I think air con or rather the lack of, is a health & safety issue, but it seems to me that the HSE only get involved if it means they can be a pain in the arse to everyone who has to adhere to their often silly rules.
Think about this, you’re driving down the road with your windows down & a bee/wasp comes into the cab & stings you, you end up losing control of the vehicle while you’re jumping around like a lunatic & you hit something, now that something could be a fence that would only damage your vehicle & the fence, but it could be a bridge support & that’s going to hurt, a lot, or it could be a bus stop with 20 kids standing there, not good whichever way you look at it.
Well that’s the safety part, but what about the drivers health, bee stings apart, what about all the fumes you’re breathing in, they’re not good for you & then there’s the noise level & the effects of the wind on your ears, none of it is any good for your long term health.
Normally I would reply to this kind of post in a different way, accusing you of being a bunch of fairies, but not in this case, this time I’m 100% behind you, yeah I know we used to do without it, I myself have spent many years on the continent in very hot conditions without it & it made the job hard work, in them days though the only real air con available in lorries were the roof mounted ones & they were really expensive & from what I hear fragile too, Volvo offered it as standard in the later F12s but they were the only ones, I think, although I’m sure someone will know better
I have been stung by a wasp while driving, this nearly caused me to go through a crossroads on a red light as I was in pole position, foot on clutch ready to pull away when it zapped me & when I jumped my foot came off the clutch & I went bunny hopping across the junction, funny thing is I was in one of the previously mentioned F12s with A/C & thought I’d enjoy a nice breeze instead of using the air con, even worse was being in a village with a 6ton weight limit trying to avoid a section of road that was notorious for being heavily populated by the boys in blue looking to make a fast buck
Hope this don’t make you air con-less boys & girls too sick, but I have 2 A/C units in my current ride, 1 for the cab & the other for the bunk & if it’s hot at night I just leave the engine running & stay nice & cool, last week I had 41deg C tempretures & still slept under my quilt & I woke up with cold ears, BRRRRRRRR