an anologue tacho clock ticking you can sleep through anythingMake sure both the first and the second driver modes are set to rest and with a lot of units the ticking should go away. It’s when the unused second driver mode is left on POA or Work that the ticking is the worst.
Its one of those halfcast digi/analogue tachos, will check it out on monday.
bigvern1:
I hate fridges with a passion. You park in a quiet spot, go to sleep, and a sneaky [zb] pulls up next to you during the night. You can’t move cos’ you have pulled your card. Even worse when you’re on a 24 break.
weds night i parked at michealwood services, therefore i woke up at 4 am thursday morning by a supermarket truck reversing in beside me with the fridge blasting away full pelt with a reversing bleeper going. i wasnt due to get up till 5am. ■■■■■■■
i dont mind fridges and occasionly do fridge work and always do my best to park away from other trucks, now with a belly full of vodka wish i had given him a mouthfull.
jessicas dad:
weds night i parked at michealwood services, therefore i woke up at 4 am thursday morning by a supermarket truck reversing in beside me with the fridge blasting away full pelt with a reversing bleeper going. i wasnt due to get up till 5am. [zb]..
Fair enough that he shouldn’t have had his reversing bleeper turned on, the rules about reversing bleepers are the same as about sounding a car horn at night, but having his fridge motor running is an entirely different matter.
Basically, all of that fruit and veg, and all of that frozen food that you and your missus buy doesn’t just walk to the supermarket while you are asleep. The Tesco Fairy doesn’t magic it there.
It’s bad enough having to explain this to the punters, but surely you are a truck driver too?
How did he know that kids turned the fridge off? Not sure about anyone else but i don’t usually see kids wandering around the lorry parking area at MSAs, my guess would be another driver turned it off after being woken for the 4th or 5th time when the fridge fires up.
I’ve never done fridge work, & that’s because i know my sleep would suffer, but i do sympathise with fridge drivers when it comes to parking up at night. They’re in the same boat as the rest of us, so consideration for other drivers feelings is limited when down to your last 10mins driving time & running out of options.
Having said that, i was parked up in that big parking area on the A2 near Northfleet about 10am a couple of months ago, apart from a few cars it was empty, i decided to have an hours kip, pulled the curtains & was just nodding off when a fridge pulled in & parked alongside me, empty car park & he wants to be sociable 
I was not a happy bunny the rest of the day. 
I never had mine turned off, they were probably too thick to work it out. In fact it wasn’t a fridge, it was a skeletal trailer with a generator or a generator on a tank. It didn’t keep anything cold, but kept it warm, quite amazing how many times I have parked on my own in a quiet corner to be surrounded by muppets in a curtainsider or a container the next morning.
They always have something to say, yet they were stupid enough to park beside me 
I can guarantee, if there were separate parking areas for auxiliary engines, a coach or a lorry would park next to it. 
bubsy06:
Bit odd that the panels are not behind a lockable door
Some small company’s probably do but with the amount of trailer swapping and sub-contracting etc it would become an industry standard key for the panel lockable door would become commonplace (similar to radiator bleeding keys or factory electronic panel keys) and you’d be able to get them/pick them up anywhere, thus defeating the purpose from a perspective.
Or on the complete other side a driver losses the key at a crucial moment i.e valuable load on and his fridge cut’s out etc, then he can’t get in to list the fault(s) on the panel/reset alarms etc.
Or they would just get burst open for whatever reason (lost key/other drivers etc) if they didn’t have a key, causing expense and annoyance.
Generally on subjects like this if the idea (in this case lockable panel doors) was of any use it would have been implemented a long, long time ago as despite what you may believe, there are lot’s of very smart people in this industry.
dave_k:
bubsy06:
Bit odd that the panels are not behind a lockable doorSome small company’s probably do but with the amount of trailer swapping and sub-contracting etc it would become an industry standard key for the panel lockable door would become commonplace (similar to radiator bleeding keys or factory electronic panel keys) and you’d be able to get them/pick them up anywhere, thus defeating the purpose from a perspective.
Or on the complete other side a driver losses the key at a crucial moment i.e valuable load on and his fridge cut’s out etc, then he can’t get in to list the fault(s) on the panel/reset alarms etc.
Or they would just get burst open for whatever reason (lost key/other drivers etc) if they didn’t have a key, causing expense and annoyance.
Generally on subjects like this if the idea (in this case lockable panel doors) was of any use it would have been implemented a long, long time ago as despite what you may believe, there are lot’s of very smart people in this industry.
It could be a simple thing to be able to set the temperature from the load compartment with an on off switch on a remote or bluetooth.
These companies that demand a constant printout for the load, do they ever order anything from the continent, because every monkey on the train are trained to turn off the fridge before the driver gets out of the cab
I am on fridges now…Can`t say I notice the noise too much, not had a problem having a kip with the fridge running…But I did notice them when I was on curtainsiders, must be a psychological thing.
So if those who do nut run fridges, pretend they do, they should get a good kip 
One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Canada was how no one seems to mind noise when parked up for the night in Canada or America. Firstly there are far more fridges in north America so its more of the norm but also the vast majority of trucks still have no night heaters so they have the truck running all night, often on high idle to over-ride any auto-shutdown they may be fitted with that turns the engine off after a few minutes of normal idle.
You can pull into a truckstop here and park between two box vans or flat beds with a screaming monster of a reefer and no one bats an eyelid or says a thing.
Another thing with reefers here is that the insulation is far worse than a European trailer, if you turn it off, within an hour your likely to have water flowing out the back end. When I was pulling De Rijke fridges in the UK I’d usually turn it off at night if it was a frozen load of fries etc and the next morning it would still be well below freezing and would only have lost 5 or 6 degree’s. Here the load would be thawed out and ruined.
Coffeeholic:
ncooper:
The answer would be to switch the fridge to cycles, mostly they will then stop, at least for the duration of a break.I know what you are saying about the break but if I have one parked beside or near me on a night out I prefer it to be on constant. The fridge running constantly doesn’t bother me at all but the stop starting and the warning noise before it starts does cause me to wake up.
Agree 100% but the correct reply to this thread is NTSA.
any fridge trailer that cant hold its temp when switched over night should be scrapped
Harry Monk:
jessicas dad:
weds night i parked at michealwood services, therefore i woke up at 4 am thursday morning by a supermarket truck reversing in beside me with the fridge blasting away full pelt with a reversing bleeper going. i wasnt due to get up till 5am. [zb]..
Fair enough that he shouldn’t have had his reversing bleeper turned on, the rules about reversing bleepers are the same as about sounding a car horn at night, but having his fridge motor running is an entirely different matter.
Basically, all of that fruit and veg, and all of that frozen food that you and your missus buy doesn’t just walk to the supermarket while you are asleep. The Tesco Fairy doesn’t magic it there.
It’s bad enough having to explain this to the punters, but surely you are a truck driver too?
all i ask for is care and consideration to other drivers not zb you attitude, as it happens i sleep like a log and as long as the fridge is on constant fair enough. this driver went out of his way sqeezed into a space so he didnt have to walk to far to the garage.
not everyone is a heavy sleeper and some people struggle with sleep so this fridge driver could have ruined someones already troubled sleep so he didnt have to walk an extra 23 - 30 yards.
as ive said ive done fridge work myself and always parked as far away from other lorries as possible.
if the fridge is there first then thats down to others to park away.
Maybe parking areas could have electric suplies so fridgies could be plugged in overnight?
You should try Michaelwood North daytime in a Stobart wagon! A magnet for all the fools with no consideration for the only wagon in the old truckpark and parks right next to me!! So I switched his reefer off and told him to foxtrot Oscar to another part of the park!! If you have to be told then maybe you shouldn’t be driving LGV’s 