Did you work as an HGV driver between 2020 and 2022?

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

We want to talk to HGV drivers who may have been affected by some of the measures brought in by the Government to enable logistics operators to temporarily extend working hours and changes to urban delivery times between 2020 and 2022.

If you were affected, then we would like 30 minutes of your time to hear about your experiences.

Why?
The Department for Transport (DfT) want to know how these measures affected HGV drivers.
The Centre for Transport & Society at the UWE Bristol are conducting the research on behalf of the DfT, and we need you to tell us about your experiences. Your views will contribute important messages in our report to the DfT. We will not identify you as an individual in our report.

How can you can help us?
We would like to talk with you either using MS Teams, or we can call you on your preferred phone number. If you take part, we will send you a £10 ‘love to shop’ voucher.

How do you take part?
Register your interest using this sign-up form link or scan the QR code at the bottom. uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/S … Y4fXfZkhD0

When do you need to be available?
The sign-up form asks for your availability between 29th June and 15th July. You can indicate your preferred days (weekdays and Saturdays offered) and times. The researcher will confirm the interview day and time via email.

What will happen to your personal details?
Your personal details will be used only for the purpose of contacting you for an interview and will not be shared outside of the research team. The research has been approved by the UWE faculty ethics committee. There is a link to more information and the data privacy note on first page of the sign-up form. We encourage you to read all the information before signing up.

Any further questions?
Please contact Dr Juliet Jain Juliet.Jain@uwe.ac.uk or leave a message on the forum board below.

SV_4HZIrY4fXfZkhD0-qrcode.png

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This topic is OK’ed by Admin. dd.

2

DrJJ:
We want to talk to HGV drivers who may have been affected by some of the measures brought in by the Government to enable logistics operators to temporarily extend working hours and changes to urban delivery times between 2020 and 2022.

Anyone else here smell a rat?

UK government looking at ways to reduce driver shortage as not enough people have signed up to do the free training. Commission a study on how it affected drivers extending the regs so you could drive 5.5hrs without a break, drive 11hrs a day, work 15hrs duty seven days on the bounce, take just 24hrs off and start again… Yes that’s right Dr. Jain, whilst the doctors and nurses whose weekly total working hours weren’t altered were whining about the hours they were doing in almost empty hospitals we could work up to ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE HOURS A WEEK, take just 24hrs off and do it all again.

Get supporting evidence it didn’t have much of an impact.

Remove following EU drivers hours regulations, replace them with UK ones that allow longer driving times between breaks, longer driving time per day, turn the 9hrs reduced daily rest and 24hrs reduced weekly rest into a standard one enabling 15hr daily shifts every day with just one day off a week.

Hey presto, UK HGV driver shortage sorted.

Is it possible that you can run a poll asking how many drivers want the driving hours regs to remain as they are, reduce the duty time or increase it? Then ask another question, if the hours are relaxed more and employers took advantage of it would you still stay in the job or leave. If the aim of this study is as I suspect you’ll get a much better idea for the DfT as to what direction they should go. People looking to come into this job are typically turned off by an industry average 12hr day/ 60hr working week and potentially 15hr shifts.

I usually do studies that come on here but I refuse to be a part of something that is clearly looking at worsening working conditions in a sector that already has some if not the longest working hours of any in the UK.

3

Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

4

Zac_A:
Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

Not personally worried about that but I do get the feeling the wrong questions are being asked for reasons that will be entirely against our interests to water down driving hours regulations (EU Drivers Hours Regs) which were already worse in some areas for drivers than GB Domestic Regs which limited you to a max 11hrs daily duty.

5

Conor:
Anyone else here smell a rat?

I do…

Let’s see how many more hours we can get these poor stupid lorry drivers to work for.

Rest assured, after a 15 hour day becomes the norm, there will be many asking how it can be done with only a 15 minute break.

We doomed.

6

Zac_A:
Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

Time will…

Tell.

7

Zac_A:
Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

Admin approved this identical post in the newbies forum trucknetuk.com/phpBB/viewto … 5&t=175031

8

The only ones daft enough to partake in this cack, will be the same clowns who bent over at the time, and willingly and readily extended their hours.
The rest of us realised it was a ■■■■ take.

Ok lads for x no of weeks you can extend your hours where it will be deemed safe suddenlly as if by magic, so crack on with your extra 15 hour days’’ …aye right. :unamused:
‘‘But if you continue after the extension we will financially ■■■■ you for the privilege,.and it will once again revert back to being unsafe and dangerous…because it suited US at the time’’

My first reaction when I saw the relaxation of hours,.(as with many other drivers who can see throug b/s,. and who do not at the first instance believe anything they are told in this industry.)
Was ‘‘■■■■ that,.you can shove it right up your collective arse holes’’ :smiling_imp:

Add that to your survey for them to peruse Doc… :smiley:

9

Agree 100% with Conor. This rat stinks.

Never took a blind bit of notice of working ours being extended when it suits, the company i work for wasn’t having a bar of it nor were the drivers.

10

Zac_A:
Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

Hi Zac, I had an exchange with your forum manager prior to putting out our request. Juliet

11

Conor:

DrJJ:
We want to talk to HGV drivers who may have been affected by some of the measures brought in by the Government to enable logistics operators to temporarily extend working hours and changes to urban delivery times between 2020 and 2022.

Anyone else here smell a rat?

UK government looking at ways to reduce driver shortage as not enough people have signed up to do the free training. Commission a study on how it affected drivers extending the regs so you could drive 5.5hrs without a break, drive 11hrs a day, work 15hrs duty seven days on the bounce, take just 24hrs off and start again… Yes that’s right Dr. Jain, whilst the doctors and nurses whose weekly total working hours weren’t altered were whining about the hours they were doing in almost empty hospitals we could work up to ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE HOURS A WEEK, take just 24hrs off and do it all again.

Get supporting evidence it didn’t have much of an impact.

Remove following EU drivers hours regulations, replace them with UK ones that allow longer driving times between breaks, longer driving time per day, turn the 9hrs reduced daily rest and 24hrs reduced weekly rest into a standard one enabling 15hr daily shifts every day with just one day off a week.

Hey presto, UK HGV driver shortage sorted.

Is it possible that you can run a poll asking how many drivers want the driving hours regs to remain as they are, reduce the duty time or increase it? Then ask another question, if the hours are relaxed more and employers took advantage of it would you still stay in the job or leave. If the aim of this study is as I suspect you’ll get a much better idea for the DfT as to what direction they should go. People looking to come into this job are typically turned off by an industry average 12hr day/ 60hr working week and potentially 15hr shifts.

I usually do studies that come on here but I refuse to be a part of something that is clearly looking at worsening working conditions in a sector that already has some if not the longest working hours of any in the UK.

Useful to see your opinion here. You are very welcome to discuss with me further. Personally, I hope this report is not used to worsen conditions. However, we are evaluating the effectiveness of particular measures that the Government implemented. I have yet to speak with anyone who has been expected to work extra hours during the period when they were extended, hence this request.

12

DrJJ:

Zac_A:
Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

Hi Zac, I had an exchange with your forum manager prior to putting out our request. Juliet

It’s correct that this topic got permission, but I missed the fact that the topic was duplicated in the Newbies Forum.

13

DrJJ:
We want to talk to HGV drivers who may have been affected by some of the measures brought in by the Government to enable logistics operators to temporarily extend working hours and changes to urban delivery times between 2020 and 2022.

If you were affected, then we would like 30 minutes of your time to hear about your experiences.

Why?
The Department for Transport (DfT) want to know how these measures affected HGV drivers.
The Centre for Transport & Society at the UWE Bristol are conducting the research on behalf of the DfT, and we need you to tell us about your experiences. Your views will contribute important messages in our report to the DfT. We will not identify you as an individual in our report.

How can you can help us?
We would like to talk with you either using MS Teams, or we can call you on your preferred phone number. If you take part, we will send you a £10 ‘love to shop’ voucher.

How do you take part?
Register your interest using this sign-up form link or scan the QR code at the bottom. uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/S … Y4fXfZkhD0

When do you need to be available?
The sign-up form asks for your availability between 29th June and 15th July. You can indicate your preferred days (weekdays and Saturdays offered) and times. The researcher will confirm the interview day and time via email.

What will happen to your personal details?
Your personal details will be used only for the purpose of contacting you for an interview and will not be shared outside of the research team. The research has been approved by the UWE faculty ethics committee. There is a link to more information and the data privacy note on first page of the sign-up form. We encourage you to read all the information before signing up.

Any further questions?
Please contact Dr Juliet Jain Juliet.Jain@uwe.ac.uk or leave a message on the forum board below.

0

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This topic is OK’ed by Admin. dd.

Love to shop , arnt there a few of those places on the a1 , I don’t mind answering your questions but me / mrs are a bit old for that type of thing , coffee & a cake will do

14

Juddian:
Agree 100% with Conor. This rat stinks.

Never took a blind bit of notice of working ours being extended when it suits, the company i work for wasn’t having a bar of it nor were the drivers.

Same here. When I do work, which is normally September to April, the truck I drive is double-shifted so I can’t go over 12 hours (and normally do 8-9 hour shifts anyway). I personally wouldn’t work for any company which expected me to do even one 15 hour shift a week.

If the Government is looking to relax driver hours restrictions, that is an incredibly short-sighted response to a problem brought about largely because so few young people wish to enter an industry which already requires excessive work hours.

15

DrJJ:
We want to talk to HGV drivers who may have been affected by some of the measures brought in by the Government to enable logistics operators to temporarily extend working hours and changes to urban delivery times between 2020 and 2022.

If you were affected, then we would like 30 minutes of your time to hear about your experiences.

Why?
The Department for Transport (DfT) want to know how these measures affected HGV drivers.
The Centre for Transport & Society at the UWE Bristol are conducting the research on behalf of the DfT, and we need you to tell us about your experiences. Your views will contribute important messages in our report to the DfT. We will not identify you as an individual in our report.

How can you can help us?
We would like to talk with you either using MS Teams, or we can call you on your preferred phone number. If you take part, we will send you a £10 ‘love to shop’ voucher.

How do you take part?
Register your interest using this sign-up form link or scan the QR code at the bottom. uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/S … Y4fXfZkhD0

When do you need to be available?
The sign-up form asks for your availability between 29th June and 15th July. You can indicate your preferred days (weekdays and Saturdays offered) and times. The researcher will confirm the interview day and time via email.

What will happen to your personal details?
Your personal details will be used only for the purpose of contacting you for an interview and will not be shared outside of the research team. The research has been approved by the UWE faculty ethics committee. There is a link to more information and the data privacy note on first page of the sign-up form. We encourage you to read all the information before signing up.

Any further questions?
Please contact Dr Juliet Jain Juliet.Jain@uwe.ac.uk or leave a message on the forum board below.

0

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This topic is OK’ed by Admin. dd.

Don’t invest too much brain power for your questions, long hours causes tiredness, tiredness causes accidents, more hours more risk. And the Dft have commissioned this for what purpose?

16

robbo99.:
And the Dft have commissioned this for what purpose?

The cynic would say to funnel money to their lobbyists/friends/blackmailers.

17

DrJJ:
Useful to see your opinion here. You are very welcome to discuss with me further. Personally, I hope this report is not used to worsen conditions. However, we are evaluating the effectiveness of particular measures that the Government implemented. I have yet to speak with anyone who has been expected to work extra hours during the period when they were extended, hence this request.

It absolutely will be used to worsen our conditions. I’ve been doing this job 29 years, I’ve yet to see any changes coming out of the government that have improved it however I’ve seen plenty which have made it worse as they try to address a shortage of drivers at the same time demand is increasing. Some of the changes have been quite sly such as altering the way a digital tachograph records driving time. The way they record it now means that for example if I’m sat in my drivers seat in a line of traffic at some traffic lights or a level crossing for example and I don’t move for over a minute then that time is recorded as other work, not driving time even though I clearly have to be sat behind the drivers wheel with a seatbelt on in full control of the vehicle and were I to be caught with my mobile phone in my hand would face prosecution for using a mobile phone whilst driving. All those odd minutes here and there add up over a week, especially for those doing multidrop urban deliveries. So now we can do more mileage than we were able to do previously purely because of how much time driving isn’t being recorded as such.

As for the impact of long hours, lack of sleep, working 7 days without a break, spending 5.5hrs sat in one place, there have been masses of studies over the years and it has long been accepted it’s nothing but detrimental to mental and physical wellbeing as well as being detrimental to outside things such as family life. Studies have also been done showing considerable benefits of a shorter working week. There don’t need to be any more studies done to establish this, nor to establish extending driving hours and duty time because what we already have as a maximum limit is almost threefold the amount of hours that were used in the studies for the shortened working week and considerably more than the hours worked in the studies of the impact of long hours.

So without the need for a study here’s how it went:

The drivers and owner drivers who max out the hours chasing the money rubbed their hands in glee at the thought of legitimately being able to do 15hrs a day every day and cracked on.
The haulage companies that pushed their drivers to the limit such as Owens Transport, most of those running off the ferries at Cairnryan etc rubbed their hands in glee at being able to run their drivers ragged.

The decent companies, the one where I work included, said that they were going to have nothing to do with it.
The majority of drivers turned round, stuck two fingers up and said “you can shove that where the sun don’t shine.”

If the government wants to address the shortage it is looking in the wrong place. It is not drivers hours that need changing, it’s the wasting of vehicle utilisation by collection and delivery points. Delays at collections and deliveries can mean a lorry spends up to 50% of a shift just sat there waiting doing nothing. Tesco RDC at Crick for example it wasn’t uncommon to arrive there at say 12pm and not be driving out until after 6pm. Most supermarket distribution centres you’re spending 2,3,4hrs. Sometimes you can be waiting an hour after unloading just to get the paperwork. If the government wants to do something it should bring in a mandatory demurrage penalty of £100-£200 per hour or part thereof that a lorry is sat waiting at a collection or delivery for more than an hour, including the time taken to load/unload to be paid by the collection/delivery location.

18

dieseldave:

DrJJ:

Zac_A:
Did DrJJ get permission to post this from the Mods?

Hi Zac, I had an exchange with your forum manager prior to putting out our request. Juliet

It’s correct that this topic got permission, but I missed the fact that the topic was duplicated in the Newbies Forum.

It’s not duplicated in the Newbies, it’s similar, but a different question.

19

Like all questionaries that get posted on here, I’m giving it a wide berth and I’m not going to participate in the research. I’d suggest that all other honourable members of this forum do the same, likewise I’d like to see any future posts of this nature banned from the forum

20

To be fair, certain curfews were lifted regards store deliveries. In certain circumstances it meant that more use could be made of evening / night hours for deliveries, which helped to stock the stores with food and essentials. Obviously drivers would be doing more night hours and the transport would be able to make better use of available vehicles. Not exactly rocket science.

The “measures” included permission for drivers and hauliers to extend hours. A driver would only be affected if 1) his employer had communicated that it was analysing driver cards based on the different rules, 2) the driver actually wished to extend, 3) the driver actually did extend.

A few souls may have gotten home instead of spending a night in the services.

Edit: the danger of extending hours is that hauliers will plan to those hours, so drivers would just be asked to drive further and will still run out of time when there is a problem such as a traffic jam.