Went to a factory last week and while being unloaded another truck knocked my mirror off. Bit congested.
This week went back. No box to unload in. Told by forklift where to park. Had 25 tonnes on. Forklift driver unloaded all one side. Then I was told truck was blocking a shunter. Told to turn it arround and park in same place. Guess what!!. Trailor almost tipped over. Driver suspended.
Why was there no dedicated unloading area marked. Why did the forklift driver just not finish unloading the entire truck. Why could the shunter not wait 5 mins.
2 incidents in 2 weeks. Sounds a bit of accident black spot. If the driver had refused to turn round he’d have been told off. Any thoughts.
Last time I was suspended they ( company ) were soon on the phone when they realised they had to pay me full wages whilst suspended .
They wanted me to come back in within day / two for disciplinary hearing, I said I was not in the right frame of mind to come in , I finally came in 2 weeks later with notice letter in hand .
To say they were pissed off is a understatement
Probably not the way to behave but didn’t give a ■■■■ those days
Agency Driver suspended. The company/factory take the same type of load in 100 times a day. It’s a dense heavy load on pallets. They always unload one side then the other. No proper unloading area. Just do it in middle of shunting/parking area.
Driver has no work until they carry out investigation. Fork lift driver is still working!!.
Driver thinks the factory are a little casual regarding health and safety. Not forklift drivers fault and driver in hindsight should have refused.
Surely if your tipping a full large with a forklift driver. Surely fork lift driver should unload 1 plt then load plt from other side and so on.
Do each side in turn. Not all of one side then do all other side. Would make sense incase to much weight down one side maybe pallets could become unstable and slide off /over .
Think there both to blame really. Obviously in hindsight driver shouldn’t of moved
Yes they completely unload one side each time. I’ve no idea why I had to move. I was asked to screw round nr large fuel tanks and I didn’t. I went to a fairly wide open space. The nose of trailor caught cat walk and burst an airline.
I should have refused to move.
like a lot of things I’m struggling with this. Why does this big factory not have a marked unloading area. Why is the space they unload in where trucks shunt. Why unload a full one side anyway. It’s unstable. Why was I told to move. Arnt the fork lift drivers trained. They know there cargo. They handle it every day.
If I’d refused I’d been out the door anyway. Big investigation but I’m the only person suspended.
Doubt you are but are you on the union get them involved..get h &s to investigate there place am sure thed find lots of issues there.
End day hindsight is good.
But unless union get involved or you work for a decent place that sticks up for its drivers your struggle I reckon
“Sorry mate, it’s not safe, it’s not moving anywhere”
See what their reaction to that is. The vehicle is your responsibility, put the onus onto the dim forklift driver (and tell the shunter driver the same)
I was not bothered about the shunter. I’d not spoken to him. I was sat in truck as per the instructions. We are told to do what we are instructed to do by staff on site. Clearly I should have known better.
if you did that then i cant see what the issue is. If you decided to ignore where they told you to turn around and chose some other spot that was on a slope or tried to spin round at 500 mph then…
They asked me to spin round in a tight area nr 3 fuel tanks. I went past those at 10 mph and took a wide turning circle slow as it was safer.
At the end of day I am told to do what I’m instructed to do. That includes removing straps and curtains. Then driving to different sites on factory. We all know we should not do that.
They choose to unload one complete side of load which if heavy clearly is bad practice. They choose to not have a safe area to load unload. That is bad practice.
I should have refused to turn truck arround. A bad decision but I thought they were more used to handling the goods than I was. It’s what they do every day with exactly the same loads.
This is the trouble with being agency , all to easy to bin you , I remember a fair few years ago some agency who had permanent runs , had been there 10 yrs + , own lorry then one day they were told they wernt wanted from the following week .
They couldn’t believe it , why hadn’t the company drivers who’d only been there a year or two get binned first
A decent Union rep would jump on that. You have that in writing? or the name and job title of the person?
You can burst an airline turning tightly, a quite common occurence. They usually catch on the curtain tensioner.
It is not uncommon to unload one side of a trailer first, but it depends on the weight of the pallets. As the person in charge of the vehicle you have a right to challenge a request to do so on the grounds of safety (load topples) or potential damage to vehicle.
Do not move a vehicle with the curtains open more than a few feet Forwards you cannot see properly behind. Certainly don’t turn around or manoeuvre when loaded with the curtains open. What they told you to do was definitely harmful to the trailer, the lopsided stress of turning sharply in those cicumstances was considerable. It can even arguably be dangerous.
Probably only a relatively small percentage of companies have a marked unloading area in their yard.
Front of trailor caught catwalk on tank and it burst airline attached to cab. No suzzies. It was not turned sharply just about 45 degrees.
I should have not moved it. But there was no reason to ask me too. Fork lift drivers must be trained. They are employed by company who told me what to do.
I’m told to do what I’m asked to do. Does not excuse my liability but surely they know what should and should not be done.
Learning curve. You’re in charge of the vehicle and if you consider an action unsafe/dangerous nobody should be able to tell you what to do, they can ASK you to do a specific action but…YOU decide.
Put the incident behind you and move on.