thanks for all the comments…i’m going to try and alter my braking slightly (i’m far from the worst the dd bod said…one driver recorded 12 harsh brakes in one day 
)…and if he still not happy he can come out with me and show me how it’s done…once the pandemic is over of course,as he’s not allowed in the cab with anyone till then 
msgyorkie:
Conor:
msgyorkie:
Thank christ I dont work for these muppet large “logistics” turds.Yeah it’s terrible working at a place with well maintained vehicles with employers who care about the welfare of the drivers and a nice easy job with nice tarmacced and concreted yards getting paid almost £16 an hour plus shift bonus plus a £20 bonus just for not having tacho infringements and driving the lorry properly. You keep where you are fella and be proud. After all someone has to work at those cowboy outfits running motors that’d look bad in a scrapyard getting paid less than Tesco shelf stackers so it might as well be you who gets to be that hero taking one for the rest of us.
Lol I have mentioned this to you before.
I too work for a good company with all the above you just mentioned, the pay, the kit etc etc. The difference is we are trusted to just get on with job and we dont need to be micro-managed like you clearly do.
You have to realise that just because we work for a small outfit it doesnt mean its a bad outfit, in many ways they can be far superior.
Agree… We have top kit, well maintained. And allowed to get on with job, as we see fit,no interference from pointy management or telematics. It’s called Trust.
simcor:
Sounds like he is talking quite some tosh tbh.If anything like microlise a harsh braking event is speed dropping by 8km or more over a 3 second period or something along the lines of that from memory.
So you have to be braking quite hard reducing your speed quickly over 3 seconds to trigger a harsh braking event.
So his logic of driving up to hazards and braking hard a late would gain you harsh braking events quite easily.
If you drive smoothly and use exhaust brakes/retarders in advance of junctions and lights etc it’s quite possible to avoid harsh braking events, not to mention putting less wear on the brakes and drive train. And you barely need to use the brakes to slow the vehicle down and you drive more relaxed and less stressful.
Not to mention loads going over under harsh braking.
Really a harsh braking event should only become necessary during an emergency stop or avoidance of something all of a sudden.
IIRC some decades ago the Government decided to ‘help’ the logistics industry by offering free training…can’t remember what it was called. Anyway, they got some bods with ‘advanced’ car driving qualifications to draw up the notes, which included to avoid wearing out the engine and gearbox and saving fuel by holding onto high gears for as long as possible at all times…even when slowing down.
“Gears to go, brakes to slow”
This then got translated over to the actual driving test, and so yes, a generation of drivers has been ‘trained’ in this style of driving, which conveniently ignores all the stuff like engine-brakes and retarders that you actually find on trucks.
There was a van-driving course that was even worse…said you shouldn’t use any gear higher than third in a 30 mph limit.
Juddian:
Personally i prefer motors that don’t illuminate the brake lights for exhaust brake alone, i want the brake lights to mean something important not to have been illuminated for several miles continually whilst the exhauster holds the vehicle to a constant speed whilst dropping down to jct 23 M1 northbound.Have no idea if our lot look for harsh brakes or what they do about it, i’m annoyed enough with myself if i get caught out.
The brake lights only illuminate using the exhaust brake if the vehicle is slowing down fairly heavily not anytime the exhaust brake is on.
It’s pretty obvious to see your brake lights reflecting off the road on darker roads while using the exhaust brake and when they are on or off.
simcor:
Juddian:
Personally i prefer motors that don’t illuminate the brake lights for exhaust brake alone, i want the brake lights to mean something important not to have been illuminated for several miles continually whilst the exhauster holds the vehicle to a constant speed whilst dropping down to jct 23 M1 northbound.Have no idea if our lot look for harsh brakes or what they do about it, i’m annoyed enough with myself if i get caught out.
The brake lights only illuminate using the exhaust brake if the vehicle is slowing down fairly heavily not anytime the exhaust brake is on.
It’s pretty obvious to see your brake lights reflecting off the road on darker roads while using the exhaust brake and when they are on or off.
Not on Scanias they don’t illuminate according to deceleration, they’re on from the second you apply the exhaust brake, you know that thing that makes a noise but has little in the way of retarding effect 
You could just keep annoying them passively by not changing driving style and staying safe. Sounds like theres nothing they can do currently and they’ll get bored.
Personally if they told me to drive like a loon braking at the last second etc, I’d ask them for these instructions in writing.
It sounds dangerous especially if you consider the vehicle behind you might not react in time and slamming into a truck / trailer usually results in major damage. The resulting accident could also affect your car insurance are they paying for 5 years of that too?
Or come work for us - dropping a trailer, missing the pin several times, damaging a trailer etc (all same driver) doesn’t get you fired. Microlise, err, doubt they’d dare. 
Do things like this really exist [emoji15] thank god I don’t work for a company like that.
The world has truly gone mad, I hate it on service days if I get put i in daf that gives the thumbs up or in my case not [emoji51]
Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
wrighty1:
Do things like this really exist [emoji15] thank god I don’t work for a company like that.
The world has truly gone mad, I hate it on service days if I get put i in daf that gives the thumbs up or in my case not [emoji51]Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
DAF*s are fun for a day!
Look at the previous score. Zero it.
Drive like a loon for most of the day, and see how low you can get the score.
Then zero score about 30km from yard on the run back, and drive like a nun carrying orphaned kittens.
Youve had fun, the score makes the regular driver look a fool, Fords in his flivver, and All is well with the world!
*terms and conditions apply
A system we once used would record harsh braking if you turned off cruise control by tapping the brake pedal
This usually happened if going up hill when the engine was under strain
Once I started to turn off cruise control using the steering wheel function the harsh braking events stopped
Might be worth trying
w1ggo:
A system we once used would record harsh braking if you turned off cruise control by tapping the brake pedal
This usually happened if going up hill when the engine was under strainOnce I started to turn off cruise control using the steering wheel function the harsh braking events stopped
Might be worth trying
Yep, the Scania one doesnt like you knocking off the cruise with the brake pedal or retarder. The way to get the best score on them is knock off cruise on the wheel or if you are on foot throttle, lift off. Let it roll for a bit then apply retarder 1 click at a time, finally bringing to a stop on the foot brake.
GasGas:
simcor:
Sounds like he is talking quite some tosh tbh.If anything like microlise a harsh braking event is speed dropping by 8km or more over a 3 second period or something along the lines of that from memory.
So you have to be braking quite hard reducing your speed quickly over 3 seconds to trigger a harsh braking event.
So his logic of driving up to hazards and braking hard a late would gain you harsh braking events quite easily.
If you drive smoothly and use exhaust brakes/retarders in advance of junctions and lights etc it’s quite possible to avoid harsh braking events, not to mention putting less wear on the brakes and drive train. And you barely need to use the brakes to slow the vehicle down and you drive more relaxed and less stressful.
Not to mention loads going over under harsh braking.
Really a harsh braking event should only become necessary during an emergency stop or avoidance of something all of a sudden.
IIRC some decades ago the Government decided to ‘help’ the logistics industry by offering free training…can’t remember what it was called. Anyway, they got some bods with ‘advanced’ car driving qualifications to draw up the notes, which included to avoid wearing out the engine and gearbox and saving fuel by holding onto high gears for as long as possible at all times…even when slowing down.
“Gears to go, brakes to slow”
This then got translated over to the actual driving test, and so yes, a generation of drivers has been ‘trained’ in this style of driving, which conveniently ignores all the stuff like engine-brakes and retarders that you actually find on trucks.
There was a van-driving course that was even worse…said you shouldn’t use any gear higher than third in a 30 mph limit.
It was called ‘S.A.F.E.D’, (Safe and fuel efficient driving). It was no braking, no stopping and no changing down once in top gear. It was to teach the extreme limits of truck capabilities and maximise fuel economy/mpg by ‘bunny hopping’ your way around a 15-20 mile route. It was a good teaching aid, but not practical for the real world. It did teach you, however, that over braking and over gearing (changing) could be eliminated very easily with a few simple techniques.
Truckerian99:
Did I miss something? Your objective in an HGV is not to brake unless you have to. I was trained to “keep it rolling” use your exhaust/engine brake and gears, but keep off the brake if possible. I look around and wonder what happened. Everyday, all day, when I knock off the revs at the half mile marker for a roundabout and engage the engine brake just before the 300 yard marker some muppet steams past me, brake lights flashing and when we get to the junction he’s scrambling for gears, or worse, is stationary and off I go leaving him in the mirror. Are there any instructors out there who can enlighten me as to this new training ideal?!?!It’s not just wagon drivers either. On a four mile cross country stretch to work on Wednesday the car in front braked 27 times and crossed the white line nine times (sadly I counted) . Me? I had to brake twice for the two red lights. The world has gone mad.
I’ll go with this man,I drive like this and record a score of zero every week,whereas the teararses always have a score in the red,muppets.
Truckerian99:
GasGas:
simcor:
.It was called ‘S.A.F.E.D’, (Safe and fuel efficient driving). It was no braking, no stopping and no changing down once in top gear. It was to teach the extreme limits of truck capabilities and maximise fuel economy/mpg by ‘bunny hopping’ your way around a 15-20 mile route. It was a good teaching aid, but not practical for the real world. It did teach you, however, that over braking and over gearing (changing) could be eliminated very easily with a few simple techniques.
It had some good points in that good pre planning approaches to junctions hills etc would result in a smoother drive only requiring a gentle slowing of the vehicle with the intention of being able to go smoothly through the hazard without stopping at all, but this is something real lorry drivers have been doing for generations, to keep brakes in good cool order in case they might be needed and to save fuel, its called maintaining normal progress, something a professional driver of all types vehicles would perfect over time without some ‘expert’ box ticker being needed.
In all this these supposed experts forgot that there is a world of difference between cars and lorries and there always will be, thankfully lorry makers obviously don’t employ these one size fits all box tickers for they still stubbornly continue to design and fit auxilliary retarding systems of varying types that automatically (assuming the person behind the wheel doesn’t know how to utilise gears correctly) change down the gears as the vehicle slows by some form of deceleration device that doesn’t make use of the brakes or if its does then only minimally to stabilise deceleration during gearbox downshifts.
Sadly there are many behind the wheel who have no interest in improving their driving and clueless about vehicle sympathy, at one time they’d come unstuck sooner or later because overuse of the brakes would not only cause fade but before we had automatic slack adjusters the brakes would wear down quickly to the point they had little effort (usually trailers, and these people wouldn’t have a clue about adjusting slack themselves), invariably they’d have accidents due to poor brakes caused entirely by their driving, modern vehicles with much improved maintenace minimal brakes allow these same types to pilot lorries like cars even fully loaded without undue fading, hence rapid brake wear and increased fuel usage.
Telematics are needed to try and curb the worse offenders on fleets where due to multiple drivers using the same vehicle its not possible to see patterns in vehicle costings, smaller operations with one driver per vehicle telematics not usually needed, helped by the fact the bod checking service reports is often the one paying the bills and the wages 
You only have to look at the steer axle wheels of a wagon to know how its driven, wheels caked in heavy brake dust means its driven on the brakes, other wagons can travel hundreds or thousands of miles and those steer wheels remain clean, wonder which driver type gets the most harsh brake events? its not rocket science but requires management to go out in the cold and actually see whats going on and not just rely on telematics which can only tell them so much.
With old time motors the brakes had one good stop in them… You didnt want to waste it. I am helping my daughter to learn to drive ,the number of times a numpty overtakes us then has to brake for a known hazard is ridiculous.