Driver-Once-More:
multi dropyou can either do it or you can’t
I did it for 11 years
Very true. I started out doing it, for firms like Courier Express (became Parceline now summat else) and worked for Nightfreight meself in the late 80’s, when they were still at the old hub. Still do it now for my current firm.
I’m in MAN TGA 18.240. 56 plate.
Rest of our fleet are same. Plus 3 Class 1 MANs. If thats any help.
15/25 drops then collections on route back to base
Hey Kev,
I do the same for them (Nightfreight - B&Q) in the South East through an agency on a Saturday only.
I’m getting my experience back up again after having to quit previous weekend driving work in 2009.
A) To see if my rose-tinted glass still fit and work, to see if I want to quit my “perm” job for real, I’ll let you guess where I am going with this if you can read between the lines!
B) Can I still do it, feel confident in doing it and enjoy doing it.
I went in on the Friday morning, said I can work weekends only, done the “agency paperwork” only agency I went too as well.
Agency called me up on that Saturday morning at 0530 can I be at such and such depot to take a load out, driver phoned up sick, bearing in mind I lived an hour away, had my bag packed but still wanted breakfast and shower. Got to depot at 07:00. One phone call from agency where are you…even though I was 2 minutes away. But depot had called him and he had said I was a lot closer than I actually was!!!
Yes some on here would say they wouldn’t get out of bed on the rate I am on here and I imagine you are on. Good on them, I hope to be there one day but I am not as lucky as them or my father so I can’t be a chooser…yet!
But I say this I supposedly do a professional job (you can check my opening posts on what I do) on a permanent salary but for the hours I work week in week out (on average work 65 hours) plus more if on weekends or doing tidal shifts. My salary only pays 8 hours per day everything over that is for free. Yes the true benefits of being on salary 
If you calculated my gross hourly rate from my permanent job on the hours I truly do not the 37.5 I am supposed to do, Nightfreight would be paying me better by £0.50 an hour, for every hour I work!!!
However I am not ready to trust an agency completely so I am setting up a battle fund to get my tickets, a savings fund of £6k to cover household bills (as a back up should work go slack) when I decided to leave and all debts gone before I am ready to quit. So that’s why I don’t do it Mon - Fri permanent.
I can just about tell you this from my time with them as they are the only company I go to so far with regards to placements. They are happy with me and vice versa. So i keep going back every weekend.
So far as for advice on doing this, I did multi-drop in 7.5t with Menzies for 4 years, so perhaps I had the advantage of knowing I can do it and enjoy it, rather than the trunk runs we had with magazines to other depots (which i dreaded and hated and was dangerous with driving at night post 3am!)
But the following people on this thread spoke a lot of sense in the different advice they gave you that you should follow to make your life easier.
Truckulent (with regards to truck sat nav and A-Z - I use both. A-Z for general routing and planning/truck sat Nav to get to final couple of miles of the particular postcode/traffic status update). Ps he is right 25 drops is manic even if close together, but keep your head and don’t panic.
GBPub - Route Planning, Route Planning, check the planners planning, so true!!!
Winseer - The time does pass faster and better being out working rather than hugging a coffee machine listening to BS! Only you can decide what you prefer. I prefer to be working its in my nature.
Santa - This is like the 10 commandments but 8 of them, so less to remember, that is a man with experience and I don’t think there is much more to say on that from me anyway, so read and digest it 
The 7.5t at our depot are hire, they are Renault Midlum - 12 plates, manual gearbox 6 speed, my preference to auto or semi but obvioulsy I am “old skool” without knowing it
Class 2 - 18t Scania 280 all the fleet is 3 pedal opti another local driver to me on here gave me some good advice how to use them efficiently, first time I used them I hated them. But learning to work with them rather than fighting them!
Both easy to drive, watch your mirrors, where you park how you drive into the estates, sometimes easier to reverse into the estate side roads if a dead end rather than reversing out between cars parked on both sides of the road. At least you’ll know you have a fighting chance of getting out by driving forward.
Only thing with 7.5t watch the axle loads, this week I think I incrimnated myself and overloaded the front axle by a lot by loading two runs into one! Not clever I misread the chart and thought it could do it. Won’t be doing that again in a hurry otherwise I would have been zb’d with a big fine to match.
I ignored the plan as we was behind, so don’t fall for that trick from the drivers mate to get home earlier (I wanted to as well so blindly done it without thinking about it properly), especially if they are on perm!
The 7.5 tonners do the store runs, so you drive to a store empty and pick up the orders already collated by the store and in a holding area and then load on with the help of a forkie. Look at their delivery plan of where you are going and load the pallets as per their sequencing and everything should be ok! First drops on the back closest tail lift, last on at the headboard.
Usually you’ll have between 10 - 15 drops on a Saturday on the 7.5 tonner. But one drop could be a extractor filter which weighs 100g. Or last week 8 pallets of limestone paving which weighs lots but that day we only did 3 drops for the whole shift!
On the 18 tonner it could be between 10 - 25 drops on a Saturday from a 200 piece kitchen for one drop to perhaps another extractor filter or envelop of fittings such as screws for one drop. Usually you will have a mixture of kitchens to unload, lots of lugging or one or two white goods for a customer.
Only done 3 collections in my time during a route, but others do more■■?!!! 
18 tonners already loaded and well secured, they get counter signed at end of loading before you pick them up. But you are welcome to open up and inspect security and add extra straps as you wish. They usually have loads on the back of the truck so use what you want or need too. No-one will complain.
All the lorries are basic, but they fit purpose for job, lack grunt but that’s cost savings for you and they are a workhorse at the end of the day not a showground horse.
When you arrive they’ll take a copy of your licence, should ask to see you digi and download it to check you ain’t been elsewhere and run out of hours.
Then you’ll be paired off with a driver’s mate/labourer. You’ll be given three sheets of paper for vehicle including a check sheet. A mobile phone to call the office and vice versa. A sat nav (rubbish car Tom Tom) so watch your height of your vehicle when approaching any bridges, don’t follow it blind!) The days delivery sheet.
The driver’s mate will call all the customers when you are about 30 minutes away to check if they are in and ready. If they are not you turn up, if still not in, leave a card tried to deliver and inform depot. Then return that load to depot at the end for a retry on a different date.
Driver’s mate usually have good advice of how to carry things and will do the scanning/paperwork. B&Q like to run it one permanent staff with one agecny and that goes for drivers/driver mates! However I have done two runs now with both agency staff on board, but those agency staff were full timers compared to me so it made no real difference. We didn’t mess around just claimed a fair days wage.
Other than that plan your journey, don’t panic my first day with them was a 14 hour trek as we were an hour and half behind schedule. But we were doing silly drops with huge mileages. But we did get two loads taken off us - two small separate envelopes given to a sprinter in the area.
Don’t bend your tacho unless you want too…only you’ll know if it suits you in some circumstances, as in your first 15 minutes if you are waiting for someone to let you in or sign the paperwork etc is what I mean, which is technically other work!!! (I’ve got my tine hat on from the others for this 
)
I wouldn’t advise it and don’t be swayed by the driver’s mate saying they know what they are doing. It’s your card and licence you’ll get in trouble and you will need your breaks if you unload a 200 piece kitchen up six floors to a flat! They won’t as they sit there after you unload whilst being chauffered.
Other than that no hassle from office. Only thing is if you are last vehicle out they call every 15 minutes until you are at the last drop. Let the drivers mate deal with it, don’t worry. They are trying to leave early as once you are at your last drop the office staff in the morning can go home and the afternoon/evening staff will do your tacho download when you get back and take the paperwork off you.
Not your problem as the office staff are paid just like you to be there 15 hours if needs be, so if its taking a little longer don’t worry just leave enough time to get back to that depot with any potential problems.
They work Tues - Sat. Mondays are overtime - offered it all the time, but of course it interferes with my 45 weekly rest! So don’t do it, but it you want the money its there every other week by doing your reduced weekly rest?! Your choice.
Mondays at my place are refueling all the trucks for Tuesday’s, all the fluid checks, taking any defected lorries for repair at the garage, washing and cleaning the lorries and finally putting them on the bays ready to be loaded with Tuesday’s deliveries as required.
Full timer’s permanent, don’t seem to like working Saturday and also certain people won’t work with agency if they know in advance so go sick. So don’t be suprised about that reaction until they get to know you! Not sure how they don’t get fired but they don’t.
I found speaking to everyone politely and not swearing at them or losing your rag, seems to keep everyone on your side and they couldn’t be more helpful and now request me in name too. I think that would be easy for you to do as well, as most drivers don’t want to do this kind of “easy” work.
Chill out and enjoy it, I’ll let you guess it I love it, but I want to get back into something construction related in driving, so I won’t do it forever if I went full time though unfortunately.
Ps Don’t believe the BS about wages now nightfright have taken over. Wincanton used to pay the drivers and drivers mates a fortune, £7k more than what I am on in my “Mon - Fri” work. Winds are changing with nightfright so those wages won’t be around forever unfortunately we missed that gravy train otherwise I would be doing their job right now.
My mate Steve used to do it in 7.5t out of Dawlish before he passed class 1 and went to Evans. He said they ain’t too miffed if you bring stuff back at first. Relax…I did it for UPS.They are much worse than Nightfreight.
COOKiEEES!!:
GBPub:
15 - 25 drops a day is a walk in the park
If you’re in a sprinter van maybe. Not in a bloody wagon. Unless - as Truckulent said - they’re fairly close together.
Plus it has to be a case of drop and go for at least 90% of them - no messing about having to wait for people, or in queues, or uplift a million empties, or strip down pallets and put the stuff in bloody alphabetical order in someone’s kitchen for them… etc. Otherwise, even just 5 drops can take you an age, let alone 25.
Good van multi-drop drivers will do in excess of a 100 drops per day plus collections. We have 3 x 18t vehicles on multi-drop work and they average 23 drops a day with no problems.
shytalk:
Multidrop can be very stressfull…unless your not easily wound up…i wouldnt touch it for love nor money…ok for a young bloke to get some experience…im in the old ■■■■■ club so i would not cut it…but good luck a starts a start.
+1
drummerkev:
Santa:
7. Stick your tacho on drive all the time you are working. Make sure you stop and have a proper break.Why would i do this? I thought I would have changed onto other work while loading etc?
Tacho should automatically switch to ‘other work’. My point is that on this kind of work you are unlikely to get anywhere near max driving hours but you do need to take a break. I used to try to get a 15min in early in the day, usually while waiting somewhere. This gave me the flexibility to take a 30min lunch if I was a bit behind. If not I would take an hour.
Do not be fazed by the number of drops - some will only be parcels, and if you have a big kitchen or something then that won’t leave room for much more.
My ears have a low tolerance to bullcrap. I like to turn up for work, be given a motor straight away, get out there, have the break on the road somewhere, and when I finally get back over 10 hours later, it’s time to go home with no dawdling around the clocking machine like the full timers do.
I don’t like shifts under 10 hours because you’re wasting more net fuel earning net less money in a job that nearly always involves a commute for me. 