I literally created this account to drop in my two cents here, even though the post is old as hell.
So back when I was 20 odd I got a conviction for a DR10 simply for trying to sleep in my own car with engine running to heat up inside the car. Apparently this was “attempting to drive” A lot of people on Forums and Facebook will jump up and down like a child and scream like a ■■■■■ because they see DR10 but everyone’s circumstances are different, just ignore them!
A DR10 will only effect you if you let it, I drove home from court right after my ban! I did not give two damns back then, my insurance for some strange reason kept taking payments, I’m thinking they never got the memo lol. I even drove to my drink drive course to reduce the ban.
Whilst on my ban I got another two years handy NCB which bought my payments down, the ban never effected premiums for me at all. Hell I even got a job as a food delivery driver, nobody ever asked me about licence etc.
I drove and had a delivery job throughout my entire ban. Don’t get me wrong it is an idiotic thing to do but like I said, I just did not give a crap. This went on for years, how I never got caught was beyond me, I used my car for everything and visited most large towns and cities, must of been insurance and driving style haha.
Once I got my licence back I went for my Cat C and finally my C+E, I live where I still live now, countryside. Driving out here is different to the Cities, it’s much easier to get a job doing things.
Due to health reasons I was on ESA benefit and working (delivering food) just 15 hours per week to keep the tax man happy. This was going to be a long term thing so I had to make the most of it.
I did however, volunteer my “services” to driving lambs to slaughter, horse boxes, oil tankers etc etc you get the point. This give me such a wide range of experience with plenty of different tractors and trailers etc. As for the insurance thing, as the poster above said, they are like prostitutes, they will do anything for the right price. I just said I would pay the excess in the event of an accident and that was that.
What I did was, work for a local food delivery company whilst spending the rest of my time “helping” local firms when they needed it. This got me an absolute S*!T tonne of experience and this went on for the entire 11 years it was on my licence for.
Once the ban is up it takes 5 years to be “spent”. So after this no company or insurance company can discriminate against you or use it to refuse you employment. I had the lightbulb idea here, I was going to see how many companies out there would be dishonest and refuse me because of an old DR10. It was surprising how many companies did this, I actually ended up suing one company for discrimination, they offered an out of court settlement, which I refused, we had a hearing and it was ruled in my favour. I knew I probably would not always win, so I accepted most out of court settlements. The mental thing is the compensation, most of the time they work on the basis of what you would of lost, if you had the job, so for example:
£9.00 an hour for 8 hours a day 5 days per week for a whole year, so that’s £17,280 they give you 50% of this! So I got £8,640 just like that! - That is just an example in some cases the jobs were £15 an hour, even better for me! This is where it truly hit me, I bought a phone recorder off eBay and started applying for all kinds of jobs all over the place, the larger organisations were more clued up, I’d say I made well over 50k out of suing EASILY! I paid quite a large down payment for my mortgage and bought myself a brand new Toyota, life was good! Let’s just say, I was never ever strapped for cash.
I did not apply in the normal fashion, I would email the careers Email first and have a conversation then after a bit of back and fourth, bring up the DR10, or give them a call and have the same conversation, it’s much easier to slip up on the phone than Email. 90% of the trucking companies would blame the insurance company, I probably only sued around 3-4 trucker companies, some of them were straight up stupid and would tell you straight that there is no way they would employ anybody with a DR or DD. I’m thinking these were old schoolers, who knows, the rest were insurance companies who can obviously afford to pay. Not all of them were large fleet insurers some were underwriters.
This is a little preview of how things would start, the beginning of a simple court case
If my conviction stayed longer than the short 11 years I probably would of carried on haha.
Don’t hate on me as this would NOT have happened if the companies weren’t so discriminative, you also have to get it on paper or phone call saying certain things a certain way to get the case going. Insurance companies are the fastest pay outs when it comes to suing, they just want it over and done with, probably don’t want the press or headache.
Now it’s completely gone, I have not lost anything, in fact I gained it.
The irony is, I never drink, the first time I ever drank alcohol was that fateful day when I was 20 odd and I only drank 2-3 cans of beer, it’s actually quite funny. Would I go back and change it? NO! There is no need to change anything, my life went absolutely fine. To this day I never got any points, speeding fines not even a parking ticket.
So it does not destroy anything in terms of driving, it only effects you if you let it! I’d imagine if I applied to a trucking job, I would have no problem getting it. To be honest I probably wouldn’t even bother with a trucking job, the wages are not that great for the long hours they do, I have gone back to marketing online doing 2-3 hour days, spend more time with family and friends etc.
There we have it! Don’t let the DR10 rule your life, just take it and ride that ■■■■■ A lot of you will hate on me but I really do not care 
that was then quite a long time ago now. Just thought I would tell my story. I’m just letting those with a DR10 know that your driving life is not over, some companies will take you, desperate agency workers for sure.
I don’t condone anything I did nor am I telling anyone with a DR10 to follow in my footsteps, I was simply telling my story. I was absolutely INCREDIBLY lucky with almost everything I did and got away with. I had such a lot of time on my hands and would never recommend doing anything I did.
