Lorry drivers the best road users, cyclists the worst, says haulage firm boss

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Brandane

Legendary Member
Location
Costa Clyde
Where do I fit in with his ratings then, I wonder, as a lorry driving cyclist? :wacko:
The truth is, there are good and bad of both.
 
There are good truck drivers, there are not so good truck drivers, there are good cyclists, there are not so good cyclists. It's nice to see that someone in the position of responsibility of this guy, has such a balanced outlook.
:rolleyes:
 
http://commercial-motor.archive.net...pril-2001/14/drivers-fined-for-flouting-rules

Drivers working for Barnstaple, Devon-based William C Hockin Transport falsified tachograph records, flouted hours rules and pulled fuses on their tachos, a court has heard.

When the 19 drivers admitted the offences in a series of hearings before Exeter magistrates they were ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £1850. Another of the company's drivers has been sent to Crown Court for sentencing. Prosecuting for the Vehicle Inspectorate, Tony Ostrin said that the company operated 30 vehicles on multidrop deliveries.

Following a tip-off, the police and Vehicle Inspectorate raided the company's offices and seized 4,000 tachograph charts,journey sheets, diesel receipts and driver diesel analysis sheets. Copies were taken of the office diary and invoices.

Analysis showed a substantial number of infringements including driving for more than 4.5 hours without taking the required breaks; exceeding 10 hours' daily driving; failing to keep a record of all work and driving: and taking insufficient daily rest.

Tacho charts also showed evidence of widespread falsification, when they were compared with the results of various silent checks undertaken by the police. Ostrin said drivers had been "working off the card. There was evidence of fuses being pulled, tachograph clocks being altered and false starting and finishing locations being entered on the centre field.

The drivers were fined amounts varying between £187.50 and £2100; in all but two cases they were ordered to pay £300 towards the costs of the prosecution.

The magistrates sent driver John Weyman, accused of 38 offences, to Crown Court for sentence after hearing that he had been winding the tachograph clock forward and subsequently drawing in the rest traces by hand.

Another three Hockin drivers are due to appear before the magistrates in June,


Read more at http://commercial-motor.archive.net...-fined-for-flouting-rules#p068Iv403c1vOD53.99
 

Alex H

Legendary Member
Location
Alnwick
He's only slightly biased, being the owner of a transport firm :whistle:, but using 14 year old statistics is a bit desperate.
 

Globalti

Legendary Member
I've been meaning to ask on here recently: is there a hierarchy of HGV drivers? For example are drivers for nice clean aerodynamic delivery trucks for Eddy Stobart or Marks & Spencer generally cleverer than, say, drivers of refuse trucks and tipper trucks? Are tipper truck drivers particularly low in experience and less bright, and does this explain why tipper trucks are so often the killers of cyclists on road junctions?

I post as someone who, at the age of 22, was sent by an industrial staff bureau to drive "vans" and when I turned up at the depot for work discovered that the vans were actually 3 ton trucks with air brakes, perfectly legal to drive on my ordinary licence. The foreman groaned and said "you'll smash it up within the first week!" Luckily I didn't although I had several near misses and found it the most exhausting job I've ever done. I don't mind admitting that in all my early van-driving jobs I drove bady and carelessly because I felt it was my right and I was on an important and urgent mission. Are tipper truck drivers similarly cavalier about safety or is there something inherently more dangerous about a tipper? I know that in the Yorkshire Dales, quarry tipper trucks are driven extremely fast.
 

_aD

Do not touch suspicious objects
Are tipper truck drivers similarly cavalier about safety or is there something inherently more dangerous about a tipper? I know that in the Yorkshire Dales, quarry tipper trucks are driven extremely fast.
I'll take any excuse to link to the Mining Mayhem blog.
 
Some are worse than others, but criminality is rife among the road users Hocking claims are "the best" road users. They also resist any and every attempt to make them more accountable and have a deeply offensive habit of engaging in the same grubby victim-blaming career criminal Hocking spouts.
 

subaqua

What’s the point
Location
Leytonstone
Some are worse than others, but criminality is rife among the road users Hocking claims are "the best" road users. They also resist any and every attempt to make them more accountable and have a deeply offensive habit of engaging in the same grubby victim-blaming career criminal Hocking spouts.

you really are one angry little man aren't you !

i do love the sweeping generalistations you come out with.
 
In the first two months of a police clampdown on the most dangerous construction vehicles, 622 out of the 821 lorries stopped by officers failed to comply with the existing safety rules. Only 32 trucks had mirrors and safety equipment, including bars to prevent cyclists being crushed beneath the wheels, as required by law.

Just 24 per cent of vehicles complied with regulations covering maintenance, how loads are carried, insurance and how long drivers have been on the road. Officers fined 243 lorry drivers for operating without a licence or working long hours, or for driving with insecure loads, broken lights or running a truck that was in poor condition. Police seized 14 lorries, including an 18-tonne scaffolding lorry whose driver was uninsured and driving without a proper licence, as well as having various mechanical defects on the vehicle.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3966743.ece

You dispute these findings? It is not a generalisation to state that criminality is rife among lorry drivers when most of them break the law.
 
Produce similar figures for bus & coach drivers as well as indivudual fleet operators.

What have they to do with Hocking's lies? Hocking claimed lorry drivers are "the best" road user. He's a criminal, his employees are criminals and the industry he represents is infested with a rampant criminality unmatched by any other road user.
 
I've been meaning to ask on here recently: is there a hierarchy of HGV drivers? For example are drivers for nice clean aerodynamic delivery trucks for Eddy Stobart or Marks & Spencer generally cleverer than, say, drivers of refuse trucks and tipper trucks? Are tipper truck drivers particularly low in experience and less bright, and does this explain why tipper trucks are so often the killers of cyclists on road junctions?

I post as someone who, at the age of 22, was sent by an industrial staff bureau to drive "vans" and when I turned up at the depot for work discovered that the vans were actually 3 ton trucks with air brakes, perfectly legal to drive on my ordinary licence. The foreman groaned and said "you'll smash it up within the first week!" Luckily I didn't although I had several near misses and found it the most exhausting job I've ever done. I don't mind admitting that in all my early van-driving jobs I drove bady and carelessly because I felt it was my right and I was on an important and urgent mission. Are tipper truck drivers similarly cavalier about safety or is there something inherently more dangerous about a tipper? I know that in the Yorkshire Dales, quarry tipper trucks are driven extremely fast.
Think alot of tipper drivers are paid by the load, therefore more loads equals more pay.
 
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