I put the tacho on break every time I feel I’m likely to be stationary more than ten minutes. Whether that be tipping, sitting in a traffic jam or whatever.
Legal, illegal, who cares?
At least doing it that way i can take my real break at my own convenience and not the tacho’s or the invisible unelected officials that make our laws and rule our daily lives.
berewic:
I put the tacho on break every time I feel I’m likely to be stationary more than ten minutes. Whether that be tipping, sitting in a traffic jam or whatever.
Legal, illegal, who cares?
At least doing it that way i can take my real break at my own convenience and not the tacho’s or the invisible unelected officials that make our laws and rule our daily lives.
well said.
Mine gets pushed on POA or break when I stop in traffic, on pumps,at gatehouses trailer changing , my other work for the whole day often amounts to maybe six minutes when I check at end of day , this hasnt caused any problems .
I got stopped by Dutch Police and they downloaded everything and didnt say anything was amiss.
We have drivers who are brainwashed at our firm into showing half hour at start and end of shift on otherwork.
.
schrodingers cat:
On one side the problem lies with the wasters that will happily sit in their cab, with toilets nearby, and a coffee machine and a food machine possibly a water boiler and a microwave, whilst someone else unloads their trailer for an hour or more. Then they drive up the road and park up for 45 minutes in a lay-bye stinking of ■■■■ and [zb] because, “I haven’t had a break where I wanted to”.The other side of this is the idiot bosses that don’t pay wages whilst the tacho is set to break. How bloody stupid is that? It absolutely guarantees that the driver will use the break setting as little as possible because he’s not paid for it. In the transport industry, the driver costs peanuts in comparison to the wagon so keeping them from running as efficiently as possible (by using break wherever appropriate) is poor business sense.
The bit that I find so strange is that it is exactly the same drivers who complain long and loud about the cramped conditions of a waiting room in an RDC, and the conditions of the toilets.
Then they will park up for 11 hours in an expensive truckstop with the curtains drawn eating canned stew whilst watching reruns of Emmerdale and Eastenders, they ■■■■ on the floor and jump out of their skin if another driver tries to speak to them.
Taking break whilst on a beam
limeyphil:
if a company pays by the tacho, then you don’t work for them. (unless you’re a complete idiot)
if i wasn’t paid for breaks, then it would be left on other work, all day, and all night.
they can pay me for driving, and pay me for overnight security.none of that would happen in reality though. i’m not stupid enough to work for hourly pay.
never have, never will.
I like being paid by the hour because trip money wouldn’t be fair in my line of work.
We get overtime after eight hours each day and being humble domestic drivers we can spend as much time waiting, tipping or loading as we do driving.
If I spend the day loading and securing four trailers with concrete pipe segments I would expect to earn more than a colleague listening to radio 2 as he drives along. It’s also nice to know that I’ll get paid for doing that bit extra.
I think trip money has it’s place and personally I always thought day rates were a bit unfair. I know you’re an advocate of day rates Phil, so I’m not trying to cause a row but I am interested to hear why you prefer that system?
W
Why do so many people worry about POA? I only bothered with switching mode to break and back to other work. The job has enough hassles, why complicate things?
AlexWignall:
limeyphil:
if a company pays by the tacho, then you don’t work for them. (unless you’re a complete idiot)
if i wasn’t paid for breaks, then it would be left on other work, all day, and all night.
they can pay me for driving, and pay me for overnight security.none of that would happen in reality though. i’m not stupid enough to work for hourly pay.
never have, never will.I like being paid by the hour because trip money wouldn’t be fair in my line of work.
We get overtime after eight hours each day and being humble domestic drivers we can spend as much time waiting, tipping or loading as we do driving.
If I spend the day loading and securing four trailers with concrete pipe segments I would expect to earn more than a colleague listening to radio 2 as he drives along. It’s also nice to know that I’ll get paid for doing that bit extra.
I think trip money has it’s place and personally I always thought day rates were a bit unfair. I know you’re an advocate of day rates Phil, so I’m not trying to cause a row but I am interested to hear why you prefer that system?
W
If you’ve ever worked on day rates, you’ll know there’s always ‘that guy’, well, that guy is Phil 
Stuff day rates: All the drivers on day rates around here work longer hours than me yet take home the same money. Oh wait, a couple get to drive Scanias…
Muckaway:
Stuff day rates: All the drivers on day rates around here work longer hours than me yet take home the same money. Oh wait, a couple get to drive Scanias…
perhaps vosa or whoever the powers that be could argue ‘‘day rates’’ are an illegal incentive to speed= driver loses, when the day drags into a ‘‘super ghoster’’= driver loses, but boss is laughing, simply dont get the day rate thing, not in full details though, perhaps it a cuschte number, thought it was old time stuff, brother used to do trip money doing conti , didn’t appeal, just an opinion, other opinions freely available, brother drove scanias conti, like a lot of bods I dont get the scani thing,I drove them on john russell’s,. grangemouth, nothing special imo
When doing euro work, I will usually tip /load whilst on break, doesn’t mean that i won’t stop later on though,
But when i did agency work one agency didn’t pay for 1 hr per shift (which imo should be outlawed) as a break is compulsory after 4.5 driving time
When i worked for that agency i used to always drag the shift out by 1hr or more, unless it was in my interest not to, such as only working 5hrs but being guaranteed 8hr, or i wanted to get home
AlexWignall:
limeyphil:
if a company pays by the tacho, then you don’t work for them. (unless you’re a complete idiot)
if i wasn’t paid for breaks, then it would be left on other work, all day, and all night.
they can pay me for driving, and pay me for overnight security.none of that would happen in reality though. i’m not stupid enough to work for hourly pay.
never have, never will.I like being paid by the hour because trip money wouldn’t be fair in my line of work.
We get overtime after eight hours each day and being humble domestic drivers we can spend as much time waiting, tipping or loading as we do driving.
If I spend the day loading and securing four trailers with concrete pipe segments I would expect to earn more than a colleague listening to radio 2 as he drives along. It’s also nice to know that I’ll get paid for doing that bit extra.
I think trip money has it’s place and personally I always thought day rates were a bit unfair. I know you’re an advocate of day rates Phil, so I’m not trying to cause a row but I am interested to hear why you prefer that system?
W
sometimes, but very rarely i’ll work a 15 hour day. but i’ve done many 6 hour fridays for a full days pay.
day rates only work right with the right firm. the right firm will give you what they deem as your days work, you get it done, then that’s it. same money, no matter what. the only time i’d consider hourly pay, would be a guaranteed minimum amount. effectively a day rate plus overtime.
i’ve seen far to many drivers give the rest of us a bad name, they get hourly pay, then just toss the job off, and they think it’s funny.
I get a day rate for 10.5 hours if I do anymore we get over time very rarely do more than 11 hours and tell the truth unless it’s more than an hour I don’t book it. I may be slated here for that but my firm don’t dock me when I finish early and over a month I recon me and the firm end up equal maybe me in front a bit.
On Friday our loading shovel went down so I ended up putting it on break and just put my feet up and read my book. Came out of the yard grabbed a sandwich and carried on as it would just be taking the ■■■■ if I stopped for a break again.
kr79:
I get a day rate for 10.5 hours if I do anymore we get over time very rarely do more than 11 hours and tell the truth unless it’s more than an hour I don’t book it. I may be slated here for that but my firm don’t dock me when I finish early and over a month I recon me and the firm end up equal maybe me in front a bit.
On Friday our loading shovel went down so I ended up putting it on break and just put my feet up and read my book. Came out of the yard grabbed a sandwich and carried on as it would just be taking the ■■■■ if I stopped for a break again.
you graft when the graft needs doing, you work with the company, not against it.
nothing in there to be slated for.
So it is how I thought, day rates are better if the work is predictable for example ‘be in Milan for 08h Wed’.
You’re right that hourly pay is open to abuse and I’ve seen plenty of drivers try it on. Luckily we’re small enough for those kind of tricks to stick out like a sore thumb.
I think the best way is just to be honest and reliable…
All the donkeys and day stretchers who I’ve met are always unhappy with their lot (because the office can’t trust them).
All the ‘men on a mission’ are just as fed up because the’re never thanked for their extra effort (just abused 'till they crack).
The other side of honest and reliable is the Office staff. I can’t come as a surprise that deliveries to RDC take a long time.
The office need to plan work so drivers can take a break where they can recuperate. That way they will have happier and more loyal drivers.
Thanks for the reply Phill,
W
limeyphil:
you graft when the graft needs doing, you work with the company, not against it…
Agree with that, but some companies do not exactly encourage this way of thinking by the way that they look upon, treat, consider, and pay their drivers, you only reap what you sow… end of. There are two types of companies, and I have worked for both types, the “Team co” and the “Them & us” type of co. the former get a lot more production effort and co-operation than the latter, many years ago I had a small firm of my own and considered it false economy to penny pinch with drivers, and a lot more productive to treat them as grown ups, nowadays a lot of bosses heads are so far up their own arses to see that.
The problem with DAY RATES can be what the company defines as a full working day,
example : the company may think that its reasonable that a driver is paid the same for working almost 24hrs in that day,as a driver who has only worked 8hrs in that day. define a day ?
is it 24hrs,8hrs 15 hrs the rate of pay is the same, and is a way for those unscrupulous companies out there to screw their workforce
I take most of my breaks on the bays , what gets me with the office boys commenting is this; most RDC`s have a coffee/tea machine, and if your lucky, a bar of chocolate, now if you think drivers are satisfied with this eating arrangement 5 days a week, you my friend have another thing to learn. I have often pulled out from an RDC only to stop at the earliest convenience for proper food, ok it may be a sandwich/burger, but its hot food. When i am tipping at Emerson, i get a sausage and egg roll, and take it with me into the depot, and munch it at my leisure while tipping, a lot of drivers ask where i got it from
( which shows they too are in need of hot food)
I got pulled in to the office once for taking an unofficial break ( they said it was for not completing 4.5 hrs driving, or 6 hrs of other work ) and ask for my reasons, i just told them i saw the burger van in the distance, and had visions of a nice hot cheese burger, so i stopped, i did mention that if they were going to penalise me for stocking up on my fuel, then i would run the truck the same way, and not bother to fill that up either, i think they saw the point.
So here is my take, being paid by the hour, and delivering to RDCs I will take 15 mins before going in, other work while being tipped, and a 30 min when my driving time is up (4.5) however this can change, for example if im on a container and im sitting about for 2/3 hours i will take a break while they tip me, but on another company a friend works at, they pay him a shift allowance plus what the load erns, so for him the quicker he gets his run done the better it is, as im paid by the hour it makes no sence to do this, as id be robbing myself and hour at lest. but there has to be a balance, it really depends on how long you are being tipped, and the remaining driving hours, as i wont take a 45 if I’ve only done 2 hours driving, cuze it could mess me up, if the transport office gives me a long run to re-load, normally ill drive to the RDC take a quick 15 min before I go in, drive until my 4.5 is up then take a 30, sometimes on a bay I will take a 15 for the company, but ill defo make sure i get my 30 in some nice burger king or other 