Changing a bulb isn’t as straight forward as you might think. For a start you need a torx bit set.
Tris:
Changing a bulb isn’t as straight forward as you might think. For a start you need a torx bit set.
That does rather depend on what you’re driving sweetie… And it is perfectly simple if you know how to do it. If you don’t, you might as well be asked to change out the warp drive on the NCC1701
Tris:
Changing a bulb isn’t as straight forward as you might think. For a start you need a torx bit set.
Oh please.
Any lorry driver worth a light carries a few basic tools, including a set of torx seeing as they have all but replaced philips screws and just as well cos they got chewed up by the usual idiots who put the wrong bulbs in using the wrong screwdrivers to put them wrongly in with.
Gangan:
It may seem trivial but if the company procedure requires a fitter the change a bulb then so be it. If the company want to pay me an extra hour to wait for a bulb to be changed I am not going to complain. The old days of changing bulbs and wheels etcetera are long gone in big companies in the name of self preservation. Everything is documented and requires training to keep the ministry men off their backs.
Happened to me once
I’d came from another firm where we changed bulbs etc (away all week side locker full of bulbs and bits)
Picked up a trailer and changed a couple of bulbs thinking I was doing them a favour no need to defect or tranship it job sorted.
The bollokings cam three fold.
- The workshop manager did his nut with me for going in the workshops out of hours and using a mans tools (a screwdriver)
- The transport manager asked me not to do it again as it was out of procedure.
- Far worse than the other two was the union shop steward who went absolutely ballistic and gave me a proper dressing down in front of the other drivers.
Main points were>
Carving the job up not only had I done myself out of money waiting for the trailer to be sorted they’d expect everyone to do it and people would lose money on it.
Doing another mans job there are fitters employed to work on the vehicles what will happen to then if we all did our own work.
He had a good old red faced sweary rant about it.
selby newcomer:
dieseldog999:
guy I used to work for would send you on a Greenock/scouse docks trunk every night (after youve worked all day of course).143,no limiter and flat to the mat there and back.refused point blank to issue you with rear lenses for the trailer with the argument,itl still be daylight by the time you get down to the quarry café at beattock…you can nick some there…i never did thet…I just waited till he feked off and nicked someone elses from the yard…went out with no rear lenses or bulbs,then put them all in up the road a bit…how times change…where did the good old days go…What a hero
correct my good man…ive got the medals to show for it as well,but I cant tell you about that…years ago then that was the way it was unless you were above all that ( I never worked for anyone that was).when your new and full of beans then whatever job paid worked best for me.more fun on the fiddle,with a tad more dosh as well.unfortunately I still have the same logic which usualy makes me the odd one out with the limpers and holymoly brigade in here… 
dieseldog999:
selby newcomer:
dieseldog999:
guy I used to work for would send you on a Greenock/scouse docks trunk every night (after youve worked all day of course).143,no limiter and flat to the mat there and back.refused point blank to issue you with rear lenses for the trailer with the argument,itl still be daylight by the time you get down to the quarry café at beattock…you can nick some there…i never did thet…I just waited till he feked off and nicked someone elses from the yard…went out with no rear lenses or bulbs,then put them all in up the road a bit…how times change…where did the good old days go…What a hero
correct my good man…ive got the medals to show for it as well,but I cant tell you about that…years ago then that was the way it was unless you were above all that ( I never worked for anyone that was).when your new and full of beans then whatever job paid worked best for me.more fun on the fiddle,with a tad more dosh as well.unfortunately I still have the same logic which usualy makes me the odd one out with the limpers and holymoly brigade in here…
Indeed we did it because we could and it paid, great days.
as a truck mechanic/electrian of many years standing who now drives the things for a living(easy life…no more heavy graft)i find changing bulbs to be quite simple but if im in the yard i get someone whos paid to change bulbs to change them.
when i was mending them if anyone came into the workshop and even looked at the tools i had spent my hard earned cash on then it would have ended badly.drivers drive…mechanics mend…simple?
as for drivers changing bulbs it seems a lot have no idea…single and twin poles bulbs?white bulbs fitted instead of yellow ones to indicators?(which needs the bulbholder damaging to happen as the lugs are different)and my pet hate at the moment is the ones who change headlight bulbs on the scanias and loosen the adjusting screw as well as the fixing screws then tighten said adjusting screw when they put it back together leaving 1 headlight pointing at the sky and blinding everyone and 1 pointing at the floor.
how many trucks do you see with the headlights like this?how do you think they get like that?by people who mess with stuff that should be left to people who know what they are doing!!!
as for initiative,in my experience if you use it and it goes wrong you get a bollocking…if you use it and it goes right some office jockey takes the credit…so why bother.
im now paid to drive from A to B,NOT plan the work(planners job)…not mend the trucks(mechanics job)…if things go wrong call the boss let him deal with it…(the bosses job).
dieseldog999:
if you are completely bone idle,want home after a 9 hour shift every night,
How is wanting home after 9 hours bone idle? Sensible, rational thinking in my opinion!
Juddian:
Tris:
Changing a bulb isn’t as straight forward as you might think. For a start you need a torx bit set.Oh please.
Any lorry driver worth a light carries a few basic tools, including a set of torx seeing as they have all but replaced philips screws and just as well cos they got chewed up by the usual idiots who put the wrong bulbs in using the wrong screwdrivers to put them wrongly in with.
I carry fuses alongside (company supplied) bulbs and I will change them if I can. Official policy is that we are not allowed to do any kind of repair but they do have 2 drawers full of spare bulbs in the transport office which says it all really. 800 page book of company policies with a 1 page summary of the rules that they will actually bother about 
scanny77:
I carry fuses alongside (company supplied) bulbs and I will change them if I can. Official policy is that we are not allowed to do any kind of repair but they do have 2 drawers full of spare bulbs in the transport office which says it all really. 800 page book of company policies with a 1 page summary of the rules that they will actually bother about
Turning a blind eye in favour of reality and common sense, at least shows that the co realises all this crap is just that…crap.
However at the same time they have to be seen to be doing it to the rules, so unfortunately it is also an arse covering excercise on their part, so if things do go ■■■■ up in any way, YOU are to blame, they are not. In other words the whole system stinks.
I carry fuses alongside (company supplied) bulbs and I will change them if I can. Official policy is that we are not allowed to do any kind of repair but they do have 2 drawers full of spare bulbs in the transport office which says it all really. 800 page book of company policies with a 1 page summary of the rules that they will actually bother about
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Same here. All our motors are leased so only appropriately qualified personnel are allowed to carry out repairs. Unless no one is looking of course, then we get a bulb out of the office and fit it ourselves, should we choose to.
Soldier z:
Gangan:
It may seem trivial but if the company procedure requires a fitter the change a bulb then so be it. If the company want to pay me an extra hour to wait for a bulb to be changed I am not going to complain. The old days of changing bulbs and wheels etcetera are long gone in big companies in the name of self preservation. Everything is documented and requires training to keep the ministry men off their backs.Happened to me once
I’d came from another firm where we changed bulbs etc (away all week side locker full of bulbs and bits)
Picked up a trailer and changed a couple of bulbs thinking I was doing them a favour no need to defect or tranship it job sorted.The bollokings cam three fold.
- The workshop manager did his nut with me for going in the workshops out of hours and using a mans tools (a screwdriver)
- The transport manager asked me not to do it again as it was out of procedure.
- Far worse than the other two was the union shop steward who went absolutely ballistic and gave me a proper dressing down in front of the other drivers.
Main points were>
Carving the job up not only had I done myself out of money waiting for the trailer to be sorted they’d expect everyone to do it and people would lose money on it.
Doing another mans job there are fitters employed to work on the vehicles what will happen to then if we all did our own work.
He had a good old red faced sweary rant about it.
I sympathise with the workshop manager that you don’t touch another man’s tools without his permission. Workshops don’t work otherwise. It’s like a stranger taking money from a man’s wallet without permission - it may be done with the best of intentions (and outcomes) in individual cases, but as a rule it simply doesn’t work (for various reasons, some of which are very apparent to anyone who has ever had more than a trivial number of tools to keep track of) to allow anyone but the owner to control the use of his tools.
As for the more general issue about drivers changing light bulbs, larger organisations often have priorities which are different than merely economising on labour time consumed. Amongst other things, there can be a need to know and record what other workers are doing - in small organisations this can be done informally by observation and human memory, in larger organisations it has to be done formally. That’s not to say a larger organisation’s processes are always right in all circumstances (far from it ha!), but for the normal case it is important to follow established processes. Deviations should be justifiable by reference to the organisation’s goals. You certainly shouldn’t assume the organisation has (in a very obvious way) overlooked your wasted paid time as a reason to deviate from an established process.
I love how so many arrogant tossers on here jump straight on the drivers like they are all idiots. If they work for a company which has that policy in place why would a driver break that rule to get it done quicker? They wouldn’t get any thanks or appreciation for it.
More and more companies are becoming like this now. But huge depots like that usually have a fitter on site or at least on call for defects. Even if its just a bulb.
Its their equipment, their rules. Nothing to do with a drivers competence.
Bulb out can be an ideal opportunity to avoid a second run. Play the tools at their own game.
m1cks:
htmldude:
m1cks:
Did the trailer have a twin light cluster each side or just one bulb?
I was at our Avonmouth depot this week and had a bulb out. Just got a spare from my bag and had it changed in 30 seconds.
This reminded me of the thread where tesco called the fire brigade because the power isolater for the battery kicked in/had a flat battery and the driver was stuck with the tail lift up.I’ve heard this from a Gist driver too. Bloke was up the top deck, wouldn’t throw the keys to the store manager who was handling the delivery. Some drivers are just idiots.
There was a whole thread on here about it. Not top deck but a normal rigid about 4ft in the air. Will try and find it.
Edit: here’s the link - Flat Batteries, what happened next.
viewtopic.php?t=119212
I work out of the Avonmouth DC. It was a woman driver doing a delivery to Plymouth Transit Way. She had to tip around the front of the store because of the curfew. It was a single decker trailer. Battery went dead she asked the guys who were tipping her to start the trucks engine and their manager said no because they are not trained to drive the truck. She then phoned her fella who happens to be the health and safety adviser at Avonmouth DC and a union rep and he told her to phone the fire brigade. The Plymouth store then had to pay the fire brigade £700 for a wasted call. As for the driver who waited for a fitter well most of Tesco own drivers at Avonmouth are like that. Luckily I work for a contractor down there and just get on with the job I.e. Use common sense. As he was only around the corner I would have drove it back. If I would have been 100 miles a way and it was dark then I would have reported it.
Tris:
Changing a bulb isn’t as straight forward as you might think. For a start you need a torx bit set.
Jesus wept. I think I’ll take a picture of my tool box. Torx set? Are you a princess? [emoji110] [emoji97]
robroy:
scanny77:
I carry fuses alongside (company supplied) bulbs and I will change them if I can. Official policy is that we are not allowed to do any kind of repair but they do have 2 drawers full of spare bulbs in the transport office which says it all really. 800 page book of company policies with a 1 page summary of the rules that they will actually bother aboutTurning a blind eye in favour of reality and common sense, at least shows that the co realises all this crap is just that…crap.
However at the same time they have to be seen to be doing it to the rules, so unfortunately it is also an arse covering excercise on their part, so if things do go ■■■■ up in any way, YOU are to blame, they are not. In other words the whole system stinks.
There is a company who has a warehouse in eurocentral who go to the other end of the scale. I had both fog lights out on a trailer and I was not permitted to do any fault finding (not that I would since it was highly unlikely that they had both blown at the same time) but the shunter was allowed to check the bulbs and he discovered that it was not the bulbs or fuses. I was then sent to inverness and instructed to not drive through fog! This is the same company who a weeks earlier had disciplined several drivers for not spotting a brake light out on a unit. The police had pulled a driver and found the offending light to be out and it was diagnosed as a wrong wiring job done by a DAF mechanic. Every driver who had used it between this mechanic screwing the job up and the police pulling it was disciplined. They will also kick you off site for leaving the vehicle keys in the ignition when you leave the cab. That includes doing checks!
I did enquire on one occasion regarding why I am not allowed to change a bulb and was told that it was in case I got electrocuted! I asked the manager while he was changing a bulb for me
At a different client I had a word with a mechanic about this and he said that the worst I would get from 24v is a slight tickle if my hands were very wet. 24v will not send you across the yard 
If the company policy is "Call the fitter for a bulb " then call the fitter .
If they are happy to let you carry bulbs , fuses , suzies and tools to change them then crack on and do it (if you have the know how )
I’ve worked to both sorts had to call out fitters to change bulbs and then have the transport office decide to tranship the load to another trailer - their party their problem .
I’m now in a job where I carry tools, bulbs,fuses and a full set of lines and they are happy for me to change them if I need to and rather than sitting wasting time I’m happy enough to change them and get on with it .
Phil1979:
Its their equipment, their rules. Nothing to do with a drivers competence
More important than ownership of the equipment is the organisation of the work.
The drivers could all own their individual vehicles, or have shares in the firm, but if they are to behave as a single organisation they would still have to execute their role in the organisation at that particular time and place (where the tool required to change a bulb is called a fitter, and the driver uses a fitter by providing instructions about defects and needed repairs).
People often seem to perceive that larger organisations only want obedient robots who follow rules rigidly, but following rules rigidly is actually a form of industrial action. If anything larger organisations require workers with more common sense and initiative than the norm, but it’s a different kind of common sense.