Two apologies in one day

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Two phone calls, one to M&S and one to Groundforce this morning about the appalling driving of their vehicles resulted in two grovelling apologies this afternoon. Along with promises to speak to the drivers concerned individually and to the drivers in general. I call that a result.

It may or may not have been influenced by my suggestion of a letter to The Press.

I'd have let it go before, but when they feck about when there's a child trailer on the back I feel I just have to start doing something.
 
Im sorry as well mickle...That's three.:tongue:

Seriously...nice one.
 

Moodyman

Legendary Member
Nice to see you getting acknowledgement Mickle, though I doubt much will happen behind the scenes.

Having experience of several environments of customer/public dissatisfaction, it's easy to ring up, apologise and tell of the internal feedback mechanism, than it is to say, 'our driver says he left you plenty of room...'

Avoids a difficult conversation.
 
Moodyman said:
Nice to see you getting acknowledgement Mickle, though I doubt much will happen behind the scenes.

Having experience of several environments of customer/public dissatisfaction, it's easy to ring up, apologise and tell of the internal feedback mechanism, than it is to say, 'our driver says he left you plenty of room...'

Avoids a difficult conversation.

Company policies will vary, and a lot take incidents with their drivers very seriously... but it's not easy for them to actually do much more than talk to the driver, and maybe a warning. Obviously regardless of what they do, they will "apologise and talk to the driver", probably even if they don't care.

It has been evident on various videos on youtube et al, a driver has been spoken to as some come along to bitch.

If you have a video the "enough room" can be quashed - and best just to post it up with company name / reg to shame them, even if its just a little.
 

Lozatron

Well-Known Member
At the end of the day, even if the company doesn't take any remedial action, no-one likes getting a talking to from their boss and I think that a driver who gets questioned about his or her driving is more likely to think about things more carefully in future.

Certainly I have read lots of stories in this forum of people who have made complaints to bus companies and seen a huge change in the behaviour of drivers on their route...

There's a lot of space between doing nothing at all and having someone up on a disciplinary!
 

Armegatron

Active Member
Good to hear you got a result!

Perhaps we should have a hall of fame and hall of shame for companies that respond well or poorly to complaints about driving?
 
OP
OP
mickle

mickle

innit
I firmly believe that if we all make a formal complaint every single time a branded vehicle threatens our safety that the world will become a better place.

We should keep a record.
 

KEEF

Veteran
Location
BURNOPFIELD
Any phone call I receive regarding bad driving/behaviour is always followed up.Some incidents are down to the driver(and dealt with) and others are misunderstandings (to be polite) by other road users because of there lack of understanding of how much road space a LGV needs.
 
Lozatron said:
At the end of the day, even if the company doesn't take any remedial action, no-one likes getting a talking to from their boss and I think that a driver who gets questioned about his or her driving is more likely to think about things more carefully in future.

Certainly I have read lots of stories in this forum of people who have made complaints to bus companies and seen a huge change in the behaviour of drivers on their route...

There's a lot of space between doing nothing at all and having someone up on a disciplinary!

Is there a possibility here that the driver will go on to hate cyclists even more? And maybe even bully them more in their own/unmarked vehicles...?
 

Lozatron

Well-Known Member
drsquirrel said:
Is there a possibility here that the driver will go on to hate cyclists even more? And maybe even bully them more in their own/unmarked vehicles...?

Surely there's a possibility - but if we don't do anything about the bad people because it might make the bad people angry...well...i don't want to live in that world.

Most people are fundementally decent - even white van drivers - and I personally believe that one of the reasons people get so angry with cyclists they perceive to be in their way is because they actually feel terribly guilty and worried that they might have harmed someone...however regardless of whether that is the case or not - pretending that nothing happened in order to avoid making the bullies cross doesn't sound like a good idea to me!
 
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