The company im at has been very good to me. they have given me a crack at the whip as a new pass and broken routes down so I only have a small area to cover etc etc. Yesterday due to a space issue I had to do one run with half the stuff then come back, reload and do the second half. All fair enough and plenty of time to do it in looking at it in the morning. However due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control I ended up being delayed 2.5 hours waiting for the fitter to come out to me at the last drop of the first half. so didn’t get back till 3pm. I then had 3 drops with in 5 miles of each other but 30 mins from the yard. took me 30 mins to defect the vehicle change over to a new one load and have a quick pee. so was half three quarter to four before I was back on the road. with traffic, trying to find the places etc it meant I needed another 45 by the time I would of got back to the yard. however if I took it I would of been out of duty time if I took the break. Office told me just to come back and they would sort it. (ill find out tomorrow if I got an infringement).
2 questions arise from this.
should I of returned to the yard with the goods bearing in mind they have been good to me and they get fined if its not done.
what the bloody hell am I doing wrong with my driving time. no one else has the issue of having to have so many driving breaks. the only difference I can see between me and one of the other drivers is I coast to a stop with light braking or ease off a little so the traffic will of cleared etc where as the other guy drives it like a van. however I cant see that making that much difference.
cooper1203:
The company im at has been very good to me. they have given me a crack at the whip as a new pass and broken routes down so I only have a small area to cover etc etc. Yesterday due to a space issue I had to do one run with half the stuff then come back, reload and do the second half. All fair enough and plenty of time to do it in looking at it in the morning. However due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control I ended up being delayed 2.5 hours waiting for the fitter to come out to me at the last drop of the first half. so didn’t get back till 3pm. I then had 3 drops with in 5 miles of each other but 30 mins from the yard. took me 30 mins to defect the vehicle change over to a new one load and have a quick pee. so was half three quarter to four before I was back on the road. with traffic, trying to find the places etc it meant I needed another 45 by the time I would of got back to the yard. however if I took it I would of been out of duty time if I took the break. Office told me just to come back and they would sort it. (ill find out tomorrow if I got an infringement).
No need to wait until tomorrow i can tell you now that If your total shift time was over 15 hours you will get an infringement and there’s nothing your boss can do about it.
If your total shift time was over 13 hours and you did not have a reduced daily rest period available you will get an infringement and there’s nothing your boss can do about it.
Even if he doesn’t give you an infringement notice to sign it’s on your driver card so if you get stopped by the DVSA they will see it.
Once it’s clear you cannot complete your round, take it back to the yard. You had delays because of a breakdown, so there’s no fault to you, and it’s not your concern if the company lose money as a result. It’s the transport industry, these things happen.
One of the reasons you will be taking longer than other drivers is because you are new. They will be familiar with the drops so will be able to get to them straight away, while you might have to spend a bit of time driving around trying to find them.
Another reason may be because doing predominantly local work, you will get caught in traffic and lots of driving at lower speeds, whereas other drivers doing more distance work will be sat on motorways or dual carriageways most of the time.
as above.
if its a decent flexible company and not a faceless plobber job then be flexible to a reasonable degree.
apart from that,just learn from your mistake,dont sweat it,and crack on tomorrow…
nothing is a hanging offence despite what the by the book fannies will say to the contrary,just dont mess it up too often.
a random whoopsie is no interest to anyone unless you constantly kick the ■■■ out of it.
should I of returned to the yard with the goods bearing in mind they have been good to me and they get fined if its not done.
It’s not your problem. Just keep “the office” informed of your progress and any significant delays and leave it to them to sort it out. That’s what they are there for.
what the bloody hell am I doing wrong with my driving time. no one else has the issue of having to have so many driving breaks. the only difference I can see between me and one of the other drivers is I coast to a stop with light braking or ease off a little so the traffic will of cleared etc where as the other guy drives it like a van. however I cant see that making that much difference.
Driving economically doesn’t make any (significant) difference to driving times. New drivers (whether new to driving in general or new to the particular job in question) always take longer than the experienced guys, simply because they are new to the job in question. Driving around simply looking for the delivery point swallows up loads of time.
Having said that, it’s fairly unusual for a multi-drop driver to run into problems needing to take two (or more) breaks from driving simply because it’s hard to fit more than 9 hours of driving into a 15 hour day on multi-drop. Some of the more experienced hands might be able to shed some light if you were to post an example printout (with identifying features blanked out, of course…)
dieseldog999:
as above.
if its a decent flexible company and not a faceless plobber job then be flexible to a reasonable degree.
apart from that,just learn from your mistake,dont sweat it,and crack on tomorrow…
nothing is a hanging offence despite what the by the book fannies will say to the contrary,just dont mess it up too often.
a random whoopsie is no interest to anyone unless you constantly kick the ■■■ out of it.
mrginge:
Spend less time defecting and more time delivering
Both of these, are the correct answer,
As long as your being paid for all the hours you’ve booked for that day, Then just put it down to experience, talk to others at the firm and see what they say
Monitor your actual recorded driving time. The Print Out roll is your friend so do a couple or more prints out during the day to find out how much driving time you have acrued, and also got left before a break is required. Then if you are taking split breaks don’t let the first one over-run by more than the couple of minutes necessary to ensure a full break time is recorded and not 1 minute short. It is easy to end up with 45 minutes ‘worth’ of break time actually being over an hour. It is also easy to take WTD breaks at the wrong time so that you need one shortly after taking a driving break. The cost of Print out paper is insignificant compared to the fine the company could get for infringements so they are unlikely to win the argument if they complain about how much you use.
cav551:
It is also easy to take WTD breaks at the wrong time so that you need one shortly after taking a driving break.
Never going to happen - a driving break must be at least 15 minutes in order to qualify as a break, so will also count as a WTD break.
Instead of producing yards of printout (and still needing to tot-up possibly dozens of entries in order to arrive at total driving time since last break - with the strong possibility of adding it up wrongly) just scroll through the screens on the Head Unit which will give you this information straight away.
It’s just experience, in time you will learn when and where to have a break and the knock on effect of timings etc…
As others have said use the print out on the tachograph to double check/act as a reminder, so your not worrying about it when you’re driving along.
Personally I normally do a print out after taking a break or using poa so I know exactly where I am
It’s gets easier with experience.
It sounds like you’ve had a 2.5 hour unexpected addition to your day. Make no mistake that this is what has messed the day up as opposed to your driving etc. That 2.5 hour delay could mean you are then going into areas at rush hour instead of the middle of the day, which compounds the problem further.
It is because of things like this that drivers often push their first break quite close to the 4.5 hours if possible. However, doing this also has its risks as I think you have found out already going by your other threads.
Really once you have such a delay, all bets are off in terms of completing all the work. When you were at the depot maybe you should have gone and said, look somebody else will need to take one of the drops because of my delay. That is just experience.
You can potentially get up to 9 hours and 45 minutes from your first 4.5 hours of driving time although why you would want to (if the company you work for is ok) is debatable.
Take you first 15 after Drive and work of more than 3 hours but less than 6.
Take your next break before you get to 9 hours 15 minutes of duty time ( 9 hours of work/drive time). If you still have drive time left of your first 4.5 hours you technically only have to take 15 minutes at this point for WTD but you would take a 30 for driving break purposes. Obviously if you reach your 4.5 hours driving before this you take the break earlier.
By the end of the break you could be 9 hours and 45 minutes into you duty ( if you leave parking up until the very last minute, which you wouldn’t want to do).
This would leave you 5hours 15 of duty time left ( no need for another WTD break) and 4.5 hours of driving left. This is obviously an extreme example.
As a new (or any) driver on multidrop you would find this exhausting and stressful.
In the example you gave, the lost 2 and half hours screwed you up. Presumably this came after you’d had your first 45 breaks. With hindsight/ experience you should have contacted the office on getting back to the yard with your defect vehicle and told them the situation regarding your remaining drive/duty time left particularly with you not knowing the drops and the likelihood of hitting traffic. If they are decent(as you say) they would have given you options of only doing some of the drops or even none at all. They also don’t want you picking up regular infringements as it reflects on their O licence.
As pointed out by others, you will get faster once you know where the drops are and also what to do when you get to the drop. Don’t try to rush things because you will start making mistakes and potentially have accidents and don’t compare yourself with other drivers. However, do use their experience. Ask them where drops are, where the loading areas are, do they drive in/reverse in,where the office is, etc.
