I was out in the Warwickshire Police tractor unit on the M40/M6 a couple of weeks ago and was sad to see quite a few HGV drivers using mobile phones. A couple of drivers were even on Facetime: we could quite clearly see the driver’s wife/girlfriend on the screen. As well as getting 6 points on their licence and a £200 fine, drivers found using mobile phones are called to a conduct hearing with a traffic commissioner. The “starting point” for using a mobile phone while driving a commercial vehicle (of whatever weight) is a four week suspension of the HGV driving licence - this is almost always more financially damaging to a driver than the fine.
Until I became a traffic commissioner I used to think that the most dangerous occupations were something like North Sea oil diver or opposition politician in Russia. But in fact being the wife or partner of a mobile phone-using HGV driver seems to be the most life-threatening occupation of them all. Almost all the drivers who come before me for a mobile phone offence tell me that their wife/partner was seriously ill in hospital and they were expecting an urgent call. The call from the hospital was the only one they had ever answered on their mobile, and by an amazing coincidence that also happened to be the very moment that the police saw them. Having been born in 1960 rather than yesterday I do not always take this at face value! Is this excuse recommended on a website somewhere?!
TCs, the police and others have been banging home the message about mobile phone use for at least 20 years. Yet some drivers still do it. Isn’t the internet yet full enough of horror videos showing what can happen when an HGV driver distracted by their mobile phone hits another vehicle?
TCs don’t actually get any pleasure from handing out 4 and 6 week suspensions for mobile phone use. The world would be much safer if drivers didn’t use them in the first place. So please, help put us out of a job by not using your phone at the wheel.
Why oh why don’t we use technology to make it impossible to use a phone whilst driving?
Same for speeding, stop spending millions putting in average speed cameras and just use tech to make it impossible for vehicles to go above the limited
All priorities are in the wrong place
Help you out of a job? Heck the only thing the government get hard over now is thinking up new and stupid pointless regulation. I am sure if every HGV driver never used their phone again you/the government would find some new regulation to ■■■■ us with.
Maybe it will be fines for yawning whilst driving. Who knows.
Many say the HGV shortage is down to brexit or covid. No, I put it down to the stupidity of CPC, over regulation and constant fines. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-57638584
I’m doing all I can so I can leave the industry as soon as possible. Because for the peanuts I make it is simply not worth the risk. Its all about fines with you guys. That’s the problem. Your not happy until you screw people out of every single penny they have.
If someone gets caught using a mobile phone why not make them attend a training course? You know, so they can see first hand the risks and dangers of driving with a mobile phone. Na, why do that when we can just rake in a load of money by slapping them with a huge bill.
#rant over.
ps: I dont mind you posting here. I think it is good.
But come on stop ■■■■■■■ lecturing us. Because if your a truck driver and you took the time to register on a trucking forum chances are your not a stupid ■■■ driver that drives around facetiming people. Heck, maybe I am naive though. I personally like to think that the truck drivers on these forums are actually half way decent.
I don’t fully subscribe to the view that any halfway competent driver talking on a mobile phone suddenly becomes more dangerous than taking a bath with an electric heater. I will concede that there is an element of distraction as I know that I’ll mess up a reverse if I’m engaged in a handsfree conversation. So whilst I don’t think that merely talking on a mobile is the menace that we’re being conditioned to believe it is, there are a myriad of other things that people do with their smart phones whilst driving that are patently and blatantly dangerous and distracting, so I understand completely the ban on their use.
As an aside, mobile phone laws with regards to driving have been around for years now so there can’t be a single driver who is not aware of the consequences so it staggers me to observe constantly drivers with the phone pressed to their right ears! These people should be fined or banned for flouting the law for sure, but I suggest that the sheer stupidity of the act warrants sterilisation in order that their stupidity dies with them.
Its a nice idea,training courses instead of points and fines.But if thats all the consequences were,I might be tempted to take the odd call.But because you get the book thrown at you and even a ban,thats enough of a deterrent for me not touch the bloody thing.Its not nice but the only language some people understand.
So I have to agree with the system as it stands
adam277:
Many say the HGV shortage is down to brexit or covid. No, I put it down to the stupidity of CPC, over regulation and constant fines. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-57638584
If someone gets caught using a mobile phone why not make them attend a training course?
You don’t want CPC training but want training on why not to use a mobile phone? The CPC covers exactly this sort of thing.
Maybe if drivers weren’t making such basic errors such as using a mobile, not doing walk around checks, hitting bridges, not taking breaks, driving over hours, etc then maybe, just maybe, there wouldn’t be a need for CPC. We’re treated like children because some drivers act like children.
Personally I think the CPC should involve a test and be a lot more in depth and cover a broader area (more like a TM CPC) …BUT you only have to pass it once in your career and if you’re stupid enough to use your phone and get caught you lose your good repute and you’re out of the drivers seat for a very long time.
adam277:
Many say the HGV shortage is down to brexit or covid. No, I put it down to the stupidity of CPC, over regulation and constant fines. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-57638584
If someone gets caught using a mobile phone why not make them attend a training course?
You don’t want CPC training but want training on why not to use a mobile phone? The CPC covers exactly this sort of thing.
Maybe if drivers weren’t making such basic errors such as using a mobile, not doing walk around checks, hitting bridges, not taking breaks, driving over hours, etc then maybe, just maybe, there wouldn’t be a need for CPC. We’re treated like children because some drivers act like children.
Personally I think the CPC should involve a test and be a lot more in depth and cover a broader area (more like a TM CPC) …BUT you only have to pass it once in your career and if you’re stupid enough to use your phone and get caught you lose your good repute and you’re out of the drivers seat for a very long time.
The CPC is a good idea how it is done is terrible so we seem to agree. I’m all for tests for CPC although I think it should be more practical as well.
From what I have seen of the CPC it’s not fit for purpose like people who don’t even speak English basically sitting in a room for 8 hours without even understanding a word.
Quite often, the problem is that not all drivers understand a Traffic Commissioner’s role and legal responsibilities.
adam277:
Your not happy until you screw people out of every single penny they have.
It’s nothing to do with anybody’s happiness.
Traffic Commissioners don’t impose fines.
adam277:
If someone gets caught using a mobile phone why not make them attend a training course? You know, so they can see first hand the risks and dangers of driving with a mobile phone. Na, why do that when we can just rake in a load of money by slapping them with a huge bill.
Your first idea might be good if you could get the attendees to put their phones down during the course
However, there’s nothing to rake in… because Traffic Commissioners don’t impose huge bills (or fines.)
Quite often, the problem is that not all drivers understand a Traffic Commissioner’s role and legal responsibilities.
adam277:
Your not happy until you screw people out of every single penny they have.
It’s nothing to do with anybody’s happiness.
Traffic Commissioners don’t impose fines.
adam277:
If someone gets caught using a mobile phone why not make them attend a training course? You know, so they can see first hand the risks and dangers of driving with a mobile phone. Na, why do that when we can just rake in a load of money by slapping them with a huge bill.
Your first idea might be good if you could get the attendees to put their phones down during the course
However, there’s nothing to rake in… because Traffic Commissioners don’t impose huge bills (or fines.)
It’s just semantics.
Dvsa, government, courts, police Its all the same thing
So when I said you guys I was speaking in general terms.
That’s why at the start I said ‘government get hard over fines’ I was speaking generally. Instead you skip to when I say you guys then break every single point I make down referencing the single time I used ’ you guys ’ and using it as a means to show my ignorance of traffic commissioners.
Hey guess what Dave traffic commissioners don’t impose fines and I didn’t need to type it three times.
I stand by everything I said.
First he/she comes on here a few weeks back telling us…Not to pull our card before finishing your day’s driving’
So now the latest gem of pontification is …‘Don’t use a mobile phone whilst driving’.
I’ll put both of those ‘useful tips’ in my ‘No ■■■■ Sherlock’ file, bearing in mind if somebody NEEDS to be told all this crap because they DON’T already know, then they’re beyond help anyhow.
Stay tuned for the next bleeding obvious point.
If you want to tell us something useful mate, tell us where all the spot checks are going to be, then those that would not normally bother will make sure everything is legal, then we may believe it’s nothing to do with raising money.
That reaction is a result of a lifelong aversion of any form of authoritive body , and a strong disapproval of being patronised.
robroy:
That reaction is a result of a lifelong aversion of any form of authoritive body , and a strong disapproval of being patronised.
Exceedingly patronising to say the least. It is about as patronising as a policeman/woman asking “where have we been tonight then”? It just rubs you up the wrong way. If caught using a mobile phone, no point in dwelling on the fact that they do not know it is wrong, obviously everyone knows that fact. Just get on with the consequences of the action, take the licence, fine them, end of story.
Makes me wonder if the Police have been orded by the Home Office to “go easy on drivers, especially foreign ones still driving here in the UK” - we must not accentuate the shortage by busting a few of them out of their licences before they end up killing innocent members of the public - must we?
First he/she comes on here a few weeks back telling us…Not to pull our card before finishing your day’s driving’
So now the latest gem of pontification is …‘Don’t use a mobile phone whilst driving’.
I’ll put both of those ‘useful tips’ in my ‘No [zb] Sherlock’ file, bearing in mind if somebody NEEDS to be told all this crap because they DON’T already know, then they’re beyond help anyhow.
Stay tuned for the next bleeding obvious point.
If you want to tell us something useful mate, tell us where all the spot checks are going to be, then those that would not normally bother will make sure everything is legal, then we may believe it’s nothing to do with raising money.
That reaction is a result of a lifelong aversion of any form of authoritive body , and a strong disapproval of being patronised.
100% agree.
Maybe next week it will be not to share our tachograph card.
That plain white DAF tractor unit was busy on the A14 around Bury St.Edmunds on Wednesday, as it came last me and slowed down to take a look at me doing my thing legit. As a result of this the lay-bys where full of trucks having a chat with a police motorcyclist or two
Winseer:
Instead of posting about this on here, I’m surprised the “Commissioner” wasn’t copping the whole lot of 'em, as I would be doing, had I his job…
Using a mobile whilst driving, even a hands-free - is a distraction that can lead to fatal RTCs. That’s not a debatable point - It’s a fact!
It MUST be a fact if you’ve highlighted it in black then .
No it’s NOT a fact Winseer, it!s a theory and an opinion backed up by biasedly used statistics, and going by the wording of your first sentence, so is scratching your arse.
If you can multi task, or if you have a brain and be more aware of your surroundings in the act, it’s as safe as any other thing you do whilst driving, if you’re an inept f/whit, then yeh it’s dangerous…After saying that, I don’t do it as I’ve grown fond of my licence.
And another thing.
Touching your phone can get you nicked, not sure if true but I’ve read about drivers moving their phone on the dash and getting pulled for it.
So what about these electronic laden abomination new Mercs?
Afaik the radio (and everything else) is touch screen.
So my phone would be in a holder 2’’ above that screen, if I tune the radio I’m all fine and legal if matey and his snouty copper mates rock up alongside me in their unit…BUT.
If I fancy listening to a station via an app, I move my fingers 2’’ up to touch an icon on my phone laid out the same way as the truck screen, the copper looking at me through a camera moistenes his knickers as he has now got me.
And they don’t do it for the money?
Aye right.
" When the vehicle is moving, it is possible to prevent the driver from interacting with the device by locking the screen. It is also possible to configure the device to auto reject phone calls, auto hang up or auto enable the speaker on the device or a Bluetooth connected hands free or headset. "
Your first idea might be good if you could get the attendees to put their phones down during the course 
