Hello all.
Looking for the not to often spoken bits of advice.
I’m full time with the army but I’ll be leaving in a couple of years. I have no experience within the haulage trade but I’m ready to go, class one, Cpc, smart card. It’s all good to go.
I know I’ll be mostly working for agencies on weekends and evening, a couple of weeks here and there on leave but I’m after anything that might help.
I.e. Does a lorry driver need to wear steel toe caps? Is there anything I can do to make myself stand out a bit more? Like health and safety courses or alike? Do you do an assessment drive when on agencies? Also a few tricks with the tachograph.
That last one might be a secret to most, but I’m certain it’s not as clean cut as everyone makes out, I need to learn about wtd but are there little secrets? Ways to extend the hours without actually taking the breaks. The sort of thing I mean is like a bloke I knew used to sprout a load of crap mostly, but he mentioned turning it into other work when In traffic etc…
Like I said, anything will help.
Hi.
Be prepared to take the crap jobs they will pobably offer you in the 1st place…be it 7.5tonners.Class 2/1.
Wasting your time with health & safety courses i would of thought…As you’ll get all that on your induction…But if you want to stand out a bit more…Adr & hiab would be a better idea…As for steel toe caps…You will have to wear them at every site you visit or work at…But not compulsory to wear them when driving…
The only way to extend the wtd limit…Is to use a thing called poa.And of course your breaks…As for your mates little secret of turning it onto other work in traffic…He’s talking crap.As most digi tachos automatically default to that when the vehicle stops…Some default to rest…But you’ll see that when you drive it…
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I’ve got two lads on for me that are ex-Army, spent about 6 months doing bits of all sorts before they found their way to us. I’d say all you can do is try and work the discipline of being punctual, keeping kit smart and getting on with the job.
As for any tricks with the tacho and the WTD, not our style and I’d not say anything at an interview either unless you want to work for a firm that runs bent. I expect 99.9% of tachos/WTD to be right, we all make mistakes but that’s different from running iffy.
If you NEED to clock more than 60 hours in a week, then seriously look at different driving job, as you aren’t being paid enough!
You’ll pick it up quick enough. As for getting a job, highlight and accentuate the things you are good at, and hide the things you feel you are not so good at, basic stuff really.
Plenty of jobs out there for guys that want to work hard, and once you’ve got a bit of experience under your belt you can get a job that suits how hard you want to work.
Good luck.
Cheers all.
Looks like I’ll be heading out and getting some boots/hi viz and gloves etc tomorrow then.
Getting offered quite a lot of 7.5 tonne stuff but I keep having to turn down the daytime stuff and wait out for weekends and evenings.
I’ll sack off looking for health and safety etc stuff then. I may be getting adr through the army this year but I’m not holding my breath, I have heard tankers are seriously hard to get into, lots of hush hush when asking around on how to apply or land the job. A pal of mine landed some agency after work driving class 2 ADR, I think it was boc type cylinders and he was only being paid £11ph which I thought was proper low.
And what does everyone know about maritime? I have heard mixed opinions, but I also heard they do a scheme where you lease one of their trucks and essentially work self employed. Is this true? And can you then pull a load for another company using that tractor unit?
Also what about satnavs? Do most trucks/ companies issue then out or is it a good idea to buy your own decent one.
Hinton:
Also what about satnavs? Do most trucks/ companies issue then out or is it a good idea to buy your own decent one.
Dont be silly companies don’t have them
Most places expect you to have steel toe caps in fact you can be asked to leave a place if you don’t have them hi viz is standard as are gloves
If you want to run bent then fine but when you lose your licence & go to jail ( yep it has happened ) then don’t complain
Yep £11 for Cat C ADR is about right depends where you are as there is now a lot of drivers with it now it is nowt special as a lot done it as part of there cpc
animal:
If you want to run bent then fine but when you lose your licence & go to jail ( yep it has happened ) then don’t complain
Wasn’t planning on doing anything illegal. Just wondered if there was any trade secrets or normal practises that I didn’t know about. Now that I have realised its highly illegal I don’t plan on throwing it all away.
Again on the satnavs. Is there a specific type that commercial drivers use? Or is it more like find one you like and stick with it. Not sure if some come with ways to avoid height/weight restrictions or it’s just as simple as showing you a direct route and then use common sense along with the mark 1 eyeball.
Your better of getting a truck specific satnav to be honest…And they range in price from the cheap chinese ebay ones…Wich by the way i’'ve found perfectly good enough…To the Snoopers/garmins /tomtoms costing £300/£400 a go…But don’t rely on any satnav…Get yourself a proper truckers atlas.Wich has all the bridge heights and weight limits in it…And use that to plan a route along with the nav…
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You can buy HGV specific sat nav with restrictions built into them. But I’m yet to find one that works perfectly with the timed restrictions.
I have a truckers atlas as back up. But generally just use sat nav for the last few turns from the nearest major road.
Don’t run bent pal its not worth it and if a company ask u to hand the keys back and be on your way
Sat navs I’ve got a garmin dezel 770 not cheap but when I was using it it never let me down once always avoided low bridges etc really good bit of kit if I’m honest but I don’t use it any more cause I no were I’m going now lol but I’d never get rid of it just incase I ever needed it but I’d recommend it to any one
A good map as well also helps if you can read road sign’s
I have a car sat nav which I use as all as my map & read the road ahead