I turned up to one of our depots last night with the night trunk double decker, only to be told that they’d already loaded one for me. I went over to have a look at it and the top deck was loaded up with pallets of boxed lemonade, each of which weighed between 600 and 1 000 kg. I had a quick look on the manifest and calculated there was maybe nine tonnes on the top deck. The bottom deck was loaded mostly with bulky but lightweight freight, with the exception of a couple of IBCs. When I gently pointed out to the depot manager that I couldn’t really take it out on the road loaded like that, he told me that it wasn’t as heavy up top as I’d made out; fortunately, I’d written down the pallet weights and was able to show him. In fairness, once he realised he did get it reloaded until I was happy with it. Still, just shows you’ve got to keep an eye on things!
You checked it, good driver, he re-loaded it, good manager…result for both of you, that’s how it should work… 
That’s why most Forkies drive fork trucks & we drive the wagons.
They hav’nt got the Brains to see the problems they cause & end up loading it twice !
Whereas I would rather deliver the load 1st time-every time ! Lol.
Could you imagine if a newbie had taken that out? He’d have turned it over through no fault of his own at the first whif of a bend.
I suppose it’s ultimately the drivers responsibility but these firms that run deckers should train the forks up to load them properly.
Silver_Surfer:
Could you imagine if a newbie had taken that out? He’d have turned it over through no fault of his own at the first whif of a bend.
That’s what worried me. Anyone without enough self confidence to challenge the manager about it (as might have been me, back in the day) would have been in trouble with it. While I accept that the load is the responsibility of the driver, there should really be a basic expectation that it’s reasonably safe in the first place.
Why does it so often require the driver but not the manager to be absent for a vehicle to be incorrectly loaded like this though? 
Yeah, I added a bit to my post rhythm about the buck stops with the driver but really they should make the forks responsible as well, some of them couldn’t give a toss.
martinviking:
That’s why most Forkies drive fork trucks & we drive the wagons.They hav’nt got the Brains to see the problems they cause & end up loading it twice !
Whereas I would rather deliver the load 1st time-every time ! Lol.
im a truck driver of a few years and also a forkie i have brains so generalising people because of job is ■■■■■■■■
JJ192:
martinviking:
That’s why most Forkies drive fork trucks & we drive the wagons.They hav’nt got the Brains to see the problems they cause & end up loading it twice !
Whereas I would rather deliver the load 1st time-every time ! Lol.
im a truck driver of a few years and also a forkie i have brains so generalising people because of job is ■■■■■■■■
+1
I among other duties did the yard duties in our depot before driving for them, I knew how to load and where to load weights sensibly with a forklift truck, granted most of our stuff is FLT related but you wouldn’t put a 10 ton flt’s over the front axle and a couple off pallets of chargers on the back
Generalising rules …erm not
Being a forkie don’t mean you know how to load a truck it means you’ve been trained to move a load from point A to point B , and how to stack pallets and into storage racking …
Its up to the driver to determine how the vehicle is loaded.
after all there are drivers who wouldn’t know how to use or what loads you put on a fork lift
I was a driver before I was a forkie…go figure
RCT 53 Port Sqn loading ships, wagons, trains and planes and driving the things if need ( edit: not the planes trains and ships, but the wagons, tanks, APC’s and the like)
Fergie47:
You checked it, good driver, he re-loaded it, good manager…result for both of you, that’s how it should work…
If only other places would do the same.
Full marks.
Ken.
Quinny:
Fergie47:
You checked it, good driver, he re-loaded it, good manager…result for both of you, that’s how it should work…If only other places would do the same.
Full marks.
Ken.
They do don’t they?
The drivers say is always final.
Being ex RAF,we were trained to calculate weights and balances on aircraft.Trimming the load.Take off weights and floor loading calculations and formulae.
What does more damage,a stileto or an elephants foot.
?The stileto,has the weight is not distributed evenly over the surface.
JJ192:
martinviking:
That’s why most Forkies drive fork trucks & we drive the wagons.They hav’nt got the Brains to see the problems they cause & end up loading it twice !
Whereas I would rather deliver the load 1st time-every time ! Lol.
im a truck driver of a few years and also a forkie i have brains so generalising people because of job is ■■■■■■■■
If you’d bothered to read it properly, I said ‘Most’ which means ‘Not all of them’
I’ve also been driving fork trucks since I was 12, but Graduated to wagons, so I feel that I’ve got the qualifications to Criticise Bad Loading when I see it.
Blimey, driver in double decker top heavy shocker, think you would be buggered if you had a tricky load to carry. Don’t worry in time you will learn to adapt to your load and drive within its limits, the only correctly loaded trailer I pulled was when I loaded it myself. By the time youve winged about it I would have delivered it. ■■■■■…
Seriously though well done for drawing this too your managers attention, it will help other drivers in the future and hopefully those forkies will perhaps/just maybe have to think about what they are doing.