Same bridge struck three times in under a week

[The exile]

No, but the difference is that the lorry actually hits the bridge, whereas the SPADs of which you speak presumably involve no collision. I would have thought the difference between actual and possible accident is very important. Apart from the shock of the bridge hit itself, I would hope a short driving ban would lodge the issue firmly in the mind. Of course, if a lorry driver hits a bridge and presumably writes off a large part of the vehicle, would he/she be retained in the role by the employer anyway?

Why a “short” driving ban? An immediate and permanent ban commercial driving. Two or more of those for any haulage company in a year and the company loses whatever licence it requires and the directors are debarred. Time to get tough.

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

And it might well turn out that there's a string of numpties driving lorries. In which case the questions to be asked ought to be (a) how do we stop numpties from driving lorries, and (b) how do we make it so that if a numpty does get behind the wheel, it's as hard as possible for them to hit a bridge.

Now that I think about it, we've been making the comparison to SPADs - but that isn't the right comparison at all. The direct rail equivalent would be out-of-gauge loads striking structures. Obviously, that hardly ever happens - and when it does, it's because there have been multiple failures in a system designed to make sure it doesn't.

It's obviously not possible to apply exactly the same management system for trains and lorries. But one gets the impression that the management system for at least some HGV operators is 'here's a load, remember not to go over your hours'.

Reference has been made to the much higher standards expected of train drivers. We didn't get those standards by just sacking the bad ones.

It might well turn out to be a string of numpties, but do they not deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven so? If they are, why are they only having this problem now, not last year, or the year before?

Consider if you'd you be happy to have an incident at work and have everyone assume you to be a numpty, potentially carrying the can for a systemic issue? If they are numpties, I don't want them behind the wheel of anything, but I think that battle has been lost a long time ago looking at driving standards... Until then, I'm more interested in why it's happening than trying to punish anyone.

At the same time we are also campaigning to save lives by getting dangerous and incompetent drivers off of the roads. And a bit of a shortage of HGV drivers is good for the rest as it will drive earnings upwards. If we accepted the same standards on the railway we would have a lot more train drivers but earning less than they do now.

When you've proved that a driver is dangerous and incompetent, fire ahead. Every train driver that SPADs is going to be fired for being dangerous and incompetent too? No, didn't think so. If a driver is incompetent and dangerous, the last place I want them is in a driver's seat, whether that's in a train, car, wagon, boat or plane.

Contrast what is happening to these wagon drivers though with the Elizabeth Line overspeed incident there is currently a thread on - in that, there are lots of reasons being suggested as to why that driver made the mistake from sign placement and cleanliness fatigue, unfamiliar moves etc but I've yet to see anyone say they should be fired. Why are they afforded a proper investigation, when multiple people having an issue at a different location aren't? Isn't it more likely that one person making a mistake is incompetent and 3 at the same location is a systemic issue? (For clarity, and before I get

WRT your point on standards - there are something like an estimated 30-40,000 vacancies for truck drivers in the UK, down from 100,000 during COVID. There are many reasons for this, from lacklustre pay to the lack of facilities for trampers, ridiculous conditions imposed on drop offs, through to people not wanting to spend time away from home. With that many vacancies, it's a case of you take what you can get. For train drivers, you get hundreds of people sometimes applying for one job - in which case, you can afford to be a bit picky about who you accept - and that's why testing and training can be so stringent - if one candidate isn't perfect, there's another 199 to choose from; in the truck world, it's the drivers who can afford to be picky. I have a pal who is class1/adr trained, and he regularly changes job because companies are chasing him to work for them, and they are competing with each other to offer better T&C's or pay to attract drivers.

 

[Haywain]

When you've proved that a driver is dangerous and incompetent, fire ahead. Every train driver that SPADs is going to be fired for being dangerous and incompetent too? No, didn't think so. If a driver is incompetent and dangerous, the last place I want them is in a driver's seat, whether that's in a train, car, wagon, boat or plane.

I don't believe that I have suggested that there's no room for investigation, retraining and so on. Just as there's no room for dismissing everything with the mantra of "other factors".

WRT your point on standards - there are something like an estimated 30-40,000 vacancies for truck drivers in the UK, down from 100,000 during COVID. There are many reasons for this, from lacklustre pay to the lack of facilities for trampers, ridiculous conditions imposed on drop offs, through to people not wanting to spend time away from home. With that many vacancies, it's a case of you take what you can get. For train drivers, you get hundreds of people sometimes applying for one job - in which case, you can afford to be a bit picky about who you accept - and that's why testing and training can be so stringent - if one candidate isn't perfect, there's another 199 to choose from; in the truck world, it's the drivers who can afford to be picky. I have a pal who is class1/adr trained, and he regularly changes job because companies are chasing him to work for them, and they are competing with each other to offer better T&C's or pay to attract drivers.

So, what's your solution? Lower the expected standards so that vacancies are filled? As you cite lacklustre pay as one of the reasons for a shortage you must agree with me that higher pay will help. The railways don't have "hundreds of people sometimes applying for one job" because there's an excess of railway enthusiasts out there. They are two jobs which have a lot of similarities (lone working, unsocial hours, concentration levels) but one is highly regulated and managed and the other is pretty much left to its own devices, factors which are reflected in the levels of pay and the apparent levels of enthusiasm to do the job.

 

[norbitonflyer]

Why a “short” driving ban? An immediate and permanent ban commercial driving.

What you will get then is an inexperienced driver replacing them, instead of one who will hopefully have learned from his accident and remember to check in future.
interesting exercise in statistics - is a driver who has hit a bridge before more or less likely to hit another bridge than one who has never done so before? (Sttaistically small sample, I know)

 

[PyrahnaRanger]

I don't believe that I have suggested that there's no room for investigation, retraining and so on. Just as there's no room for dismissing everything with the mantra of "other factors".


So, what's your solution? Lower the expected standards so that vacancies are filled? As you cite lacklustre pay as one of the reasons for a shortage you must agree with me that higher pay will help. The railways don't have "hundreds of people sometimes applying for one job" because there's an excess of railway enthusiasts out there. They are two jobs which have a lot of similarities (lone working, unsocial hours, concentration levels) but one is highly regulated and managed and the other is pretty much left to its own devices, factors which are reflected in the levels of pay and the apparent levels of enthusiasm to do the job.

Sorry Haywain - although your post was quoted, it was only as a representative example of some of the attitudes seen in this thread, and shouldn't be ready as being directed at you personally.

As for fixing the issue? I think there's a number of things that need done - here's a couple to start with, though I doubt they'll ever be implemented:

- improved driver training schemes to ensure drivers aren't expected to pay for their own qualifications and refresher training.
- improved layover facilities. Who wants to spend their evening in a layby on the A1?
- better treatment of drivers by customers - tea and coffee cost next to bugger all, so why are you charging drivers for them while they wait for you to load/unload; accidents happen, make allowances - I've known people turned away because they've been 5 minutes late. This would also reduce the incentive to drive like a loon...
- better conditions like less nights away, although you need more drivers for that.
- more thought given to large vehicles during road planning

And probably a salary review wouldn't hurt either!

In terms of regulation, I think it's 6 & 2x3s - drivers aren't perhaps so highly tested as they are on the railway, but I don't remember the last time I was on a train that had a surprise inspection by VOSA, along with a full inspection of the drivers last 21 days worth of tacho records... Plus the now instant reporting of vehicle checks to the Traffic Commissioner.

 

[Haywain]

I don't remember the last time I was on a train that had a surprise inspection by VOSA

The only surprise inspections necessary are drug and alcohol tests. For pretty much everything else there is monitoring of one sort or another, or plenty of people seemingly happy to report things they think they've seen.

 

[Indigo Soup]

It might well turn out to be a string of numpties, but do they not deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven so? If they are, why are they only having this problem now, not last year, or the year before?

Consider if you'd you be happy to have an incident at work and have everyone assume you to be a numpty, potentially carrying the can for a systemic issue? If they are numpties, I don't want them behind the wheel of anything, but I think that battle has been lost a long time ago looking at driving standards... Until then, I'm more interested in why it's happening than trying to punish anyone.

Precisely my point - the systematic issues ought to be addressed to the point where it takes more than merely the driver having a bad day to cause an accident.

- more thought given to large vehicles during road planning

I'd also suggest route planning tools (which might include satnavs) that take into account the need for clearance. And if drivers are to have targeted delivery times, those must be developed in a similar way. As you say, nobody wants to hit a bridge*. But if you've got 15 minutes to get to your next drop, it's 10 miles away, and the direct route goes under a low bridge...

Well, it only needs one driver to be on a warning for falling behind schedule, or to not have slept well, or for the load to be larger than the driver was informed, or for the road to have an odd vertical curvature.

 

[43066]

Difficult arrange that, given that the purpose of most lorry journeys is to deliver or collect something, be it a trailer or a load on a flatbed.

Not really? It’s surely no different to TOCs reviewing rosters to ensure a driver isn’t, for example, rostered to drive an eight car train and then do a trip over the same route in a ten car train (a real life example where several “stop short” incidents occurred, until the diagram was altered). You can’t eliminate the risk but you can avoid obvious traps created by lazy diagramming.

TPWS massively reduced SPADs. Recent SPAD incidents (Salisbury and West Wales) weren't driver error

TPWS might have had an effect on reducing SPADS, but its primary role isn’t to prevent them, but to mitigate against their consequences.

You also don’t hear about the vast majority of them - there are a couple of hundred across the network annually.

You are saving lives by improving driving standards and the threat of losing the job is a part of that.

It’s one small part that, without anything else, will make no difference to improving standards.

You work for the railway in some capacity, I think, so perhaps have a word with your employer’s operational standards department, or have a look on your intranet at the content of “safety days” drivers regularly attend.

The driver who has a loss of concentration and hits a low bridge today, may just as easily have had a loss of concentration and hit a cyclist or pedestrian causing death or serious injury.

This doesn’t follow at all, because they’re completely different incidents. As a society we also accept the risk that people may be killed by incorrectly driven road vehicles to a level we would never accept from incorrectly driven rail vehicles.

This doesn't ignore other factors but it has to be recognised that the driver is in ultimate control of the vehicle.

Nobody has suggested otherwise, but what does this have to do with what we’re discussing?

In railway terms, much of the problem is alleviated by route knowledge whereas on the roads there is nothing remotely close to this for HGV drivers.

This isn’t really relevant because the driving disciplines are so different (train drivers have incidents lorry drivers never could, and vice versa), but notably train drivers still “SPAD” signals on the routes they sign and drive day in day out.

No, it is not something I am considering at all but I am pretty sure that plenty of firms do not provide any training over and above the requirement to hold an HGV licence and to be insurable.

Well that’s probably part of the problem. Nobody on the railway says “you’ve got a European train driving license, now go and drive trains” without any other mitigation measures and ongoing learning and development programmes being put in place.

Well, it only needs one driver to be on a warning for falling behind schedule,

I really, really hope lorry drivers aren’t being pressured to rush. If they are, we probably have part of the answer as to why bridge bashes, and no doubt other types of incident involving HGVs, occur.

 

[TrainOnLine]

Updates as crash shuts Leicestershire's A5

Motorists were urged to avoid the area

www.leicestermercury.co.uk

A5 Hinckley Bridge Hit Again.

Anyone know the colour code for it?

 

[Bald Rick]

Updates as crash shuts Leicestershire's A5

Motorists were urged to avoid the area

www.leicestermercury.co.uk

A5 Hinckley Bridge Hit Again.

Anyone know the colour code for it?

“Each strike costs the economy £20m”. Nonsense!!

 

[norbitonflyer]

Not really? It’s surely no different to TOCs reviewing rosters to ensure a driver isn’t, for example, rostered to drive an eight car train and then do a trip over the same route in a ten car train (a real life example where several “stop short” incidents occurred, until the diagram was altered). You can’t eliminate the risk but you can avoid obvious traps created by lazy diagramming.

Rosters can be rearranged, but what was being suggested was that a driver shouldn't be allowed to drive different height vehicles on the same shift, and I observed that the height of the very same vehicle may change during the shift (adding a load to a flatbed, or coupling a trailer). trains don't tend to change length during the course of a journey - at least not on the same route: when trains divide, they usually do so at the same place each time.

Have there been incidents of the driver of a service that has had carriages added en route (as happens routinely at places like Woking and Chester) forgetting that he now has eight coaches when he started with four?

 

[43066]

Rosters can be rearranged, but what was being suggested was that a driver shouldn't be allowed to drive different height vehicles on the same shift, and I observed that the height of the very same vehicle may change during the shift (adding a load to a flatbed, or coupling a trailer). trains don't tend to change length during the course of a journey - at least not on the same route: when trains divide, they usually do so at the same place each time.

I should probably have said “minimise” rather than prevent entirely - my bad.

Have there been incidents of the driver of a service that has had carriages added en route (as happens routinely at places like Woking and Chester) forgetting that he now has eight coaches when he started with four?

Yes, many, as alluded to in my last post.

 

[Dr Hoo]

“Each strike costs the economy £20m”. Nonsense!!

I think that that (dubious) rule of thumb became baked in after the Dawlish blockage, when it was widely ‘accepted’ that ‘cutting off Plymouth and Cornwall’ cost that much in economic terms.
This was then repeated when a Tesco(?) lorry got stuck under a bridge near Plymouth for a whole day achieving the same effect.
This is, of course, a very useful rubric for those campaigning to re-create closed routes as diversions so don’t expect it to go away.

 

[dcbwhaley]

It there are something like an estimated 30-40,000 vacancies for truck drivers in the UK, down from 100,000 during COVID. There are many reasons for this, from lacklustre pay to the lack of facilities for trampers, ridiculous conditions imposed on drop offs, through to people not wanting to spend time away from home. With that many vacancies, it's a case of you take what you can get. For train drivers, you get hundreds of people sometimes applying for one job - in which case, you can afford to be a bit picky about who you accept - and that's why testing and training can be so stringent - if one candidate isn't perfect, there's another 199 to choose from; in the truck world, it's the drivers who can afford to be picky. I have a pal who is class1/adr trained, and he regularly changes job because companies are chasing him to work for them, and they are competing with each other to offer better T&C's or pay to attract drivers.

Given that disparity in job vacancies why are train drivers paid almost twice as much as train drivers?

 

[43066]

Given that disparity in job vacancies why are train drivers paid almost twice as much as train drivers?

Because a train driver takes a year or more to train, roughly the same length of time as an airline pilot, whereas a “class 2” truck driver can train up in a week or so? Lots of people wanting the job also doesn’t equate to lots of people being able to do it successfully, and cope with the considerable demands of the role, for years on end.

(Maybe best not to get into this again, it’s been debated many times before).

 

[Bald Rick]

I think that that (dubious) rule of thumb became baked in after the Dawlish blockage, when it was widely ‘accepted’ that ‘cutting of Plymouth and Cornwall’ cost that much in economic terms.
This was then repeated when a Tesco(?) lorry got stuck under a bridge near Plymouth for a whole day achieving the same effect.
This is, of course, a very useful rubric for those campaigning to re-create closed routes as diversions so don’t expect it to go away.

I did wonder how it related to the (almost equally nonsensical) £20m / day for Dawlish.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I did wonder how it related to the (almost equally nonsensical) £20m / day for Dawlish.

Given that the Dawlish incident was almost exactly 11 years ago (early February 2014) it really needs to be updated for inflation. Just over £27,000,000 using the Bank of England inflation calculator.

Possibly a useful guide to 'realistic' fines for drivers and road haulage companies?

 

[Meerkat]

Make lorry satnavs compulsory and make them not work until you have entered the height of the truck.
Not foolproof but it makes the driver ask the question and then the satnav can route accordingly and set off an alarm if some free styling involves a low height route.
The driver wouldn’t have to measure exactly - they can just put in a height that is definitely greater than reality (ie height of the cab as that’s easy to compare to the load).

 

[philthetube]

when I did my PCV, PSV as it was then I was asked at least hourly, what was the last road sigh? and if I didn't know was required to walk back and check it, it peed me off at the time but certainly had benefits, I don't know if this was a quirk of my trainer or standard practice.

If I was asked now I would normally know.

 

[Mag_seven]

I think this thread has run its course.