The grumpy thread

[Lankytim]

We have telematics measurement devices on the fleet of MAN trucks at work, they check for harsh braking, cruise control usage, harsh acceleration e.t.c. it's a right pain. The night drivers going long distance get 100% cruise usage and no harsh braking, the day drivers get pulled up for harsh braking and lack of cruise control usage caused by general rush hour traffic. My route is the same every day and features lots of town driving and A roads so cruise control is not used that much. The guy in charge of looking at the telematics told me to make a 30 min detour every day so I can use more motorway and improve the cruise % and fuel consumption. Crazy!

[bub2006]

I've not been pulled on cruise use or harsh braking. I do accelerate to limit of road hard sometimes especially if on a time limit and management "forget" ti tell me

[dollywobbler]

Mate of mine got pulled up when he was a Tesco driver for using excessive revs. This was despite him getting the best economy figures...

[Cavcraft]

I had one of your colleagues behind me in Stoke on Tuesday, Tim. If you can get pulled for driving like a complete back and front, he's going to be knackered. I know not all drivers are the same, most are great, but he was a bellend.

[danthecapriman]

In fairness I've not found our lot to be too bad with the trackers. My old van didn't have one and wasn't restricted either so when we found out these new Sprinters had all this we kicked off.

But they've been alright with it really. The speeding thing does come up from time to time, mostly if you break a 20 or 30 limit but generally it's not too bad.

They don't seem bothered about where you are at what time etc but it will and does come into the equation if your in trouble. For example, a former colleague got in bother for fiddling his time sheet but he then lied about what he was doing on the days in question. They pulled up his tracker info and proved him to be lying. Unfortunately that was him done!

 

It can work in your favour though.

I was once pulled in for a bollocking as some complete twat phoned in and accused me of cutting up the bus they were on causing people to fall of seats and almost cause an accident.

It turned out the bus was a bus service layed on for my employers staff to/from our main call centre! The woman who complained was the PA to one of the big wigs there!

I contested it and requested an investigation be done and freely offered the examination of my vans tracker info. When they looked it revealed me to be in the right location but the speeds, acceleration etc didn't match the description of what I'd allegedly done. They then found the bus driver and asked him what happened and he didn't have a clue what was going on!

It turned out the PA woman had done this to make a name for herself at my expense and was dealt with for it. I was in the clear.

 

It does mean you've got to behave yourself in the van though, you can't drive around like I would in my own car.

[Kiltox]

GPS jammers are a thing.

 

Just saying.

[dollywobbler]

In fairness I've not found our lot to be too bad with the trackers. My old van didn't have one and wasn't restricted either so when we found out these new Sprinters had all this we kicked off.

But they've been alright with it really. The speeding thing does come up from time to time, mostly if you break a 20 or 30 limit but generally it's not too bad.

They don't seem bothered about where you are at what time etc but it will and does come into the equation if your in trouble. For example, a former colleague got in bother for fiddling his time sheet but he then lied about what he was doing on the days in question. They pulled up his tracker info and proved him to be lying. Unfortunately that was him done!

 

It can work in your favour though.

I was once pulled in for a bollocking as some complete twat phoned in and accused me of cutting up the bus they were on causing people to fall of seats and almost cause an accident.

It turned out the bus was a bus service layed on for my employers staff to/from our main call centre! The woman who complained was the PA to one of the big wigs there!

I contested it and requested an investigation be done and freely offered the examination of my vans tracker info. When they looked it revealed me to be in the right location but the speeds, acceleration etc didn't match the description of what I'd allegedly done. They then found the bus driver and asked him what happened and he didn't have a clue what was going on!

It turned out the PA woman had done this to make a name for herself at my expense and was dealt with for it. I was in the clear.

 

It does mean you've got to behave yourself in the van though, you can't drive around like I would in my own car.

 

Admirable by your company, if certainly not that PA woman. I agree that it can be a good thing in such circumstances. It's just annoying when the data is used as another tool by clueless managers to berate their staff.

[Jazoli]

GPS jammers are a thing.

 

Just saying.

Gps jammer use is gross misconduct, 2 engineers at my old company got fired for using them, they would drive to site, turn jammer on then drive home for the day, go back to site and turn jammer off at 4pm and go home.

 

What they forgot that the tracker records every mile travelled and you had to submit your van mileage for your fuel claim every month, coupled with regular van inspections, things weren't adding up!!

 

It's best to play by their rules unless you like job hunting

[RoadworkUK]

I remember seeing something when trackers first came on the go about a company owner saying that the month after the trackers went in their fuel bill went down by 15%.

There's a lot of people out there who take the piss.

 

Not just vans. I don't imagine that many diesel 3 Series are driven in such a way that they achieve anything like their transport-manager friendly fuel efficiency figures.

[chaseracer]

I don't imagine that many diesel 3 Series are driven in such a way that they achieve anything like their transport-manager friendly fuel efficiency figures.

 

Pillock...?

 

[Cavcraft]

I remember seeing something when trackers first came on the go about a company owner saying that the month after the trackers went in their fuel bill went down by 15%.

There's a lot of people out there who take the piss.

 

I always took the piss, to be honest. Route wise we could pretty much do what we wanted on our own 'patch' but if someone (not me, of course) decided to erm 'earn some extra income' it wasn't difficult. As for driving, it was basically as fast as you could, as often as you could, which you had to do most days to do what they expected. If anyone drove between Chester and Newtown on a regular basis between about 1994-2001 I'd have been the one in the yellow Cargo on the wrong side of the road, flat out.

[Tamworthbay]

Not just vans. I don't imagine that many diesel 3 Series are driven in such a way that they achieve anything like their transport-manager friendly fuel efficiency figures.

Its a Mazda not a Beemer but I am sure my mate thinks his company car has an accelerator with two positions- on and off.

[Supernaut]

I hate facebook for showing me just how fucking successful everybody but me is.

 

That is all.

[Guest Hooli]

Its a Mazda not a Beemer but I am sure my mate thinks his company car has an accelerator with two positions- on and off.

 

Binary controls, a lot of drivers seem to buy cars with those these days.

[Tamworthbay]

I hate facebook for showing me just how fucking successful everybody but me is.That is all.

Or how good they are at bullshitting more like.

[RoadworkUK]

Binary controls, a lot of drivers seem to buy cars with those these days.

They must have extremely complicated indicator controls, too.

[Craig the Princess]

How can Halfords not stock spark plugs for a Vectra C without it being a special order.

 

It comes to something when ECP bails you out with the correct part...

[omegod]

I'm sure my local halfords have a system where you order shit from ECP and pick it up from halfords , handy for late pick ups etc

[beko1987]

Bloody kids. After posting a detailing world thread in the clio thread, I really want to get back into it! But haven't got the spare time, or the dosh to buy all the stuff I need/want...

 

The best I can do at the moment is a 'good wash' and ok polish. My kit really is depleted nowadays. Roll on april/annual work bonus month, a cheeky £150/£200 will hopefully be spendable depending on how much it is

[purplebargeken]

Got a call from a very unhappy Ben this morning. Some cunt in a shitty van had stopped in a side road to let someone cross. The van then reversed about 6 feet and hit the front of his car despite him sounding his horn. Poor lad was that bloody stunned he forgot the reg number.

 

The van then fucked off at warp speed. Luckily the damage was limited to a cracked/moved honeycomb grille strip. I pulled it back into shape this evening. 

 

Dashcam to be fitted ASAP. Horse, gate and bolted but.....

[Pillock]

One of the sparkies I worked with got pulled into the office as the tracker showed he had stopped off at the scrapyard in the way home

 

My old place used to have trackers that tired into all sorts of vehicle functions.

They caught someone who three or four days a week, would fill the van up with diesel, drive to a local layby and turn the engine off.

When the ignition was turned back on the tank was only half full and he'd carry on with the day's deliveries.

 

Also caught drivers going to scrapyards, and even noticed trends where drivers were parking outside the same houses every day and offloading scrap appliances. Job sheet says there's a "collect recycling" on a dozen jobs, they turn back up to depot with only two machines. Not exactly rocket science.

[Parky]

Wife's friends two week old Hyundai got hit today. Witnesses saw it and observed the errant driver stop, pull out some paper and leave a note. Thinking they were leaving an address and contact details they didn't take any further notice. Unfortunately the other driver just wrote "SORRY!" And drove off. No details, nothing.

 

Dent in rear door and rear light clipped so it was dangling from the car on its cable. Not too extensive but that's still the no claims up the Swanee. Poor girl had saved for ages to treat herself to a new car. Some people are utter shits.

 

And no, no cctv coverage of the area and none of the witnesses took a plate or any description of the vehicle other than "it might have been white or a light colour. Or a van. Not sure, sorry".

 

Had this happen to me twice and it's not nice

[purplebargeken]

Bastards

[HillmanImp]

Redhill Surrey?

Aye. Redhill town centre seems to be 50% office workers and 50% people off with neck tattoos and alcohol problems. I imagine its 100% of the latter in the evening once the office workers have gone home.

 

Its odd, as all the areas i have been just outside the town centre on my walk back to the hotel are really nice so have no idea where they are all from.

 

The town centre itself is starting to get run down too with lots of charity shops in what should be prime locations and the 80s shopping precinct has lots of empty shops.

 

Probably needs a regeneration but its unlikely to happen these days. Its probably a prime example of everything that is wrong with Britain.

 

Its a centre of financial activity with loads of big companies based there but the town itself is in dire need of cash as all the money they earn goes to the city.

[danthecapriman]

Wife's friends two week old Hyundai got hit today. Witnesses saw it and observed the errant driver stop, pull out some paper and leave a note. Thinking they were leaving an address and contact details they didn't take any further notice. Unfortunately the other driver just wrote "SORRY!" And drove off. No details, nothing.

Dent in rear door and rear light clipped so it was dangling from the car on its cable. Not too extensive but that's still the no claims up the Swanee. Poor girl had saved for ages to treat herself to a new car. Some people are utter shits.

And no, no cctv coverage of the area and none of the witnesses took a plate or any description of the vehicle other than "it might have been white or a light colour. Or a van. Not sure, sorry".

Had this happen to me twice and it's not nice

Fuckers!

 

My mums new Fiesta got reversed into the other day. She's only had the car a week and it was the first day the car had been taken to work. Some young kid reversed out of a space and hit the back bumper of the Fiesta bending the rear bumper, badly scratching it and smashing the fog light to bits.

 

Mum was pretty upset about it, especially as it's a new car, but fortunately the other driver was decent enough to leave their details. There are nice and honest people around still, though they do seem a minority!

[Lankytim]

I had one of your colleagues behind me in Stoke on Tuesday, Tim. If you can get pulled for driving like a complete back and front, he's going to be knackered. I know not all drivers are the same, most are great, but he was a bellend.

 

I don't work for Stobart anymore

[trigger]

Everytime a Stobart wagon pulls under me at work my heart sinks...

[cobblers]

I'm sure my local halfords have a system where you order shit from ECP and pick it up from halfords , handy for late pick ups etc

 

If someone said to me "Dave, go down to Halfords and get them to order me a track rod end for a mk4 Astra from ECP, then pick it up at 7PM the following day. I'll give you SIX THOUSAND POUNDS if you're successful" I wouldn't even bother lifting my head off my desk.

[wuvvum]

Wife's friends two week old Hyundai got hit today. Witnesses saw it and observed the errant driver stop, pull out some paper and leave a note. Thinking they were leaving an address and contact details they didn't take any further notice. Unfortunately the other driver just wrote "SORRY!" And drove off. No details, nothing.

 

Dent in rear door and rear light clipped so it was dangling from the car on its cable. Not too extensive but that's still the no claims up the Swanee. Poor girl had saved for ages to treat herself to a new car. Some people are utter shits.

 

And no, no cctv coverage of the area and none of the witnesses took a plate or any description of the vehicle other than "it might have been white or a light colour. Or a van. Not sure, sorry".

 

Had this happen to me twice and it's not nice

I know who it was.  It was Peter Griffin.  I saw him do it.

 

 

 

(actually no, that's a Scenic he hit, not a Hunday)

[The Moog]

I hate facebook for showing me just how fucking successful everybody but me is.

 

That is all.

Seriously don't worry about Facebook. No one posted the medium stuff of life. Either exceptional or utterly shit.

 

 

Fuck I look amazing on Facebook

... And you have met me...