Safe Speed Forums

Only mentioned it as someone i know got a minor fail on this, driving school gave him a focus for test, but forgot to show him how to open bonnet - we ribbed him for at least a week , as we mostly drive Transits, with same bonnet opening system.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Very naughty, as examiners are allowed to ask the question but are not allowed to fail (at present), which kind of makes it a worthless exercise.

In NZ they have a 15minutes 'Basic Mechanical' test where they ask you how to carry out the POWER checks and also does the candidate know how to change a tyre, they may not be physically able to change it (especially with airgunned nuts and a dinky little brace) but at least they should know where the spare is.

In a similar vein, I gave a talk on Occ driving at work (seeing as I stuck my oar in they said 'You know what you are talking about perhaps you can do a training session' - NEVER volunteer!! how did I forget), anyhow, when I came to checking tyres most of the crowd told me they did indeed check tyre pressures but none checked the spare !!

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

On the work side - how many firms provide cleaning facilities for vehicle and windscreen , THAT are safe to use ?? - from what i've seen mostly only taxi firms with a keen boss.

We (naughty, naughty ) used to "test" the nearby fire hose on the dirty bodies, till we were stopped.( think it was HSE grounds).

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

sorry!

in southampton, my windscreen (all windows and mirrors actually) cleaning was provided by the nearest MSA with a hose for topping up the windscreen washer bottle. i bought a squeegee from south mimms and used that. wet the glass, wipe with the sponge side, rinse and remove the water using the rubber strip.
it worked so well that a bought myself a squeegee for my car. the glass came up crystal clear with no water marks at all. the squeegee is excellant and only a fiver

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

The other suggested solution was a sponge and a bucket. our suggestion was somat more colourfull. .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I apologise if this has already been mentioned (came to the thread when it was already 2 pages long) but in September 2004 the HSE published a document called "Driving at Work" (down loadable from their site) which, essentially places upon every employer, a responsibility in respect of any employee who drives (or rides) in the course of their employment, to consider the safety of every employee, and other road users.

AND yes. Seemingly it would also apply to the paper kid on their bicycle.

By the manner in which it is written it can assist both the employer and the employee. The employee, from the perspective of, as has already been mentioned, long journeys before or after a full days work (where overnight accommodation could have been considered) or, where the vehicle supplied is not commensurate with the employees physical stature resulting in a cramped driving position.

From the employers perspective, where there have an employee 'prone' to minor damage, or poor fuel economy, or excessive tyre wear, etc, it also provides a non-confrontational method of bringing in an outside assessor to instill some additional training.

Grumps, nice to see that it's attracted interest, it's one of the links I posted INDG 382 which is actually a bloody good document, I have the RoSPA guidnace on Occupational driving and it is runs to about 36 pages and is unfortunatly written for person with H&S knowledge and is a bit technical for my liking, bearing in mind that cars are often managed by the HR department or Facilities Dept not the H&S mob.

If only the DfT would take a greater interest, it's managed to stuff the funding that the HSE got and appears to be going back to what it did before the HSE got involved - Bugger All !!

PS Grumps, how did you come by the HSE publication??

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

So much of what is written here is self-congratulatory ... I'm alright, it's the other nutters ...
It is ordinary drivers who end up in court, it is ordinary drivers who get killed (9 or 10 per day - 1/3 of whom are doing a job of work at the time).
So this equates to 1000+ drivers. That is more than all other deaths at work put together.

so the argument of an employer's duty of care, risk assessments and targeted driver training adds up to just more red tape really doesn't stack up.

Ordinary drivers turn up to Driver Improvement courses and absorb and take on-board a staggering amount in the day and a half if they are so minded.
But you can't force a horse to drink.

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do you do anything more dangerous than driving?

ralge

Ralge, how do you mean self congratulatory??

As for your comments on the red tape argument, I agree wholeheartedly it's just not acceptable that employers 'blame' the employee and fail take into account thier (legal) duty of care.

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

I don't see that around here. Perhaps you need to read a bit more?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

That's if you can find one. When I called into Frankley S/B last year not only had the hose been removed but also the tap.

It seems Moto now expect motorists to buy bottled water!

Just a thought. Has anyone else noticed such changes elsewhere. Are MSA's, in the pursuit of profit, jeopardising road safety?

Depending on answers, this might be a topic for Paul to pursue.

S.E. I can't remember where I first read about the HSE document, probably in a magazine, but it could have been any of many.

Nobody seems to have to take responsibility for their own actions any more! Everything's always got to be someone else's fault!

They're really easy to use .

You can have endless fun with quote="as you can play with words and names" and you have to ensure the initial quote is between the [ ] - note the " and you end with the /quote within the []

eg

Press the quote button and you will see HOW it's done.. it's how we learned!

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Firm Wildy works for is a Swiss firm - they once required clean licences only to drive any of their pool and company vehicles. They soince relaxed it to three points since the Gatso lottery started as they found different interpretations of the "guidelines".

They also require all the persons employed to be road based - reps and chauffeurs (senior management do have chauffeurs Wildy prefers to drive herself but sometimes has to be driven.) - they do prefer them to have an IAM training and encourage this.

If the car is a company car -- then most would be on lease or contract hire. As such - they would be covered by some service/maintenance contract.

I can agree that employers do not run routine medical checks, etc - and they should - given that person represents their firm and thus its ethos and its reputation as providing a decent service. I think IG once covered the insurance question if car was not insured for business and was involved in an accident. Cannot remember where it is .. it was a bit back tho

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Would the same apply if somebody was killed or injured by an industrial machine because an employer had given an employee too much work and was indifferent towards the employee having to do long hours without adequate brakes?

Thats not meant to be a loaded question, I'm genuinly interested in where you think the line is between an employers duty of care and employees responsibility not to act in an unsafe manner.

My own opinion is that it is far too easy to say things like "well he should have taken a break, I don't ask him to work through is lunch", when we all know how difficult it can be in the real world. Can you honestly say that it is easy to justify to your boss for being late to meeting or missing a deadline or whatever because you stopped to have a break from driving?

I think the fact a driver has obtained a driving licence and hasn't been subsequetly banned, means that (legally speaking) they are a trained driver.

Which is why I think the employer doesn't have any further duty of care regarding their driver training - any requirement to do so would be more H&S box-ticking.

Of course employees should be provided with safe vehicles, but if they are responsible for regular checks and maintenance then, well, they are responsible.

So you would be happy to employ a 17 year old to do 70 000 miles a year in a LWB van who passed their test the previous day? S/he is fully "trained", apparently, so I assume there would be no problem. When I was 17 and was asked to do short trips in a Transit van the manager took me out for an hour to make sure I was able. Top marks that man, and probably no coincidence that I rate him as the best manger I've ever had in my working life.

Plus its not just about whether they can drive in a safely, its about workload as well.

It's obviously impossible to draw a precise line. Yes. I agree it's hard to tell your employer where to go if you think he's asking something unreasonable. Speaking as someone who has a 150 mile drive to work (though only about once a week) I can well imagine the sort of pressures someone who drove for a living might come under. Worse still, there's the self-employed ones who end up being their own slave drivers if they've had a bad week! For me, I think the important thing is to ask myself how we would all be better off if a particular course of action were followed. For instance, if my employer sent me on an advanced driving course, would it make me any less likely to have an accident or would it just waste a load of money and time? I guess it depends. If I learned something on the course that I didn't previously know (say, some car control trick or other) and I avoided a nasty accident on some subsequent occasion, then I'm sure it would have been money well spent. If, on the other hand, I crashed having nodded off at the wheel on a long run, I'd say it had been a waste of money! Everyone with a driving licence has passed a driving test and the purpose of the driving test is to see if they're fit to drive. Of course, that only ensures a MINIMUM standard has been attained but that's the standard, nevertheless, that the state accepts. If I have to drive a van, then if my licence covers me to do so, I think it is reasonable to expect that I will be acceptably safe driving it. According to my licence, my employer could even ask me to drive anything up to 7.5 tonnes without further training. Having done just that, I'm not sure it's such a good idea but then, that's the way the rules have been written!

The same argument could (I think!) be applied to roadworthiness checks. We have a national roadworthiness check - the MOT test. It's by no means perfect but it represents a minimum standard with which the state is happy that a vehicle can be used on a public road. There is, however, no doubting the fact that given two vehicles with a fresh MOT apiece, there could be a vast difference in their relative levels of safety. So again, where do we draw the line? Should the "responsible" employer ensure that he only sends his employees out in new cars with a 5 star EuroNCAP rating? Should he ensure that each employee is provided with sat-nav so he doesn't have to read a map? If he provides a hands-free kit, should he go for the £15 one that satisfies the law or the £150 one that has much better sound quality and mutes the radio automatically? In fact, should he provide a brand new set of tyres for every trip?

I'm very lucky in that my boss is pretty good about me being late if something adverse crops up on the road. I know there are many others who are not so fortunate! As for the machine injury question, well machines need guards on them anyway. The amount of guarding is set at a level deemed to be "reasonable" by the legislators. I've seen some shop floor workers disable guards on occasions because they are inconvenient. I guess that if an accident happens where the operator has circumvented some safety mechanism or other (like the bloke who knobbled the brakes on those rail trucks on Shap that then rolled off and killed someone) I can't see it being reasonable to go after the employer. If the machine was in some way defective, however, then I guess it SHOULD be fair to go after the employer.