flying_fenman:
I’m not having a go at recovery lads - far from it. They are just like all other vocational drivers - just trying to earn a living. But a system that allows for this to happen needs looking at.
Very soon.
the Driver hours rules that came in on April 11 say
The drivers of specialised breakdown vehicles were previously exempt from EC drivers hours rules. From 11 April 2007, the exemption will only apply when they remain within a radius of 100km of the vehicles’ usual base.
there’s a pdf version of the new driver hours poster available HERE
daycrawler:
at which point we then have to put in a tacho but according to our boss the driving we have done during the day can be hidden as vosa will never be able to determine how much we have done.
ant one fancy a job
I bet they will find it now
Im not saying that was the cause because there will be a major inquiry over this tragic accident.
From what coverage I’ve seen, there is no hard shoulder where the accident occurred. The artic may well have been stationary, so a misjudgement at 60 is all that would have been needed.
As with the rest of you, my condolences go to the families of those involved.
Condolences to all involved , and there familys .
wot a tragic accident , even if the artic driver is inocent , he will have to life with this all his/her life that they where a part of this ,despite being inocent (if so)
Mackem:
From what coverage I’ve seen, there is no hard shoulder where the accident occurred. The artic may well have been stationary, so a misjudgement at 60 is all that would have been needed.
As with the rest of you, my condolences go to the families of those involved.
I thought that from the overhead shots I saw this morning but looked on the BBC site and the picture was looking straight down the carrageway and it is actually a stretch of about 200-250 Yards where the M25 was widened and they have the breaks in the hard sholder to save rebuilding the bridiges, also from the photo/video it looks like the inital impact was just before this barrier, but hard to tell for sure
my condolences go to the families of those who died.
Oh christ, just seen the pic posted above, I used to work for these people about 15 years ago. I was run ragged 24/7 for very little money and called it a day after 6 months because I got no rest time at all. It was a case of grabbing an hour or two as and when you could.
Knowing how things used to be run I doubt things have changed that much, I hope I’m wrong but I would say this will be a driver falling asleep at the wheel …
Being limited to 56mph in my 06 reg truck with disc brakes all round and ABS on all six axles does not bother me but its always puzzled me that 20 year old scania wreckers with a scrap double decker bus on the back can pass me doing 70mph!
I was recovered by these guys about 3 weeks ago, plodding up the M6 with a trailer behind a 4x4 the front diff exploded.
Guy turns up in a 6.5t Iveco Daily tilt’n’slide to pick me up, and attached the 3t trailer to the back, then tells me that although they are now running with Tacho’s as the laws have changed, that he only has a licence to drive upto 7.5t, and not to tow a trailer. How re-assuring with a 2t 4x4 on the back, and 3t on the towbar !!
It was a fairly steady run back though on the main roads, but it got a bit hairy as we flew around the country lanes !!
My condolences to the families involved.
Lets hope that they all start to work to the new rules to make it a safer industry to be involved with.
daycrawler:
a good example would be thursday when my first job came in at 10am then through the day i did 5 other jobs, tottalling approx 4hrs driving and approx 2hrs of work for loading and unloading. then at approx 10.30PM a job came in for me to do a run down to chippenham in wiltshire, 320 mile round trip which i did in approx 7hrs(limited to 60) and returned to base at 745. so i had driven for 11 hours and been on duty for 21hrs
ant one fancy a job
If you need to put a tcho in for the longer run then surely that’s because at that point you become subject to RTD so have to abide by its rules. Any WTD opt outs you may have for the local runs are irrelavent and working time since your last daily rest has to be counted (that’s why part timers like me now have to keep records of other work performed on non driving days and why I can’t work 7 day weeks and argue that only the 2 or 3 days I drove count)
So, in the example above your shift started at 10:00. Assuming you’re right about your exemptions and opt outs the 6 jobs you did throughout the day were perfectly legal but the problem arises when you took on the 22:30 job. Even if your 4 hours driving and 2 hours other work had been back to back and you’d done nothing since 16:00 you’d have only had 6:30 rest so it’s still the same day and the back of your chart should include activities from 10:00. This means that even if you’d managed to get a long enough break to use the split daily rest facility you still had to finished your shift no later than 02:00 in order to get 8 hours daily rest in by the end of your 24 hour period at 10:00.
Tony1968:
This means that even if you’d managed to get a long enough break to use the split daily rest facility you still had to finished your shift no later than 02:00 in order to get 8 hours daily rest in by the end of your 24 hour period at 10:00.
The final part of a split rest is now 9 hours, the 8 hour bit disappeared on then11th of April. It’s passing was mourned by many, especially the box jockeys…
You are right (of course) and I accept the rebke for offering dodgy advice. Split rests are of no use to me so I’ll admit I’d not updated tat part of my brain. I only mentioned it in anticipation that someone would come back with “ah but with a split rest…”. In this example the driver was so far over that an hour either way wouldn’t really matter!
Tony1968:
You are right (of course) and I accept the rebke for offering dodgy advice. Split rests are of no use to me so I’ll admit I’d not updated tat part of my brain. I only mentioned it in anticipation that someone would come back with “ah but with a split rest…”. In this example the driver was so far over that an hour either way wouldn’t really matter!
Very true, I just thought it was worth mentioning that the 8 hour rest was history. There are still plenty of drivers who are unaware of any of the recent changes.
If anyone is interested the AA patrol force has set up a Fund for the driver, payment can be made via Paypal on this link -http://www.aapeople.co.uk/FrameSet1.html
which is the door to the AA Staff website. If you want to have a nosey the access code is 400 but don’t say I told you !!.
The patrols are having a particularly difficult time at the moment in trying to find out the legality of their towing equipment and tacho regs etc 'cause the AA ain’t telling them and neither is their Union (management union) so some informed advice would go down well
the aa have only set up the fund as they are the people responsible for the kind of hours that recovery drivers have to do. they have no staff on now after mid night so all the long distance work is now farmed out to the nearest recovery company. they do must of there long distance by way of shunts as their drivers are now restricted to the 100k from base limit.
company i work for does the police recovery work, picking up non insured and taxed motors but as this is during the day then at night we have the aa work sent to us.
with regard to my work i put previous then i had already tried to explain the new rules to the boss with regard to putting all work on the back that has been done so all hours are shown, his response was so what, the job needs to be done, he is the director and not even bothered to find out the rules for drivers. it his company to lose
Daycrawler, it’s the PATROLS who’ve set up this fund, NOT AA management. They set it up quite simply on the basis that it could have been any one of them, and bearing in mind that many patrols, AA and RAC, as well as many Garage Mechs and recovery men have been lost in the past at the roadside, with very little, if any, compensation for the bereaved family. Quite simply what they’re trying to do is ensure that the drivers family does have some degree of security at least for a few months. They are also trying to get management to match whatever comes into the fund as was achieved in a previous appeal, whether or not the AAs owners will come up with the goods is another story, I personally think they’ll decide that by making any kind of contribution they might then be setting a precident, as well as be concerned that they might be accepting some level of responsibility. They’re view of course has to be that since the job was contracted out, responsibility lies with the Garage. I hope the take a more sympathetic course.
Regarding the AA not having Night Shift patrols, they haven’t had a rostered nightshift with the exception of within the M25 since about 1995 (by the way the RAC didn’t have any either until they reinstated a night shift recently. Coincidently the Media were made aware that the AA were no longer operating a night shift soon after). They had patrols rostered to about 02:00 in the conurbations, but were very heavily dependant on the Garage trade to support even those guys. Their Police Recovery operation has ALWAYS been dealt with by the garage trade with only the most basic of exceptions, the AA only ‘managed’ it on behalf of the various Police forces.
As a recovery man you probably can expect even more work from the AA as the VRS equipment patrols are issued with is a very hot topic at the moment. AA management maintain it is legal to recover a vehicle with it “because it isn’t a trailer” and “because its load doesn’t count” in the GVW, as well as on Tacho Regs and distance, on the other hand patrols are very suspect that they’re being fed the wrong info for the sake of getting the job done (around the Law). Go back a number of pages on the website, you’ll get the picture, and maybe you’ll be wanting to offer some expert advice !!.
