xjrv8:
In the past few months I have seen a certain Haulage company who have have either had their vehicle/trailer or subby involved in fatal accidents. Can’t recall when a Royal Mail was regularly involved in a serious or fatal accident and they have 10 times more vehicles, so odds are they should have more accidents. So who is the bad driver?
says it all
drover:
xjrv8:
In the past few months I have seen a certain Haulage company who have have either had their vehicle/trailer or subby involved in fatal accidents. Can’t recall when a Royal Mail was regularly involved in a serious or fatal accident and they have 10 times more vehicles, so odds are they should have more accidents. So who is the bad driver?says it all
Memory seems short around here.
RIP SWDC driver. 
The thing about fatal accidents, is you won’t be having one regular like - it’s once, and you’re kinda done.
I have been reading allot on here about Royal Mail drivers and I would like to clear up a few points. I speak as an RM artic driver with over 20 years service.With regards to RM driver standards we need to seperate some very specific groups. Namely van drivers from mail centres and sorting offices, and artic & 17 ton drivers from distribution centres. I have to admit some van driving standards do leave a little to be desired, I know I have even been carved up by them , so no excuses really. Fortunately only a small minority, but one is too many when you have a company image as well known as ours.
Second group is indoor postman who get trained up to class1 level, they are fine and do a great job, but they do seem to moan from time to time about their working conditions . Final group are like me, guys who have worked in general haulage , and tippers, rope & sheet, tankers, containers etc , we don’t moan too much . We know how lucky we are, we get on with delivering the mail, as we wish to protect our great trunking jobs with RM. Contrary to popular comments on here we can get stopped by VOSA, and they can visit our depots, so no we are not exempt from the law. This suggestion is quite honestly ludicrous, no company is ever above the law.We do not need to speed and we have sufficient time to drive in a safe manner everyday.
So when you see one of our artics ask yourself this question, who’s driving it ? RM driver or agency ? could be either, and no I am not having a go at agency staff, many of them in my depot have become very good mates. Yes mates, and why ? because they love working for RM so much that they stay for years, some have even decided to join us in the past 
Though obviously many choose to stay with their agency.
There you have it guys & girls we are not all bad, and we are probably one of the biggest fleets in the UK, so there are allot of us to see everyday. I have been carved up and nearly wiped out by many different wagons over the years, and they were from a variety of UK transport companies, not to mention by certain foreign drivers watching the tv and frying their breakfast in the middle lane of the M6, but that’s a whole different subject !
As to the question of our pay structure, now that would be telling 
RM drivers are better than Tuffnel drivers #fact :)
A driver of a RM truck was delayed overtaking me by about 10 seconds today on M6. Even though he was in a rush he did slow alongside me to do various gestures with his hands. I’m not a fighter by any means but it’s funny how ‘hard’ someone can be when they are driving away from you. 
LASHHGV:
A driver of a RM truck was delayed overtaking me by about 10 seconds today on M6. Even though he was in a rush he did slow alongside me to do various gestures with his hands. I’m not a fighter by any means but it’s funny how ‘hard’ someone can be when they are driving away from you.
How did you he didn’t have arthritis in his fingers and wrist
Ha!
If he had socks on his hands it would of been an entertaining show.
LASHHGV:
A driver of a RM truck was delayed overtaking me by about 10 seconds today on M6. Even though he was in a rush he did slow alongside me to do various gestures with his hands. I’m not a fighter by any means but it’s funny how ‘hard’ someone can be when they are driving away from you.
Thanks to you my mail came late! thank you
LASHHGV:
Ha!
If he had socks on his hands it would of been an entertaining show.
edited- released i was digging up an old post
SYE-1:
edited- released i was digging up an old post
I did that once, realised it was rotten so dug my own hole 
I did just short of 2 years at Royal Mail (park royal), and was on £17.63 straight through, the easiest work I’ve ever done, bit boring though but good money. Getting on perm with them is near on impossible, they have agency based in there, they take on prob about every 4 years from what people told me
People slag them off but at least they have good pay and conditions. A mate with them grossed £42600 last year, think i should have stayed 
cypry0:
People slag them off but at least they have good pay and conditions. A mate with them grossed £42600 last year, think i should have stayed
The money your mate earned may have been great. But you need to ask yourself; would you have been happy doing all the hours and shifts your mate did to earn that?
Yes the grass often looks greener on the other side of the fence, but can you smell the manure on it from your side of the fence■■?
Evil8Beezle:
cypry0:
People slag them off but at least they have good pay and conditions. A mate with them grossed £42600 last year, think i should have stayedThe money your mate earned may have been great. But you need to ask yourself, would you have been happy doing all the hours and shifts your mate did to earn that?
Yes the grass is often greener on the other side of the fence, but can you smell the XXXX on it from your side of the fence…
Thats five nights a week.
cypry0:
Evil8Beezle:
cypry0:
People slag them off but at least they have good pay and conditions. A mate with them grossed £42600 last year, think i should have stayedThe money your mate earned may have been great. But you need to ask yourself, would you have been happy doing all the hours and shifts your mate did to earn that?
Yes the grass is often greener on the other side of the fence, but can you smell the XXXX on it from your side of the fence…
Thats five nights a week.
I’m not saying that you did/didn’t make the right decision not to stay. Just to be pragmatic about how you look at it… Nothing more than that!
From my perspective, I’d love that wage packet. But not sure I could, or would, do nights for a year. It’s a worklife balance that everyone needs to decide for themselves. (Or rather my missus decides for me!)
Evil8Beezle:
cypry0:
Evil8Beezle:
cypry0:
People slag them off but at least they have good pay and conditions. A mate with them grossed £42600 last year, think i should have stayedThe money your mate earned may have been great. But you need to ask yourself, would you have been happy doing all the hours and shifts your mate did to earn that?
Yes the grass is often greener on the other side of the fence, but can you smell the XXXX on it from your side of the fence…
Thats five nights a week.
I’m not saying that you did/didn’t make the right decision not to stay. Just to be pragmatic about how you look at it… Nothing more than that!
From my perspective, I’d love that wage packet. But not sure I could, or would, do nights for a year. It’s a worklife balance that everyone needs to decide for themselves. (Or rather my missus decides for me!)
I know what you mean, i left because i got bored. Also there was far too much bullcrap to put up with, the main one being the seniority bollox, when it came to getting a decent duty. I helped train my mate when he moved off forklift duties.Then as he had more years as a postie had first dibs on duties.
What do you think would be a better system than seniority?
I found as a full timer that’s left that the problem with Seniority is that it “tops out” at around 24 years, which was where I was coming up to. After that, you don’t get any more holiday increments, nor payoff increments. The new CARE pension scheme is a money pit, and the overtime rate has been cut all the way down to 1.15x from more than double time for midweek shifts just a few years back. The “no longer than 48 hour weeks” means you can only book 11.75 hours overtime a week as a full-timer with no banked hours, and even with 20+ years seniority - you were still “the boy”, because the average number of years seniority is highest in those offices closing down… Drivers that didn’t take the payoff, moved sideways into other offices, and poached the top jobs there on “compulsory transfer” terms which preserve one’s seniority.
Now, if you lost out under the system I’ve described above, then you might prefer a “meritocracy” perhaps? - And get sacked first time you dropped the ball… Maybe you’re confident you can become a blue eyed boy in 6 months, and get paid more than the guy who works all hours who’s been there for 10 years… Did you play golf with the gaffer perhaps?
“Democracy is the worst government - Except for all the others that have been tried.” W. Churchill
Where’s the nearest place to Leeds they run the arctics out from?
wakefield europort or Sheffield. and having driven on agency and supplied via recruitment the rates used to be 11.75 ph pre awr and 16+ after awr.
most of the artic guys I have met were decent guys and drivers and as has been metioned you run to a 318 ( a run sheet that is planned almost to the minute) so at best you can save 15 mins.
trucks have been run to the death mind and London got all the newer ones due to the emissions regs 