The Road Maniac and Pathetic Punishment Thread

[Drago]

50 lashes would be too good for this one.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

50 lashes would be too good for this one.

hmm - "no fixed abode" and a BMW

wonder what he could have got the money from

clearly I have no evidence to suggest anything dodgy but........

 

[Bristolian]

As a bit of an aside, I have a question that has never occurred to me before. How does someone with no fixed abode register a vehicle with DVLA?

 

[Alex321]

As a bit of an aside, I have a question that has never occurred to me before. How does someone with no fixed abode register a vehicle with DVLA?

Response from the DVLA to a FOI request on this.

FOI FOI, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency 6 January 2014
Dear Ms Cleverley
When registering a vehicle, the law requires the keeper of the vehicle to provide an address at which he/she can be reached. This enables the police and other enforcement agencies to contact the keeper or his/her dependants in the event of a road traffic accident or in conjunction with a criminal offence. It also enables DVLA to ensure that vehicle excise duty is paid.
Whilst we fully appreciate the difficulties involved for individuals of no fixed abode in providing an address, DVLA will accept care of addresses. The keeper with approval is able to use a care of address, such as, solicitor, doctor, family or friends to use as a drop off address and the keeper of a vehicle can be traced via these addresses.'
Trust this covers your further query.

 

[grldtnr]

Response from the DVLA to a FOI request on this.

Entirely a leap of faith that the DVLA and authorities will be able to contact someone with C/O address, no fixed abode.
Do they honestly think that any request by authorities to accede to information requests from some such person to be successful?
No disrespect to the traveling community, but that's not very likely is it , by and large that's the very reason why they are travellers.
Although that's not to say not all disobey the law of the land, some follow their own laws, which are far stricter than the governments.

 

[Drago]

As a bit of an aside, I have a question that has never occurred to me before. How does someone with no fixed abode register a vehicle with DVLA?

They use fake addresses (harder now), find a stooge willing to use their address, or mostly don't bother registering the vehicle at all,

 

[Brandane]

Nope, if it's working time, certainly professional drivers , have to have a break , away from the vehicle ,or at the least the driving wheel.

New to this thread, sorry if this has been covered, but re "professional drivers" (I dislike that reference, but never mind), of which I used to be one.... It would scare you to know just how often they drive tired. Extremely tired. And they are in big 44 tonne HGV's.

They do not have to take a break whenever they get tired. If they did, they would soon find themselves out of a job. They have to take a 45 minute break after 4½ hours of driving, or 6 hours on duty, whichever comes first.

As an example, I used to do occasional night shifts from Glasgow airport to Manchester airport. Just about do-able within the 4½ hours. Swap trailers at Manchester, take 45 minutes break (and not any longer than 45 minutes, some traffic manager is monitoring your movements on a tracker) then drive back to Glasgow. Maybe a refuelling stop at Carlisle on the northbound drive.

Let me confess, EVERY time I did that run, I was driving while tired. Very tired. But there is no option to just pull over and have a sleep until you feel able to drive safely. As stated, it would be your last job. There is freight in the trailer which is time critical and customers are not going to be happy if it is delayed.

Yes, the sensible alternative is to stop for a break every time you feel tired. It is preferable to crashing the lorry and demolishing said freight in the process. But this is the real world. Everybody is in a hurry, including transport managers and customers waiting for goods.

 

[raleighnut]

New to this thread, sorry if this has been covered, but re "professional drivers" (I dislike that reference, but never mind), of which I used to be one.... It would scare you to know just how often they drive tired. Extremely tired. And they are in big 44 tonne HGV's.

They do not have to take a break whenever they get tired. If they did, they would soon find themselves out of a job. They have to take a 45 minute break after 4½ hours of driving, or 6 hours on duty, whichever comes first.

As an example, I used to do occasional night shifts from Glasgow airport to Manchester airport. Just about do-able within the 4½ hours. Swap trailers at Manchester, take 45 minutes break (and not any longer than 45 minutes, some traffic manager is monitoring your movements on a tracker) then drive back to Glasgow. Maybe a refuelling stop at Carlisle on the northbound drive.

Let me confess, EVERY time I did that run, I was driving while tired. Very tired. But there is no option to just pull over and have a sleep until you feel able to drive safely. As stated, it would be your last job. There is freight in the trailer which is time critical and customers are not going to be happy if it is delayed.

Yes, the sensible alternative is to stop for a break every time you feel tired. It is preferable to crashing the lorry and demolishing said freight in the process. But this is the real world. Everybody is in a hurry, including transport managers and customers waiting for goods.

Yep one of my mates was a 'Class one' driver and he said the same.......................fecking ludicrous.

 

[grldtnr]

New to this thread, sorry if this has been covered, but re "professional drivers" (I dislike that reference, but never mind), of which I used to be one.... It would scare you to know just how often they drive tired. Extremely tired. And they are in big 44 tonne HGV's.

They do not have to take a break whenever they get tired. If they did, they would soon find themselves out of a job. They have to take a 45 minute break after 4½ hours of driving, or 6 hours on duty, whichever comes first.

As an example, I used to do occasional night shifts from Glasgow airport to Manchester airport. Just about do-able within the 4½ hours. Swap trailers at Manchester, take 45 minutes break (and not any longer than 45 minutes, some traffic manager is monitoring your movements on a tracker) then drive back to Glasgow. Maybe a refuelling stop at Carlisle on the northbound drive.

Let me confess, EVERY time I did that run, I was driving while tired. Very tired. But there is no option to just pull over and have a sleep until you feel able to drive safely. As stated, it would be your last job. There is freight in the trailer which is time critical and customers are not going to be happy if it is delayed.

Yes, the sensible alternative is to stop for a break every time you feel tired. It is preferable to crashing the lorry and demolishing said freight in the process. But this is the real world. Everybody is in a hurry, including transport managers and customers waiting for go

Excuse me for saying, but that doesn't add up EU laws state that a drivers working day should be no more than 9 hrs, or 10 in circumstances ,without a suitable break, driving Hours are no more than 56 hrs in a week, without a suitable rest period of 11 hrs , heavy commercials.have tacos to record driving hrs, ...so somewhere someone is ignoring the rules?
My Brother used to drive busses, so I am aware of what heavy vehicle drivers ought to be doing , unless this is a dubious benefit of Brexit,
This country may not now follow EU law, but on the whole westill adopt them

 

[Brandane]

Excuse me for saying, but that doesn't add up EU laws state that a drivers working day should be no more than 9 hrs, or 10 in circumstances ,without a suitable break, driving Hours are no more than 56 hrs in a week, without a suitable rest period of 11 hrs , heavy commercials.have tacos to record driving hrs, ...so somewhere someone is ignoring the rules?
My Brother used to drive busses, so I am aware of what heavy vehicle drivers ought to be doing , unless this is a dubious benefit of Brexit,
This country may not now follow EU law, but on the whole westill adopt them

In think you need to have another look at EU driving hours regs, with emphasis on DRIVING. The hours you spend loading/unloading or just sitting around waiting for freight to be ready are NOT driving, so they don't count towards your 9 or 10 hours driving time. It is perfectly legal to do a 15 hour shift, as long as the driving time doesn't exceed 9 hours (10 hours under certain circumstances). The crucial part is rest periods, but basically as long as you have an 11 hour rest period (9 hours under certain circumstances) between shifts, then you are legal.

https://www.gov.uk/drivers-hours/eu-rules

 

[grldtnr]

Fair point! I never driven for a living,,

 

[lazybloke]

New to this thread, sorry if this has been covered, but re "professional drivers" (I dislike that reference, but never mind), of which I used to be one.... It would scare you to know just how often they drive tired. Extremely tired. And they are in big 44 tonne HGV's.

They do not have to take a break whenever they get tired. If they did, they would soon find themselves out of a job. They have to take a 45 minute break after 4½ hours of driving, or 6 hours on duty, whichever comes first.

As an example, I used to do occasional night shifts from Glasgow airport to Manchester airport. Just about do-able within the 4½ hours. Swap trailers at Manchester, take 45 minutes break (and not any longer than 45 minutes, some traffic manager is monitoring your movements on a tracker) then drive back to Glasgow. Maybe a refuelling stop at Carlisle on the northbound drive.

Let me confess, EVERY time I did that run, I was driving while tired. Very tired. But there is no option to just pull over and have a sleep until you feel able to drive safely. As stated, it would be your last job. There is freight in the trailer which is time critical and customers are not going to be happy if it is delayed.

Yes, the sensible alternative is to stop for a break every time you feel tired. It is preferable to crashing the lorry and demolishing said freight in the process. But this is the real world. Everybody is in a hurry, including transport managers and customers waiting for goods.

Once the technology becomes sufficiently mature, it strikes me that self-driving automation of HGVs would be one of the first implementations, as it gets round the issue of drivers needing breaks.

Not that I trust any self-driving technology on smaller roads, but motorway carriageways and particularly their junctions are designed and built to high standards; and the hazards are fewer.
There would still be a human behind the wheel for non-motorway parts of journeys, but he/she would only be the vehicle "custodian" whilst on the motorway. Hey presto, when the driver's on a break, the vehicle can continue moving!

 

[Brandane]

My Brother used to drive busses, so I am aware of what heavy vehicle drivers ought to be doing ,

Did your bro stop the bus whenever he fancied a wee sleep?
I'm not sure his passengers would have been impressed!

 

[Drago]

New to this thread, sorry if this has been covered, but re "professional drivers" (I dislike that reference, but never mind), of which I used to be one.... It would scare you to know just how often they drive tired. Extremely tired. And they are in big 44 tonne HGV's.

They do not have to take a break whenever they get tired. If they did, they would soon find themselves out of a job. They have to take a 45 minute break after 4½ hours of driving, or 6 hours on duty, whichever comes first.

As an example, I used to do occasional night shifts from Glasgow airport to Manchester airport. Just about do-able within the 4½ hours. Swap trailers at Manchester, take 45 minutes break (and not any longer than 45 minutes, some traffic manager is monitoring your movements on a tracker) then drive back to Glasgow. Maybe a refuelling stop at Carlisle on the northbound drive.

Let me confess, EVERY time I did that run, I was driving while tired. Very tired. But there is no option to just pull over and have a sleep until you feel able to drive safely. As stated, it would be your last job. There is freight in the trailer which is time critical and customers are not going to be happy if it is delayed.

Yes, the sensible alternative is to stop for a break every time you feel tired. It is preferable to crashing the lorry and demolishing said freight in the process. But this is the real world. Everybody is in a hurry, including transport managers and customers waiting for goods.

The majority of police 'on duty' deaths are coppers driving home after a night shift - for the purposes of regulations journeys to and from work count as being on duty, although they don't ordinarily get paid for it.

Night shifts are typically longer than the day shifts for some reason, and very poorly staffed so they're run ragged - the station car parks are almost empty at night. As a consequence it's tiring beyond belief, but once the rapid pace of work ends there is little to keep the tiredness at bay and as a result the journey home is the dangerous one. I daresay its the same for ambo.

We told them time and again that shorter night shifts, or half night shifts (1600-0200, or midnight to 0800 for example) would save lives, as would getting some of the uniforms out from behind desks to enhance numbers on duty overnight. However, the government screwed for forces budgets meaning civilians staff went outcthe door first, which mean uniforms had to backfill their jobs, which meant there isn't enough to increase staffing and allow a less onerous working pattern, and bobbies die on their way home.

I usually cycled, which precluded nodding off but others weren't so lucky including people I knew (one car written off, another died.).

My second farce did half heartedly look at this. However, instead of paying experts who know what they were doing they tasked the untrained Human Remains dept to look at it. HR hit the books and discovered a formula for calculating a "fatigue index" and merrily set too creating shift patterns accordingly. Sadly, after 6 months of everyone feeling knackered and going off sick with stress or physical exhaustion, it was discovered HR hadn't understood what they were doing and a lower number actually meant more fatigue (or the other way around - I wasn't involved) so they were creating shifts that actually made things much worse.

Two lessons here. If experienced and highly trained staff are telling an employer or a government that there is a problem then there probably is.

The second lesson is that a problems costs what it costs if you genuinely want it fixed. Trying to do it on the cheap inevitably ends up costing more than simply gritting your teeth and doing it properly in the first place.

 

[Drago]

My Brother used to drive busses, so I am aware of what heavy vehicle drivers ought to be doing...

I'm didn't know bus drivers piss in empty coke bottle and abandon them in lay bys.