I did a shift last night and when i was in the office waiting to find out what i was doing, a full timer came in complaining to the manger saying…
" there is only a hire Renault Unit left and im not driving it as i dont know how to as ive not been trained !! "
and the manager replied " your right we need to train up the guys who are not familiar with the Hire Units !! "
so the manager then turns to me, gives me the keys and says " you take it out !! "…and he walked away
it was just lucky that …SUPER AGENCY DRIVER !!.. was there to save the day !!
ive worked for lots of companies and driven nearly every unit out there and NOT ONCE have i ever been asked, do you need to be shown how to drive this ?..ive been EXPECTED to know how to drive it !!
ok some switches and knobs are in different places but with a good look and some common sense you should be able to drive any unfamiliar unit !!
Tooz:
I did a shift last night and when i was in the office waiting to find out what i was doing, a full timer came in complaining to the manger saying…
" there is only a hire Renault Unit left and im not driving it as i dont know how to as ive not been trained !! "
and the manager replied " your right we need to train up the guys who are not familiar with the Hire Units !! "
so the manager then turns to me, gives me the keys and says " you take it out !! "…and he walked away
it was just lucky that …SUPER AGENCY DRIVER !!.. was there to save the day !!
ive worked for lots of companies and driven nearly every unit out there and NOT ONCE have i ever been asked, do you need to be shown how to drive this ?..ive been EXPECTED to know how to drive it !!
ok some switches and knobs are in different places but with a good look and some common sense you should be able to drive any unfamiliar unit !!
same as pal, only 25 years at it, super agency drivers ‘R’ us
Lot of this kind of bo##ocks about , I work for a firm that does work for sainsburys at Haydock quite regular and despite my company having 50 plus fridges of different makes sainsburys wont allow us to pull there fridgess unless we have been trained up by there fridge trainer fella !!. I refuse to do there work now as theres too much red tape and we tend to get the ■■■■■ there drivers don’t want,plus if I wanted to do sainsburys work I would have applied for a job at sainsburys not the firm ive been working for for the last 4 years.
Lets face it we,ve got more experience of driving different vehicles unlike the full timer who drives the same thing everyday doing the same job. I must admit I,ve been working for the same company for a few months now but if we have to change vehicles its just expected you know what your doing thats why we are professionals. I was brought up in the age heres the keys drive of you go and its never been a problem if you can drive you can manage most of them even at 4 in the morn when i was given a brand new actros to take out, you just get on with it.
First problem: Where is the switch for the cab light?
Second: Where is the slot for the card? And how do I enter the waiting time?
Third: The gearbox - auto/manual?
Fourth: How does the radio work?
Na these drivers have been rammed full of SSOW ( safe systems of work ) an told their not allowed to think they throw it back at the company when they don’t want to do a particular job… you’ll learn that.
Then they have to arrange a shift that’s short enough so you can be signed off and still do some work, on top of that the trainer has to be trained so you see where this goes …said driver keeps to driving his fav truck
Reminds me of the first night I done in Iceland, given the keys to a Merc and out I went… Could I ■■■■ find the gear selector, never in a million years would I have checked the arm rest!
Then trying to adjust the seat position, took ages just to do these two things. It would have saved a load of time if someone told me / showed me.
Where I work now, we fight over who gets the hired motor lol
One of our night drivers is off this week (gone back home for a week ) and I was asked if I’d swap my artic for his W&D for the week because they couldn’t get a class 1 driver for it but could for ‘my’ artic. Anyway, I politely refused as it would mean me having to drop the trailer out on the road to tip the unit, which I wasn’t prepared to do in case some numpty ran into the front end at anything more than walking pace and the ■■■■ stopping with me, as to the ‘whys & therefores’ blah blah, so, at a rather high cost per night, they got one of our subbies to do the run, on another artic…the price of the driver and one of their units/trailers for a week is a nice little earner! And now I’ve been asked if I would mind covering another run next Tuesday/Wednesday as they can’t get an agency driver to (drum roll inserted) go into London!! All our night runs are depot-depot, tip, reload, return, park up and get off home…I’ll be happy to do it (apart from I gotta take the DAF!!) as it’s gonna take all of 4 hours, as opposed to the 6 I normally do! So…if the Super agency driver above would like to get his name down on the agency we us, there’s no end of work available!!!
I bet if it was a volvo or scania the story would be different,its amazing the storys some blokes come up with not to drive certain lorrys,i knew of a fella who did damage to a unit so he was given a newer one,unreal
Bringing my vast 42 years on the job experience into full use I sat there like a right prat
trying to work out where the handbrake on the NEW Volvo was,hell should have asked the
agency driver…it’s an electric switch.
Years and years of health and safety nonsense have given us countless drivers who cannot think for themselves, and countless others who hide behind the rules to get out of work.
I have driven for 25 years and had to spend 3 hours learning how to use a 15 meter rear steer and a Daf CF this switch does this that one does this blah blah blah.
Some of the things that comes from the mouths of so called drivers defies belief, steering wheel attendant is the most apt phrase ever coined.
"one with wheels please " the fastest one is 2kph quicker they all the same make and model engine and colour some a 11 reg and some 59 reg as long as it goes forward and back I don’t care. I got all night to do the job
Only had a week of driving on the job. I’m thrown a set of keys and told to get on with it! On Monday I was asked to drive a split shift, I’ve only ever driven auto’s and straight sixes. That was one hell of a day.
mike68:
Years and years of health and safety nonsense have given us countless drivers who cannot think for themselves, and countless others who hide behind the rules to get out of work.
I have driven for 25 years and had to spend 3 hours learning how to use a 15 meter rear steer and a Daf CF this switch does this that one does this blah blah blah.
Some of the things that comes from the mouths of so called drivers defies belief, steering wheel attendant is the most apt phrase ever coined.
Only 3 hours for a 110? Some of ours had 7 and it was made into a DCPC module.
seth 70:
I bet if it was a volvo or scania the story would be different,its amazing the storys some blokes come up with not to drive certain lorrys,i knew of a fella who did damage to a unit so he was given a newer one,unreal
super agency drivers ‘R’ us 
