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HGV driver Lucy Radley suspects that many of her colleagues fail to take the time to do their job properly.
Page 15
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It has always been said that there are drivers and there are screwdrivers, but the more the word "professional" is bandied about, the less it seems to apply.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no angel, as I'm sure my transport manager will be only to happy to agree, but I do try to do the job properly.
It's the little stuff that grates. I went to jump in the works van to fetch the paperwork up from the office last week. It wasn't just empty, it was so empty that the fuel gauge was in the negative and the warning light was on the verge of an epileptic fit, The van was parked just 20 yards from the pump. After fetching the key and moving it that massive distance to do the deed, I found myself wading about in a three-inch slick of spilt diesel and AdBlue. How many people had to drive through it and stand in it for it to get that bad, I've no idea. It took just five minutes to sort it — it really wasn't hard. But then it isn't hard to empty the pipe properly when you finish fuelling in the first place.
It's relieving yourself against your tyres rather than walking to a toilet in the services. It's leaving spansets in knotted-up piles in trailers rather than stowing them. Its tailgating because you haven't engaged your brain enough to be able to pull out from behind that doddering buker before you're right on top of it, It's not bothering to check equipment before you take it out and then moaning when you get refused because it has a hole in it; crying you can't secure your load because your straps got pinched last weekend; or finding you need 16 stitches in your arm and two weeks on statutory sick pay because you tried to force the stuck flap on a tail-lift, which you can't do your job without and didn't discover a problem with until you got to your first delivery. Yes, I know someone who managed that only recently.
Our senior driver has a reputation for being an aloof kind of a bloke, and only speaking to a select few. The more time passes, the more I can see his point. At this rate, I might even start washing my wagon before I realise I can no longer see out of it. Then again, maybe I won't. I'm not sure I want to know what I'm missing.