Dun a night shift for Stobarts out of Dagenham.Sent me to P&G West Thurrock to collect a loaded trailer bound for their Rugby Depot…On collection I sighted the load…all unstrapped… I got only Two strappes on the vehicle… Rang their communication centre which I was told is in Warrington, and got told that’s all u need.I am an agency driver so I don’t mind securing a load to VOSA standards… More time more money for ME…Guy got right into one…Blah Blah…our drivers etc…Did say to him as we had never met would you talk to me like that if we were in Tesco’s car park,Cos I know what my response would be…anyway told to bob tail back…and I won’t be used by them anymore… They must be descendants from the SS
Spoke to one of my mates who is still at Appleton.
Looks like all the stickers are on the curtains now.
It’s their policy to only strap the back of the load and not every pallet.
If you load bottled water ,they request the last two pallets to be secure .
Unfortunately these situations are becoming more and more commonplace within the Stobart community.
Planners are not taught the correct procedures and unfortunately they are held to ransom by the whole “it gets there or else” philosophy".
I see more and more cases every day when it comes to unsafe loads, driving infractions or DVSA inspections all falling on the unsuspecting driver - usually agency folk who are trying to earn an honest living.
Kudos to you sir for saying no.
I advise any and all agency workers to take pictures, make notes and make the correct phone calls. This company is NOT above the law.
I’m sure you are so upset. Was it a life long ambition to drive for them? Probably not lol
Standard policy for stobart’s,back two plts only strapped…
I’m sure there’s a thread about their drivers getting pulled
by dvsa.
Stobart’s pay the fine,as that’s what the drivers are told to do.
March on.
Rog270:
Dun a night shift for Stobarts out of Dagenham.Sent me to P&G West Thurrock to collect a loaded trailer bound for their Rugby Depot…On collection I sighted the load…all unstrapped… I got only Two strappes on the vehicle… Rang their communication centre which I was told is in Warrington, and got told that’s all u need.I am an agency driver so I don’t mind securing a load to VOSA standards… More time more money for ME…Guy got right into one…Blah Blah…our drivers etc…Did say to him as we had never met would you talk to me like that if we were in Tesco’s car park,Cos I know what my response would be…anyway told to bob tail back…and I won’t be used by them anymore… They must be descendants from the SS
If you raise a question in good faith about a legal obligation which concerns the public interest(whether you are ultimately in the right or not), and they respond vindictively to it, you are treated as a whistleblower being victimised, and they have committed a very serious (and potentially very costly) legal wrong. Agency drivers are covered in the same way as those directly employed.
Stobarts are apparently moving over to load-retaining curtains and trailers (which are conspicuously marked up as such externally, and generally don’t require additional internal straps to be used), but unless this was the case for your trailer, and unless it was adequately explained to you (in a manner that would satisfy a reasonable person with a concern), then it may be against the law for them to simply say “we won’t use you any more”.
Even if you were in the wrong (for example, if the trailer is load-retaining), they’d have to show they are not sanctioning you simply because you asked them to account. Any commercial enterprise should be wary about ever being seen to retaliate against a worker (even workers who belong to their supplier or an agency) because a genuine question of legal compliance was raised about public safety or other type of public concern.
Rjan +1
Very very well said sir
Nkh22:
Standard policy for stobart’s,back two plts only strapped…
I’m sure there’s a thread about their drivers getting pulled
by dvsa.Stobart’s pay the fine,as that’s what the drivers are told to do.
March on.
A stobarts driver told me exactly this. I’m surprised the dvsa haven’t come down on them by now because they’re a law unto themselves.
Tris:
Nkh22:
Standard policy for stobart’s,back two plts only strapped…
I’m sure there’s a thread about their drivers getting pulled
by dvsa.Stobart’s pay the fine,as that’s what the drivers are told to do.
March on.
A stobarts driver told me exactly this. I’m surprised the dvsa haven’t come down on them by now because they’re a law unto themselves.
I must be one of the few stobart drivers thats been told to strap it or secure as you see fit.I have worked for stobarts for a year so i think there is some bs going about.
There was a tautliner in Carlisle when I passed on way down , looked like he was just leaving , first one I’ve seen .
I had 11 straps on though , and s/b was closed 
, so we live to fight another day
I wouldn’t risk anyone’s life, if the trailer is not marked with a certification that iit’s load bearing curtains, then my load would be strapped to death.
Cudos to the op. 
tomk86:
Unfortunately these situations are becoming more and more commonplace within the Stobart community.
Planners are not taught the correct procedures and unfortunately they are held to ransom by the whole “it gets there or else” philosophy".
I see more and more cases every day when it comes to unsafe loads, driving infractions or DVSA inspections all falling on the unsuspecting driver - usually agency folk who are trying to earn an honest living.
Kudos to you sir for saying no.
I advise any and all agency workers to take pictures, make notes and make the correct phone calls. This company is NOT above the law.
You might be surprised. Remember the words about banks too big to fail.
If it came to a full scale stand off between DVSA examiners and Stobarts my money wouldn’t be on the DVSA bringing Stobarts down. Ultimately, although DVSA staff may be unaware, it suits the government down to the ground to have a small number of very large hauliers as they won’t bring the country to its knees with a repeat of the fuel protests.
My thinking is if we had just a few large players in the haulage industry and if the winds blew in the right direction they managed to get unionised (corbin) then that would be a bigger threat to the system.
more medium sized companies where the staff are less organised and fractionated would be an ideal senario for the government.
the working mans back was broke when we first bought our council houses and subsiquently laden with debt, keeps the masses fractionated and causes self intrest to take priority over a bigger picture.
But if our peers, lords, politicians have shares in various companies, …who knows
I’m no fan of Stobbies but I’m with them on this one. If you can’t get a load of tightly shrink-wrapped bottled water from A to B without putting the trailer on its side or the load coming through the curtains without needing every pallet ratchet strap secured to the deck then quite frankly you aren’t cut out to be a vocational driver and you should put your licence in an envelope and send it back to Swansea. In fact any decent driver wouldn’t even need the rear pallets strapped either. What we have nowadays are not drivers but steering wheel attendants with a worthless bit of paper stating that they met the minimum standards required of the ■■■■ easy C+E test on a given day : that does not make one a “driver”.
Carl Usher:
I’m no fan of Stobbies but I’m with them on this one. If you can’t get a load of tightly shrink-wrapped bottled water from A to B without putting the trailer on its side or the load coming through the curtains without needing every pallet ratchet strap secured to the deck then quite frankly you aren’t cut out to be a vocational driver and you should put your licence in an envelope and send it back to Swansea. In fact any decent driver wouldn’t even need the rear pallets either. What we have nowadays are not drivers but steering wheel attendants with a worthless bit of paper stating that they met the minimum standards required of the ■■■■ easy C+E test on a given day : that does not make one a “driver”.
+1
Carl Usher:
I’m no fan of Stobbies but I’m with them on this one. If you can’t get a load of tightly shrink-wrapped bottled water from A to B without putting the trailer on its side or the load coming through the curtains without needing every pallet ratchet strap secured to the deck then quite frankly you aren’t cut out to be a vocational driver and you should put your licence in an envelope and send it back to Swansea. In fact any decent driver wouldn’t even need the rear pallets strapped either. What we have nowadays are not drivers but steering wheel attendants with a worthless bit of paper stating that they met the minimum standards required of the ■■■■ easy C+E test on a given day : that does not make one a “driver”.
No straps at all,you must be the best driver in the world,I must try harder next week,thank you.
Carl Usher:
I’m no fan of Stobbies but I’m with them on this one. If you can’t get a load of tightly shrink-wrapped bottled water from A to B without putting the trailer on its side or the load coming through the curtains without needing every pallet ratchet strap secured to the deck then quite frankly you aren’t cut out to be a vocational driver and you should put your licence in an envelope and send it back to Swansea. In fact any decent driver wouldn’t even need the rear pallets strapped either. What we have nowadays are not drivers but steering wheel attendants with a worthless bit of paper stating that they met the minimum standards required of the ■■■■ easy C+E test on a given day : that does not make one a “driver”.
You can be the best driver in the world but that doesn’t stop the other morons. Only yesterday I had a load of timber on, so was driving extra carefully. Got onto the 509 and was poodling along behind a van and a car. I then notice another car ahead pull into the central reservation to enter my lane. The car in front of the van (I expect it was driven by a woman) then slammed her brakes on, the van then had to slam his brakes on, and I had to make brake hard and used the extra space in the central reservation to try to soften the harshness of the stop. Anyway gets to my drop and despite it being ratcheted the lot had shot forward.
Tris:
Carl Usher:
I’m no fan of Stobbies but I’m with them on this one. If you can’t get a load of tightly shrink-wrapped bottled water from A to B without putting the trailer on its side or the load coming through the curtains without needing every pallet ratchet strap secured to the deck then quite frankly you aren’t cut out to be a vocational driver and you should put your licence in an envelope and send it back to Swansea. In fact any decent driver wouldn’t even need the rear pallets strapped either. What we have nowadays are not drivers but steering wheel attendants with a worthless bit of paper stating that they met the minimum standards required of the ■■■■ easy C+E test on a given day : that does not make one a “driver”.You can be the best driver in the world but that doesn’t stop the other morons. Only yesterday I had a load of timber on, so was driving extra carefully. Got onto the 509 and was poodling along behind a van and a car. I then notice another car ahead pull into the central reservation to enter my lane. The car in front of the van (I expect it was driven by a woman) then slammed her brakes on, the van then had to slam his brakes on, and I had to make brake hard and used the extra space in the central reservation to try to soften the harshness of the stop. Anyway gets to my drop and despite it being ratcheted the lot had shot forward.
Just serves to prove my point even more.
A quote from european best practices on load security.
“Many palletized goods, for instance consumer goods, are loaded from the rear of a vehicle with
forklift trucks or stand-on riders. If the packaging is not rigid and deforms if a force is applied lashings
cannot be used to secure the load.”
And you would need to be a mathmatition to work out wether a load would need to actually be secured on the vehicle to stop it moving.
There are three main forces acting on the pallets:
- Acceleration force FA in longitudinal and transverse directions.
- Frictional force FF between the bottom pallet and the truck floor as well as between the bottom
and top pallet - Global blocking force FB of the vehicle walls (rigid walls, tarpaulin)
The acceleration force FA acting on the center of gravity of top and bottom pallet is FA.
FA = m
p
- a m
p : pallet mass, a: acceleration (either 0.5g or 0.8g and g = 9.81 m/s2)
The frictional force can be calculated as fraction of the gravitational force of the load perpendicular
to the truck floor with the friction factor m taken from EN 12195-1.
FF = m * m * g m: friction factor, m: mass of the load, g=9.81 m/s2
The global blocking force of the vehicle confines (rigid walls, tarpaulin) depends on the vehicle
type and body construction and is a function of the vehicle payload P. EN 12642 provides guidance
for code L and code XL trucks and the three main body structures curtainsiders, drop site body,
box type body. EN 283 can be used to derive the restraining forces for swap bodies.
FB = s * P * g s: static test requirement according to EN 12642, P : payload in kg, g = 9,81 m/s2
To calculate the maximum permissible cargo mass mt
without additional measures for load security
the sum of accelerating force, frictional force and restraining force must be zero. If the sum of
all forces is zero, the load does not move. FF and FB are negative because they act opposite to the
direction of the accelerating force.
FA – FF – FB = mt - a – m * mt
- g – s * p * g = mt
- (a – mg) – s * p * g = 0
Above equation can be resolved for the total cargo mass mt
and yields:
mt
= (s * p * g)/(a – mg)
The maximum permissible mass of the cargo must be calculated in forward, backward and sideward
directions. The lowest value for mt
denotes the safe total mass that can be transported without
additional measures for load security.
To calculate the maximum permissible pallet mass mp in case all pallets have the same mass, the
value mt must be divided by the number of pallets spots N on the truck. This approach also accounts
for an even distribution of forces across the truck confines as required by EN 12642. This yields the
following equation:
m
p = (s * p * g)/((a – μg) * N * k) N: Number of pallet spots in the truck/trailer/swap body
k: number of pallet layers in the calculation
I very much doubt that the DVSA will work it out, but if that bit of maths says a 30 tonne load of bottled product is safe to travel with no strapping, the DVSA would have a hard job to secure a prosecution.
Oh, and a court case on load security that proves DVSA don’t always get it right on enforcement!
http://skiphiremagazine.co.uk/skip-hire-magazine-reports/unsecure-loads-maths-proved-dvsa-wrong/