I didn’t know it was a legal requirement either until I did the CPC. It’s now a great excuse to p*ss off the TM when he says “why are you still here?”. “Doing me daily checks mate” says I as I sit in the cab with a cup of coffee. And yes I do a walk round, but it doesn’t take 15 mins!!
Yeah it’s a company thing the 15. I would imagine as long as there’s some other work going on before driving rather than start shift, 1 min other work then drive then there’s evidence you’re not just jumping in and going. In this day and age, some of the stuff should be non jeopardy for the driver and put onto maintenance accountability. For example just how good is your torque wrench thumb and fore finger or eyeball at telling if a wheel nut is tight. Yet it falls off and your arse is grass which achieves the square route of nothing. The driver goes back to staring at wheel nuts in a paranoid way yet the failure in the recurrent maintenance system that led to the failure is not discovered.
bertiebus:
‘… I do checks at days end …’
My lot require a yes/no tick response to their backside covering exercise by asking “Have end of use checks been carried out”
That might superficially sound great to a box-ticking office-wallah, but considering that the pre-use checks are done and signed for at that time (as VOSA might expect when a poor sap is hauled over at the roadside) there is no secondary signature/initial request made for the end of shift wrap.
Hence, we’ve mostly all spotted a nice Teflon coated ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ opportunity to drop & scarper ASAP that the guppys seemingly choose to remain oblivious to 
In serious reality however, it invites the muddy fog of “WTF” - or more politely “what’s the point” as their “yes/no” ■■■■ covering request is effectively useless when the next unit user finds levels low, glasswork appalling & bulbs galore not working, etc and the office-wallahs not giving a flying stuff until it takes me half an hour + to clean, replace & replenish next day on top of their inevitably late paperwork. 
Of course, we’d whinge if it were any different, eh 
Life, huh 
as an agency driver i drive different stuff all the time but this was a proper job, and it ■■■■■■ me off that most problems get left to the next driver, got to one last week and it was listing so told the gaffer, surprise 
it straightens up during the day so wrote it on check sheet and on i went, anyway it didnt level out, next day same again and said it dosnt level out and would you drive your car like that, he said swap with such n such so i say its still unsafe anyway goes the garage later and the fella says yeah it came from scotland like that 6mths ago needless to say i jibd it, why should i have to argue to get something fixed so spoke to vosa about it and they are going to pull wagons, bak doin agency now, thats what our so called professional industry is, i gave up a perfectly good job as was deemed as a moaner didnt even tell them just jumped in cab got kit and card and off i went, my license my living the ■■■■■■■
Vosa has never said anything to me about other work at the start of a shift etc, always do it off the card.
espresso:
I always thought your start of shift checks were just advisory, and also good practiseOn a CPC module the other day, I was informed that VOSA hand out quite hefty fines if you haven’t started your shift with your tacho on hammers for 10 to 15 minutes
Is it really fineable ■■?
no its BS
I normally put my card in do a man entry then move the unit around the yard to a quiet spot with good lighting and room to carry out a good viz check.
it might only be a few mins driving but ive never been x examined in the office and I doubt that vosa would either .
nick2008:
espresso:
I always thought your start of shift checks were just advisory, and also good practiseOn a CPC module the other day, I was informed that VOSA hand out quite hefty fines if you haven’t started your shift with your tacho on hammers for 10 to 15 minutes
Is it really fineable ■■?
no its BS
I normally put my card in do a man entry then move the unit around the yard to a quiet spot with good lighting and room to carry out a good viz check.
it might only be a few mins driving but ive never been x examined in the office and I doubt that vosa would either .
well it would be obvious to any idiot in the office , or vosa that you havent just put your card in and drove out the yard without doing any checks
To be honest if you put your tacho or card in when you arrive at your truck immediately by the time you’ve got yourself sorted out its nearly that anyway.
espresso:
I always thought your start of shift checks were just advisory, and also good practiseOn a CPC module the other day, I was informed that VOSA hand out quite hefty fines if you haven’t started your shift with your tacho on hammers for 10 to 15 minutes
Is it really fineable ■■?
How do you prove you’ve done your walk around checks? How do you prove you’ve checked load security? Think of it as a free get out of jail card when you get a tug. “Wasn’t like that before I set off.”
radio works ,im gone 
It’s all completely OTT. You wouldn’t check all that crap on your car every day so there’s no reason to have to do it on a truck/van or anything else. Takes me about 2 mins to check that the lights work, tyres are round with tread and wheelnuts all look okay, no damaged bodywork that needs reporting before I leave and finally a dashboard check of the fuel, oil and adblue levels. I don’t even bother checking the water as the temp gauge rising above half way will show up any problems there once warmed up. In winter time I’d add checking screenwash level and that the night heater works to the list. Too many drama queens these days making big issues out of everything. It’s a wonder anything gets delivered at all the way some of you are going on.
Of course as others have said, YOU (as a driver) do not need to do a daily check. Although if you have not done one and a fault is later found you will have no defence, because by your own admission (or lack of a check sheet) you never checked. Leaving that aside, it generally is a requirement for Operators that the vehicle is checked before use. If drivers are not filling in check sheets and returning them to the operator then that tells anyone with a brain that the operator is not bothering about this requirement. So it might not be the end of the world for the driver, but could spell goodbye to a operators licence if the vehicles are not checked daily and recorded as being checked.
HTH 's
Left hand down!:
‘…It’s all completely OTT. You wouldn’t check all that crap on your car every day so there’s no reason to have to do it on a truck/van or anything else…’
Yeah, we need telling
A ‘crappy’ car breaks down & it can often be easy to push it or drift it aside - as often seen alongside the motorway with suitably gormless expressions on the often gormless vehicle occupants.
Hey, who needs crappy breakdown cover either, eh!
But hang-on, here we are professionally suggesting ditto with a freighted 44 tonne combination with cack preparation …after, lets pick one from endless scenarios, a tyre failure as caused by an ignored bit of yard-clart, downhill at ‘busy-mum’ time in a congested & dark, medieval village centre in the rain. That’ll be what time spent ‘warming her up on the road’ is to find out, I suppose 
Still, as long as we get home in time for ‘Strictly’ eh 
Soz, not here, mate
Left hand down!:
It’s all completely OTT. You wouldn’t check all that crap on your car every day so there’s no reason to have to do it on a truck/van or anything else.
Your car isn’t doing 2500 miles a week carrying/pulling anything from 2 to 6 times its own weight.
I check the water/oil/tyres on my car once a fortnight or so which works out around once every 500 miles or so.
I don’t even bother checking the water as the temp gauge rising above half way will show up any problems there once warmed up.
Oh jesus…
Assuming there’s water in it. If there’s no water in the temperature gauge will show minimum even as the engine is hot enough to seize. If there’s no water for the water temperature sensor to sense then it won’t register anything.
Conor:
Left hand down!:
It’s all completely OTT. You wouldn’t check all that crap on your car every day so there’s no reason to have to do it on a truck/van or anything else.Your car isn’t doing 2500 miles a week carrying/pulling anything from 2 to 6 times its own weight.
I check the water/oil/tyres on my car once a fortnight or so which works out around once every 500 miles or so.
I don’t even bother checking the water as the temp gauge rising above half way will show up any problems there once warmed up.
Oh jesus…
Assuming there’s water in it. If there’s no water in the temperature gauge will show minimum even as the engine is hot enough to seize. If there’s no water for the water temperature sensor to sense then it won’t register anything.
There’s more than 1 temperature sensor and believe me it goes off the the end of the dial if the radiator is empty as I’ve had it happen when it’s been damaged and punctured.
I will add that if your swanning around France best you show hammers for at least 5 mins at start of day it has been mentioned by one of their
VOSA like inspectors before saves hassle.
Saaamon:
Vosa has never said anything to me about other work at the start of a shift etc, always do it off the card.
You’ve been lucky then. Your chart, or digi-card, should record from shift start to shift end. If you start at six, go to the office, get keys and paperwork, and don’t get to your truck until 6.15, you should record those 15 minute as a manual entry. What VOSA object to is cards going in then driving recorded straight away. Same on a night, pull your card at half four, book of at quarter to five…VOSA want to see those 15 minutes recorded. As for checks, truck checks it’s own fluid levels and lights, so circle checks can easily be done in 15 minutes.
I tramp so I set alarm, wake up, stick my card in on other work, Stick kettle on boil and go to sleep for 30 mins;) win win. I am the sole user of said unit, so I normally walk around and check while as I am on other work waiting for pipes to emtpy>_<. I do everything everything on our circle list every day though.
I would say that broadly driver’s daily checks are pretty much a waste of time. Possibly lights checks might be worth it but I would still rather rely on a truck’s computer to do it. Drivers typically just aren’t equipped to detect and recognise real issues and a perimeter walk around is just not going to give access to enough of the vehicle. I also doubt that any amount of DCPC would change this.
Like constant fire drills, that result in being unable to determine between a drill and a real event, daily checks are a box-ticking exercise that have all the hallmarks of a system designed to improve road safety but contribute little, if anything, in reality and quickly reach a kind of going through the motions status.
It is exceptionally rare for a driver to defect a vehicle for anything that represented an imminent threat to road safety and often the vehicle would still sail through test. Periodic maintenance inspections are really what keeps vehicles in a safe condition and where serious defects are uncovered and these defects have rarely, if ever, been spotted in the previous 6/8 weeks worth of daily checks.
Drivers may bring vehicles in with valid defects that have occurred noticeably in service but this is unrelated to daily checks and if there were developing symptoms/signs before they set off, they weren’t obviously picked up on daily checks.
Might give some drivers a sense of self-importance but that’s about all it’s good for.
Oh I think that Yankee thing is so good. I am a bit puzzled though: How can you check for brake drum blueing without taking it all to bits ? and do the bosses give you a creeper to slide around underneath it every day ? I reckon you’d have to be pretty quick to check the ole brake lights, specially with a 53 footer. 
Big advantage though, is that you can ■■■■ about for an hour or so and get paid for it… maybe not so good if it’s chucking it down, but then I s’pose you could actually be in the cab with a nice cuppa and a cuddly blonde.
Wot a load of bollix.