it was common practice for Spanish fridge drivers to run after loading non stop,then put a new card in around the Pamplona(Basque country).Then non stop to a French ferry port,then run straight to a UK tip,in the 1980`s.Then they started to clamp down and issue telepone number size on the spot fines.Think the phrase then was “microwave” times for sleeping.Like half an hour or an hour,whenever too tired to drive.
As said before if this is an all too common problem then why hasnt the working time directive been reviewed and changes introduced where necessary, maybe a national drivers census would help, anonymus of course to avoid any legal wranglings.
Doing the drivers isn’t the answer, the authorities need to hit the companies involved as well as the managers. If they take away the companies O licence and start imprisoning the management, you can guarantee it will all stop immediately. Drivers are bullied into going over hours with threats of unemployment. The story on Armet is a prime example. With the amount of breaches, it should have been obvious to the authorities that it was company policy/pressure. The company got away with only having two trucks suspended for 5 months and the management nothing. Unbelievably lenient.
george3:
Drivers are bullied into going over hours with threats of unemployment
If an employer told a driver to smash their way through a traffic queue to get their quicker or lose their job - would they do that? - of course not !! - there has to be a line drawn somewhere and it is up to the driver to do that.
ROG:
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If an employer told a driver to smash their way through a traffic queue to get their quicker or lose their job - would they do that?
Only if the truck has decent bull bars at the front, wouldnt want to wreck the motor 
ROG:
george3:
Drivers are bullied into going over hours with threats of unemploymentIf an employer told a driver to smash their way through a traffic queue to get their quicker or lose their job - would they do that? - of course not !! - there has to be a line drawn somewhere and it is up to the driver to do that.
I once worked for a clone of Armlet, doing the exact same work and based in the same town. Several times they expected me to run bent to keep to schedule. Several times they were disappointed. They also had a bonus system for running bent. I jacked the job in because of it. I ended up out of work for several months because of it. They no doubt found a replacement within days and couldn’t give a toss.
Until the authorities start holding the management personally responsible, nothing will change, they will just keep replacing the drivers. Armlet losing two licenses for five months means nothing to them, they will just use two subbies for five months.
trust me, it does mean something to lose licences, and they are in no way unique. If you have been on tanks then you know how fickle it can be.
george 3 Until the authorities start holding the management personally responsible, nothing will change, they will just keep replacing the drivers. Armlet losing two licenses for five months means nothing to them, they will just use two subbies for five months.
so dont agency managers also play apart in this
like me i turn up for work without prior knowlwedge of length of the day lied to about waiting times youl be in and out in an hour
only to be in the situation of being on an uninteneded extended day with an additional drop long way from base
surley agency mangares are aware if the staff they are sendindg are
complaining or not the case may be due to just wanting to get away from the bent place
or
the frequency that staff they are sending into the place is high
but that can also go amiss due to having utilised all the staff from one agency and then using staff from another agency to run runs that are bent. Inrer agency staff dont allways talk to each other
On an agency your not really in a “proper” job. Just work your legal shift and go back to the depot, or phone your agency first and tell them you can’t complete the days work legally. Let them sort it out with the client. If the agency pressure you, report them to some authority and sign up to another agency.
The trouble is agencies share a black list.
george3:
Doing the drivers isn’t the answer, the authorities need to hit the companies involved as well as the managers. If they take away the companies O licence and start imprisoning the management, you can guarantee it will all stop immediately. Drivers are bullied into going over hours with threats of unemployment. .
100% Spot on.
I’ve been around the block a time or two and there is only one firm that ever “bullied” me into fiddling- a certain fridge firm in the Okehampton area. Nobody else has ever done that. I am not so sure it is the case that it happens that often, and Tony M has been around long enough that people would know him anyway.
It isn’t right to be casting aspersions. It isn’t right that those drivers are being hit and it isn’t right that the company should be clobbered. Punishment should fit the crime and I doubt that is the case here.
Knowing some of the rogues around, this is little short of a witchhunt.
If a Company gets hammered for its O license, then the drivers are going to suffer anyway, as they will be out of work for X number of months etc…
I did a job for a well known haulier in the Wrexham area the other day. Now the Wrexham base are good as gold, more a bit later.
Left Wrexham for Settle, tipped and had to run to an outbase at Oldham, was held there for 2 hours on the assumption I was being loaded for back to Wrexham way, after 2 hours told to drop trailer and pick up another trailer, this had been loaded apx 3 hours, two drops, Grimethorpe and Bradford, I questioned this with traffic saying Woodhead can be an arse and so can M62, can they remove the 2 pallets for Grimethorpe, no they says, got to go, anyway bearing in mind I had a 15 2 trailer on I had to do some diversions, I got back to Wrexham after 9 1/4 hrs driving, and a 14 1/2 hour day, one bad hold up would have resulted in being stranded (Agency, no night out kit etc) Fair doos to the Wrexham branch they apologised next day, and lambasted Oldham, but you can see how one ■■■■ up can cause problems.
ady1:
the thing is whats the likley hood of getting your tacho checked, its years and years since ive been pulled, even like today in a rta on a main motorway there was no tacho check, no truck check, no one asked to see the defect sheet your meant to carry, no nothing ,i could have had bald tyres , no brakes , driven for the last 10 days without a break and because i hadnt drunk and had entitlement to drive hgvs alls hunky doory.
and thats why you get fiddlers , because the odds of getting stopped are minimal up to what you can gain by fiddling
I agree with this as in 1 year rigids and 5 years Artics I have never had my tacho`s checked once.
Have had the Vehicle spot checked but they never asked for anything, not even my license.
Remember when doing Agency work, I had built up a few months tachos in my bag when I got waved into a checkpoint I started thinking it may be frowned upon to have about four months worth of tachos sliding about your bag so I frantically separated about 1 months out and shoved my bag in a locker, 
and when they asked me to step out I thought oh here we go. 
I stood there ■■■■■■■■ myself wondering why I was the only driver asked to get out that I had seen when I noticed these 2 guys nodding at my fifth wheel it dawned on me my safety clip was not deployed and after another 30 minutes wait while they cancelled some form(no doubt teaching me a lesson) I was on my way with no checks carried out on me personally whatsoever.
That could give me the false assumption that I will never get checked so could be tempted if someone offered me enough.
i got stopped 1 afternoon and i had a flat inside drive trye know i knew about this but i needed to b home and wasnt far from base (tin hat at the aready) now mr vosa checks the tyres an didnt even notice it was flat 
i was gladly waved on !
Well over the years i’ve run bent for various reasons, money, to get home etc, haven’t done it for years now though but some trucks are easy to set for a running break or a wire for the limiter, scania has probably got to be the easiest to do, done the usual trick of card in backwards or putting a card in drive for 4 and a half hours take out the card and put a new one in,
years ago i worked for a well known at the time firm from Cardiff that done regular Scotland and back to South Wales in a day etc, we’d do the trick of all running together and the ones running bent etc would be in the middle so less chance of being stopped, i’ve worked for Irish firms and most of them always expect you to run bent especially when abroad, it would have to be a really good reason for me to ever run bent again though
I wouldn’t want to do it in the UK anymore. VOSA are demigodlike in their powers now, it seems, and they really believe they are all powerful. They get me too irate so I wouldn’t bother. That said, if I returned there, I wouldn’t drive again anyway.
I am glad that someone else admits to not having been an angel. I was beginning to think I was the only one…
bobthedog:
I wouldn’t want to do it in the UK anymore. VOSA are demigodlike in their powers now, it seems, and they really believe they are all powerful. They get me too irate so I wouldn’t bother.
Seems that VOSA are doing their job getting the message across about compliance to the drivers hours regs then …
All well and good, but VOSA use no discretion anymore. Time was when you could be 15 minute over on a driving period and you would get a slap on the wrist because there was a reasonable excuse. Not any more. Now, 5 minutes over and you are nailed for it, then they go back 3 years and pick up on every little thing. Before you know it, a total of 45 minutes over for 3 years and you are a pattern offender and everyone loses their licences.
I always had my own standards, and they were seemingly accepted practice. If I was going home after 2 or 3 weeks away, anywhere from Bristol on meant I was going home, regardless of how short on time I was. I would do it because I refused to sit in Taunton or wherever when I had a perfectly good house to go to. No VOSA man ever said anything about it, even though it had been checked, because they could see what was happening.
I would be interested to know the severity of the offences in the OP. I will ask my friend if he knows. I suspect you will find they are relatively minor. IIRC, the worst “offender” had some 50 odd offences over 3 years, and the average was 30 some. I am willing to bet that not half the drivers on this forum would withstand that sort of scrutiny if it came to it.
I somehow doubt that Tony Metcalffe is the terrible, slave driving criminal that he is being painted as by VOSA. I also doubt the drivers are the dreadful criminals they are painted as. Remember, these are criminal offences. They preclude these drivers from even being able to go on holiday to Florida without jumping through a bunch of hoops.
This isn’t enforcement, or getting any message across. This is tantamount to victimisation.
I regurlarly overtake post office asda tesco asda and many other so called legal firms during the night with dvd players or laptops playin dvds on the dash board its generally one of them buried into the back of another trailer blocking the motorway at 2am rather than so called illegal firms 
the current driving hours were made when lorrys were far more awkward to drive if anything now they are too easy to drive !!! I cannot claim to be 100% legal as many seem to do on here but the phrase glass houses and throwing stones comes to mind a lot of the time■■?
bobthedog:
I am glad that someone else admits to not having been an angel. I was beginning to think I was the only one…
I’ve got no end of infringements sat in my digi tacho head-unit. I’m dreading being pulled; I’ll get a right bloody fine. The thing is, it’s all stupid errors. I made no end of them last year after passing my class 2. I have never ever intentionally driven bent but I’ve ballsed up. It’s not as if I set out to break the law and cram as many hours in as possible. I made mistakes. I’ve learnt from them though and haven’t done anything wrong for about seven months.
Yes I was stupid and yes, being a newbie to the industry is no excuse at all but I really do consider myself as a professional and hold my hands up to my mistakes. No excuses, just stupidity. To be honest, I’m probably a better driver for having made the mistakes; I’ve learnt from my errors and I know perfectly well what I could lose. I’m much more experienced now and I always operate within the realms of the law.