miketdt:
Harry Monk is right what the hell is it coming too. I remember changing a clutch at the side of the road in the middle of the night using the roll-loader brick crane to hold and slide the gearbox back once Id dropped the propshaft before the night fitter arrived with new clutch. Drivers what!
If my clutch goes the only dropping and sliding into place I will be doing is my body into the bunk.
Vascoingles:
What has this profession come to when we get 25 posts about chnaging a marker light, good god if the thing bothers that much drive 10 miles down the road stop at a garage and fix it and get on with the job, it is called initiative.
I thought Eddie Stobart bought them out 
or when a company tells a driver unreservedly under NO circumstances are they to carry out ANY repairs to the vehicle[/b][/b][/b]
happened me last year when i replaced the abs cable on my unit the so called transport supervisor gave me a bolicking saying its up to the garage to replace the cable.
i asked the doppy ■■■■■ what would have happened if i was five hours from base and it happened wait for the garage to come to the rescue ?
talk about so called transport supervisors she had a degree in transport didnt know about wtd/drivers hours the list goes on how do these people get jobs when they dont know there arse from there elbow.
aranger:
If my clutch goes the only dropping and sliding into place I will be doing is my body into the bunk.
…and that just about epitomizes what the job has become, brought about, over time, by lazyness, unionitus (“its not my job”) and dopes trying to do things that they didn’t know how to do but being too dopey to ask.
miketdt:
Harry Monk is right what the hell is it coming too. I remember changing a clutch at the side of the road in the middle of the night using the roll-loader brick crane to hold and slide the gearbox back once Id dropped the propshaft before the night fitter arrived with new clutch. Drivers what!
Couldn’t agree morte Mike. A good friend, in the early 80’s, changed an F12 seperate cylinder head 1/2 way up a mountain pass in France/Italy (I forget).
hiya, that’s it, lights out good night all, oh ■■■■ can’t go to bed yet the bulb’s gone in my bedside lamp and i’ll have to wait for the sparky to replace the bulb to light my way to bed. thanks harry long retired.
harry_gill:
‘…what is the industry coming to …’
‘…Coming to…?’ The industry is in Europe now - courtesy of what society voted us into back in 1972: I was too young to vote back then (but suffer the same nause as Moorey) …so the answer is that it has ‘come to’ what old people voted for - so blaming old people works for me although they should only drive cars with points that rattle the timing out and spend every weekend greasing umpteen dozen grease ■■■■■■■. I’d ban them from computers too…
harry_gill:
‘…may be going back in time…’
A sepia or a rose tinted monacle anyone?
harry_gill:
‘…as for going to the hassle of going through the defecting process i couldn’t be bothered…’
Thoughtful inspiration. Us ‘next generation’ is now firmly in the dwang of European inspired reg’s that choke us daily - as ‘long retired’ conspirators turn their backs on it.
harry_gill:
‘…get a life and keep your job…’
Yeah, and hark back to when tuberculosis, dyptheria, polio & being flat out at 35 mph whilst peering through pea-soupers were fashionable too: I clearly don’t know that I’m born…
Mike-C:
Great advice, take it out (like he’s been told not to) and then change the bulb (like he’s been told not to).
I suppose you wouldn’t wipe your backside without the proper instructions and 3 page hand book on how to do it either
When i worked for a truck and trailer rental company, and it is a big company one of my jobs was to check the truck or trailer for any defects if i found a bulb out i would have to get the fitters in to do it, it was forbidden to do it full stop can get the chop for it. it was even in my contract, and it said some think like this “in no way make any repairs to any truck or trailer, you as a driver only report it we have companies on call for this if you do any work on a truck you could be liable for any damage done to said truck or trailer and dismissed” when i ask the depot manager he said no no don’t do any thing not even a bulb.
anyway had to take a truck for MOT and when i got there the truck failed on a side marker, anyway i had a bulb in my bag and though there would let me change it, but first though i better ring just in case, the boss said wait the the fitters will come and fix it, i told him i had a bulb and could fit it he said no no do not do it you have been warned, few min later the vosa man at the test place said have you fixed it no waiting for fitter mate, he said do you have a bulb i said yes but can’t fit told not to or else, he laughed.
later i asked why is it a no no to change bulbs, he told me that a trailer went up in smoke cos some one put the wrong bulb in and ever since that no one but fitters have to change bulbs
the head office produce blurb that has no relevance to day to day operations… We have all read "corporate " hand books and know down at the bottom end most gets ignored because its impractical, and is only the company covering its arse. so when they say drivers cant change a bulb, or leave with a light out, what in effect it means is that if anything happens they can say we told the driver not to do it.
On a depot level- they dont give a ■■■■ about the head office blurb, as long as you get your arse in gear and get moving, but if it all goes badly wrong they will point at the blurb and say the driver shouldnt have taken the truck out
on a driver level, keep your gob shut, grab a few spare bulbs and just change it, saves all the greif and hassle- and its not exactrly brain surgery, even I can do it.
SO…
On paper and according to the Head office you did every thing right, according to your depot TM your a pain in the arse, and for the sake of just fixing it you caused yourself a load of grief. Theres no right or wrong with this one… except that head office wil never know you followed their handbook to the letter, but the TM in your depot you allocates you your work will know and remember you were a pain about it,
My advice… take option 3, its quicker, easier and drivers have been doing it for years and years and I have never heard of a driver being killed or seriously injured changing a trailer bulb
Blown upper trailer markers are now marked for action at service at our place as the blokes have to use ladders, wear a harness and goggles 
I didn’t know Arthur Scargill had a HGV licence now 
P.S the Schmitz trailers my old mob had, had both normal and palm couplings on the air lines 
lots of marker lamps on newer trailers are led units that have no bulbs as such…the whole unit must be replaced(unless its a wiring fault…are we supposed to be auto electricians now?)
correct me if im wrong but can you not get a fixed penalty for defective lights now??
a dhl depot i was in last night has a notice up telling its drivers how important the walkround check is with the introduction of fixed penalties?
xamtex:
a dhl depot i was in last night has a notice up telling its drivers how important the walkround check is with the introduction of fixed penalties?
They have that notice up in our depot as well. They also give us a bulb kit for the vehicle, even labelled up with the vehicle reg, so we can change bulbs when required, then we get given more bulbs to replace what we have used from the kit. No one has been killed or maimed changing a bulb yet.
Vascoingles:
Mike-C:
Great advice, take it out (like he’s been told not to) and then change the bulb (like he’s been told not to).I suppose you wouldn’t wipe your backside without the proper instructions and 3 page hand book on how to do it either
That’s a bit unfair, mate …the bloke is simply conforming to European reg’s, ie, of the Europe that you clearly love by your location in Spain - of whom the ‘…wiping of backsides…’ & toilet paper disposal habits are a disgrace.
Sigmund Freud would have a field day with your Freudian post suggestion whilst many here have doubtless encountered the conversation feared by many from the clean & safe UK:
Q. Briton: ‘Where do I put the used bog-paper, mate?’
A. Spaniard: ‘Oh just chuck it in the waste paper bin’
No killer diseases or unpleasantness there, eh? Which is to suggest that ‘one size does not fit all’ in many ways with this ludicous EU lark, whether it be accepting ‘Euro Lorry fixing reg’s’ or cultural acceptance of wanting to chuck used bog-paper the same way as fellow Europeans (with whom pro-EU politicians tell us that we apparently share so much (?))
hiya, H K there wasn’t a vote for or against into or stay out of europe in the 70s, had there been i would have voted NO as would every now old fogie i know and especially among the driving fraternity who had the forsight to have an idea how the industry would finish up as for the driving at 30 and a bit mph in 1972 i had an atki which would do 70 plus a shade faster than the tortoises of the present day.thanks harry long retired.
harry_gill:
hiya, H K there wasn’t a vote for or against into or stay out of europe in the 70s,.
Happy Keith:
That’s a bit unfair, mate …the bloke is simply conforming to European reg’s, ie, of the Europe that you clearly love by your location in Spain - of whom the ‘…wiping of backsides…’ & toilet paper disposal habits are a disgrace.Sigmund Freud would have a field day with your Freudian post suggestion whilst many here have doubtless encountered the conversation feared by many from the clean & safe UK:
Q. Briton: ‘Where do I put the used bog-paper, mate?’
A. Spaniard: ‘Oh just chuck it in the waste paper bin’No killer diseases or unpleasantness there, eh?
think you’re a bit out of order on saying our toilet paper disposal habits are a disgrace when most of the uk is covered in plastic bottles full of urine
you’ve obviously only ■■■■■ in the middle of spain because like vasco and i we live near the sea and the paper goes down the pan to the treatment works but in the country they have more septic tanks which can’t cope with paper
not sure about vasco but my location in europe was dictated solely by my job in the uk being taken by east europeans for less money and my local christian school for my daughter becoming muslim religion school because of their growing numbers
as far as killer diseases go i think the uk is the third worst for swine flu at the moment 
hiya, from one harry to another yes i said 1970s instead of 1972 i did know of the later vote to which i voted NO as did just about everybody i know and it’s not only my theory that vote was doctored to suit the government of the day. thanks harry long retired.
Vascoingles:
What has this profession come to when we get 25 posts about chnaging a marker light, good god if the thing bothers that much drive 10 miles down the road stop at a garage and fix it and get on with the job, it is called initiative.
It’s an EU thing.
The EU are all about ticking boxes, collecting statistics, risk assessment, health & safety, human rights issues, insurance liabilities, just about anything they can find to stop the job getting done the easy way.