Truckbling:
I’ve seen drivers walk off jobs because the company don’t have a sat nav to lend them.
And if I was in charge of the company, I’d gladly open the door for them.
Truckbling:
waynedl:
40 odd jobs + 16 collections is around 100 drops and collections these daysI did 60 when I was driving a van for DHL, but they were always around the same area and you get to know areas, not like a C or C+E with 450 litre tanks and bosses with an interest in using each and every litre
Its a doddle in an artic because you only have to find one or 2 places. I’m sorry but if your powers of deduction can’t rule out other towns and you can’t use a little bit of noggin then you are in the wrong job. Once again, too much dumbing down so drivers are unable to think for themselves. The companies wanted it this way but when they get an agency driver unable to suss out the very basics then the [zb] hits the fan.
Also, drivers have turned into ■■■■■■■ scared of losing their already crap jobs. They dare not stand up for themselves when being spoken to in a rude manner. Sorry but all the whiners deserve everything they get.
REALLY■■? What a load of ■■■■■■ I’ve done well into double figures in artics, I regularly did 15 - 16 in in a day at the last place I worked, and have done more than that at others.
Seems to me like you’d had a life of having it easy and can’t understand why people might struggle, but maybe it’s time you were in the real world and struggled for a while 
At risk off being shot down someone would be paying one way or another i often find a personal visit to explain the error of there ways often helps but then I’m old school
My Tomtom charges up enough to use for a considerable time without needing a power supply.
waynedl:
Truckbling:
waynedl:
REALLY■■? What a load of [zb]. I’ve done well into double figures in artics, I regularly did 15 - 16 in in a day at the last place I worked, and have done more than that at others.Seems to me like you’d had a life of having it easy and can’t understand why people might struggle, but maybe it’s time you were in the real world and struggled for a while
I’ve done most things when it comes to haulage and wish others would join me in the real world. I have struggled many times over but used the knowledge gained to better my lot rather than blaming everybody else for my woes.
Too many brain dead soft tarts around nowadays so I just look after myself and do stupidly well if I say so myself.
Redrorry:
That’s where the postcode and sat nav come in, this is ad hoc agency work. No aux power tells me the whole story. Forget mr employed man and boy with his maps he would probably fall out of bed and onto the right place.
Do you have a job in haulage? God knows how if you do. All I can say is they must be desperate to hire someone who would be incapable to make a delivery without a Satnav.
Fuel hasn’t always been £6 per gallon but the cost of fuel has always been around a third to a quarter of a lorries monthly earnings, wages take a portion, truck finance or maintenance takes another portion, profit comes if there is anything left.
This has always been so, it was so when I started, it was still so when it ended!
Delivery addresses haven’t changed, they were the same with a paper map and exactly the same with an electric map 
In the days before Sat Nav, I used to live in a village that had had an airfield and an ex-RAF supply depot built around it.
Consequently it was surrounded by old hangars, which were used for a variety of storage purposes.
Walking the dog in the morning I’d regularly get stopped by truck drivers who had been told their delivery point was ‘the hangars’ in this village.
I used to have to ask them what they were carrying, then guess which lot of hangars it was most likely that they needed to tip at.
The amount of time and diesel wasted by giving imprecise addresses must be huge.
These days I live somewhere else and sometimes have to order stuff for delivery by van or truck. I always give directions, but am frequently told “Oh no the driver can find it from the postcode.”
But he can’t, the post code is for the whole of the village where I live, which covers about 3 square miles and includes some roads that are so narrow you can only get a truck half way down them.
Traffic office ‘systems’ now seem incapable of taking proper directions…some, thank goodness, can still record a phone number and ‘call for directions before entering village’ but that’s about as good as it gets.
voodoo1:
He doesn’t want to harass the people
But he’ll happily cost them half a day getting it wrong?
barebones:
The postcode was now useless
Unless the three towns were in the same postcode area then yes, perhaps. Although they’re not.
You should still be paid and you should fight that, but you did have more information than you thought you did.
I remember 2 Bulgarian drivers rolled into Wick when they should have gone to Westwick about 30 miles from the ferry terminal at Hull.I had to go to Leeds Castle once ,phoned the gaffer and said Im in Leeds cant find the castle though.
Redrorry:
Remember it’s 1943 the ■■■■ are in charge and if your hinge count is out even if it’s their fault. “BANG”. At least that’s what I’ve mostly experienced, don’t question just do or the doors over there.On a personal note no sat nav power no go, no matter how much the old school bang on about maps. Phone the agency tell them you have sat nav only and no power, if the postcode is correct then a sat nav even with it’s faults is 9/10th there. If the postcode/address is wrong then that’s their fault.
Remember agency work is getting treated like something they stood in, more so if your “professional”, they (clients and agency) only respect shug the thug and keep stum because they might get a smack in the mouth.
i thought you were being sarcastic when i first read it but i think youre actually serious! 
can i ask you how you manage to find your arse hole to wipe after a taking a ■■■■? do you need a satnav for that as well? this is the problem with modern day drivers they simply cant do the job unless someone holds their hand.
why nearly every post on this thread is sympathy with the driver i just dont get it ■■?
“Staveley.”
= there are 3 places by this name on googlemaps. one is on the top of a mountain in the lake district so clearly its not that one 
,another one is a hamlet in middle of nowhere north of knaresborough so not that one either ,the other one is a small town near chesterfield , maybe its this one then■■? 
“The postcode was now useless and I had no directions for the town.”
so you had a postcode , why didnt you use your head and look at it to confirm which town? without looking it up the one near chesterfield would be either S for sheffield or DE for derby as they are the nearest postcode towns. HG will be the hamlet near knaresborough as thats the nearest town but that one is already ruled out like the lake district one because they are hamlets. you could have worked this out for yourself if youd use your bonce or easily confirmed it by stopping at a garage and looking in an os street map .
“unbelievably didn’t have a contact phone number for the destination, so I couldn’t even phone them”
its unbelievable that the uk doesnt have companies that specialise in collecting telephone numbers and addresses for other companies . if they did they could call it directory enquiries or something along those lines?
“That little mistake delayed me by about 2 hours after doubling back”
“there were no service stations on that stretch of motorway”
have tibshelf,woodall and wooley edge been demolished then? they were there when i last went along that stretch of the m1.
“the haulage company had refused to pay me more than 10 hours.”
“Is this justified…!!!”
no it most certainly is not . that is 10 hours more than i wouldve paid you for.
your job as a driver is not just to drive from a to b but also to find the locations and make the deliveries and collections. if you receive directions from the office for where they are then that should be considered to be a bonus rather than the norm. my question to you and all the other clueless “satnav” drivers: what would you do if the satellite comms got turned off for a prolonged period? reading the replies in this thread it looks like most of the uk would grind to a halt 
.
barebones:
Hi all,I’ve recently been been taking on Class 1 work for an agency. I passed my test some years ago, but since then I had only driven rigids for an entertainment company, so I am effectively a newbie to artics, but wanted to get some proper experience having done a full 2 day refresher course as a precaution.
This particular day went as follows :
Report to Haulage company at 6am, drive tractor unit to first destination 35 mins away, pick up trailer, then drive to location up North to tip and wait to be re-loaded. Come back to destination I had collected trailer from, uncouple and re-couple to another loaded trailer and take back to Haulage company. Straight forward enough I thought.
Having never been to the Northern location before, I asked TM if he had, to which he helpfully replied “no”. I still had my satnav and truckers atlas though, so walked to cab.
Vehicle checks done, I started to check my route, only I noticed the cig lighter socket was faulty, so no satnav. The postcode was now useless and I had no directions for the town. But fear not I thought -I still have my old fashioned trucker’s atlas!
In retrospect I shouldn’t have moved an inch before I was happy, but time was ticking on, so I eased out of the yard.
Coupled the trailer at destination 1 and had a look at the atlas; Argh!! 3 towns in the index with the same name…! Walked back and asked the TM which one he thought it was, but he didn’t know either. Another person in the office took a look at my atlas and pointed out what he thought was the correct one…
…Fast forward to my first break, some fair distance up the M1. Felt uneasy so decided to call the Haulage Co. re my hours, who didn’t take at all kindly to my situation “Should’ve come off at J30!!!” and slammed the phone down. -Could you not have given me that snippet of advice at the crack of dawn before I left?!
That little mistake delayed me by about 2 hours after doubling back, but when I finally got to the right town, I had to spend the next hour or so trying in desperation to find the small company in a tiny trading estate that no locals knew of; running into factories, turning around in trading estates, backing up and turning around in country lanes that were leading me back out of the town etc. It was horrendous. When I finally found the destination, it was 3.30pm and they had to finish at 4 on the dot! I’ve never seen a forkie offload a truck so fast! At least they were understanding about it and agreed their estate was a bit obscure and wasn’t even sign posted.
Returned to base stressed, exhausted and disappointed, not only with myself for screwing up, but mainly with the rude, aggressive attitude of the Haulage company. A 15 hour day, 11 hours of which was driving, so exceeding my limit by an hour, I was really hacked off.
To add insult to injury and being assured not to worry by the Agency for the mistake in trying to find the location (the haulage company had already complained to the agency!), I noticed a week later that I had not been paid for my full hours and according to the Agency, the haulage company had refused to pay me more than 10 hours. 5 hours less than the hours I did. I have no idea how they worked that out. The Agency’s response; “Nothing we can do when a company says that. Our hands are tied”.
Is this justified…!!!
I fully accept I made a costly mistake, and fully understand it from their side, but I did complete the tasks, looked after their filthy truck like a new born baby and drove as safely as I could in the circumstances. Which is a lot more than can be said for the people in the haulage company’s transport dept, who (with the exception of the actual drivers, being very helpful) were the exact opposite. Rude and unhelpful, didn’t give me any concise directions or pointers, wanting only to throw muck at someone if a mistake was made, as I had already heard them earlier that morning openly slagging off some other driver like a load of moaning old ladies. I felt sorry for their wives.Has anyone else had any experience with this situation with pay etc? I would love to know your thoughts please…
confused here. so you drove to destination 1, 35 minutes away,then realised you didnt know where the next place was so walked back to ask the TM , but he was 35 mins drive away where you started so your story makes no sense. you walked back to base, a route that takes 35 mins by truck- how long did that take you then and why didnt you drive? no wonder you exceeded your hours with all that walking!
lololololol I love this post but don’t let it dishearten you barebones ive been doing this job for 15yrs and still get lost lolololololol…COS I WONT TAKE DIRECTIONS FROM NO WOMAN …lol
0a.:
Redrorry:
On a personal note no sat nav power no go, no matter how much the old school bang on about maps. Phone the agency tell them you have sat nav only and no power, if the postcode is correct then a sat nav even with it’s faults is 9/10th there. If the postcode/address is wrong then that’s their fault.i thought you were being sarcastic when i first read it but i think youre actually serious!
why nearly every post on this thread is sympathy with the driver i just dont get it ■■?
Telling the agency you do not have a map of “the drop area” does not mean not doing the job. You can’t be expected to carry an a-z of everywhere when it’s ad hoc agency work. You tell agency no power, they say ask client for directions help etc. You say they’re not being in the least bit helpful but you don’t want to start demanding, client relationship etc by getting into arguments making demands.
So agency phone client to sort problem, i.e getting the correct drop info or sorting a truck with aux power.
P.S I can find my arse I just sniff my sat nav finger.
■■■■ ME! 
I turned up on my first day, 
daf 2800 
do you know where Germany is? 
here’s your keys! before mobiles and HORSE AND CART!
lol I knew this topic would get the juices flowing lol …"IN MY DAY " lol …yeah in those days they did tramping without bunks and drove for as long as the boss would let them ? thank god for technology and sat nav,s…oh and old timer don’t forget to fill you tacho book in and the spare one you hide from the bobby,s lol…
alamcculloch:
I had to go to Leeds Castle once ,phoned the gaffer and said Im in Leeds cant find the castle though.
This made me chuckle, cheers!
Redrorry:
0a.:
Redrorry:
On a personal note no sat nav power no go, no matter how much the old school bang on about maps. Phone the agency tell them you have sat nav only and no power, if the postcode is correct then a sat nav even with it’s faults is 9/10th there. If the postcode/address is wrong then that’s their fault.i thought you were being sarcastic when i first read it but i think youre actually serious!
why nearly every post on this thread is sympathy with the driver i just dont get it ■■?
Telling the agency you do not have a map of “the drop area” does not mean not doing the job. You can’t be expected to carry an a-z of everywhere when it’s ad hoc agency work. You tell agency no power, they say ask client for directions help etc. You say they’re not being in the least bit helpful but you don’t want to start demanding, client relationship etc by getting into arguments making demands.
So agency phone client to sort problem, i.e getting the correct drop info or sorting a truck with aux power.
P.S I can find my arse I just sniff my sat nav finger.
I promise you I can get to any delivery address in the country with just a UK atlas in my bag. If you want to know take your head from your arris and ask me nicely!
How do you manage this without a sat-nav?
barebones:
I’ve recently been been taking on Class 1 work for an agency. I passed my test some years ago, but since then I had only driven rigids for an entertainment company, so I am effectively a newbie to artics, but wanted to get some proper experience having done a full 2 day refresher course as a precaution.A 15 hour day, 11 hours of which was driving, so exceeding my limit by an hour, I was really hacked off.
Wait a minute, this has turned into a thread about the pro’s and con’s of sat navs and Google Maps. An experienced HGV Driver went over his 10 hour drive time by an hour because he had a lousy day and was lost a few times. We’re not talking a few minutes over, it’s a whole hour with no excuse.
I once drove just shy of 12 hours due to a major incident on the M6 near Preston and there was literally nowhere I could stop between there and Wigan. The OP has no excuse for going an hour over 10, sat nav, bad day or not.