Hi all,
I work as a shunter for a food processing company, we have a Daf XF for shunting and two mirrorless XGs which are out on the road all day. There is plenty of discussion elsewhere on this site about mirrorless lorries and I don’t want to get too much into that here. I find the XGs are nice for pottering about in the yard when I need to move them and the screens take a bit of getting used to but are certainly usable. However, I find that the image quality is nowhere near as pin-sharp as a real mirror - until I put on my reading glasses. My eyesight was tested recently and is well within tolerance for driving and I only need the glasses for reading. The position of the screen which replaces the driver’s side mirror is such that I need to wear my glasses to see the image clearly, but I cannot wear the glasses for driving because everything beyond that becomes a blur. The screen on the passenger side is ok. For shunting trailers on and off the loading bays in the factory yard, pottering about at 5mph or thereabouts it’s not really a big problem to just perch my readers on the end of my nose. But when the time will come that I have to drive one of these out on the road that isn’t going to work.
So, would I just have to put up with a blurry screen instead of a pin-sharp mirror? After all, the lorries are road legal and my eyesight is within legal requirements.
Should I ask my employer to equip at least one of the XGs with mirrors when the time comes?
In the extreme, should I refuse to drive because of the road safety implications of not being able to clearly see the screen?
I may be over-thinking this, but I am concerned about it.
Cheers,
Rodders
Varifocals cured it for me.
trevorking1964:
Varifocals cured it for me.
Thanks for responding, did the company supply the glasses or did you have to fork out from your own pocket?
Really?
I’m the same, I have a small prescription for distance and a small reading prescription.
Going forwards I don’t have any problems using the Actros mirror cams with my distance glasses on, and for reversing I just take them off and can see well enough without any glasses.
Hi all, thanks for the response.
Yes, really. I’ve done some more searching and it appears it should be covered under the “DSE” or “display screen equipment” rules. This means that any job where the employee has to look at a screen, the employer must provide an eye test and the required prescription eye-wear. Failing that, it should be covered by the employers capability procedure. This would mean that the employer must provide the necessary equipment in order that the employee can do their job; which in this scenario would be to have mirrors fitted to the lorry.
My employer has booked an eye test for me for next week.
Cheers,
Rodders
Rodders73:
Hi all, thanks for the response.
Yes, really. I’ve done some more searching and it appears it should be covered under the “DSE” or “display screen equipment” rules. This means that any job where the employee has to look at a screen, the employer must provide an eye test and the required prescription eye-wear. Failing that, it should be covered by the employers capability procedure. This would mean that the employer must provide the necessary equipment in order that the employee can do their job; which in this scenario would be to have mirrors fitted to the lorry.
My employer has booked an eye test for me for next week.
Cheers,
Rodders
Might be worth you measuring how far you sit from the screens. It’ll be further than you holding a book and the left one is almost middle distance.
I was away to post about glasses for driving as I have a distance pair and a reading pair. Looks like I’ll go for varifocals though to eliminate swapping them around all the time.