Reported a van driver who was on the phone

@gonefishin – if drunk passengers weren’t acceptable then most taxi firms would go out of business! 😆

@Denis99 – I think a lot of car designers/manufacturers need a good slapping, many of the newer features are idiotic and encourage bad (or at least inconsiderate) driving. I had a courtesy car whilst mine was in the garage and there were so many distractions inside the car that it was hard to concentrate on what was going on around me.

I reported a Van being very poorly driven which, when he came up behind a cyclist, actually got closer to the kerb (a very deliberate ‘punishment pass’) even though there was a completely empty lane next to him (v. quiet dual Carriageway).

Spoke to the company (reasonable sized, couple of offices not a one man band) directly and they were very dismissive and practically laughed it off saying that i was probably making a mistake, that unless there hadn’t been an actual accident then there was nothing they could do etc etc.

The response I got from their MD to the email to the Police with the Dash cam footage I cc’d him in to was somewhat more conciliatory on the other hand…

I <3 a happy hippie

It’s petty H&S BS like this that detracts from the real goal of H&S management.

I disagree. Firstly, as Denis99 now agrees, it is safer, and while the probability – and in a workplace car park the severity – is low, it’s quite reasonable for a firm to decide to implement this rule. The key thing, is that it’s explained properly to persuade everyone to comply (just as Dennis99 now agrees and just as he used to give safety talks to employees which got their engagement). It should also not be something which then takes up a lot of time or attention: again, as Dennis99 indicates there will usually be far bigger risks elsewhere, so having introduced simple rules like this and the handrail one, you don’t want to have to waste lots of time and resources monitoring and enforcing them.

With regard to the handrail one, bear in mind that some workplace environments will make this very necessary, e.g. those where lots of oily waste is unavoidably produced and stairs cannot be kept free of slippery contaminents. Even in low risk environments like offices, it can still serve a useful purpose: we might not run up the stairs or jump down them three at a time, but the energetic new YTS employee fresh from school might do just that. In that respect, site rules about parking, using handrails, no running etc. help to get everyone to behave generally in safe methodical and predictable ways. Much as I don’t like the phrase ‘safety culture’ these rules do help to instill that attitude and encourage a workforce that self-polices and employees looking out for each other. It should go without saying that it’s absolutely essential that managers and senior staff also comply with those rules, and you know that you are on the right track when even a junior employee has the confidence to remind someone much more senior to them (politely but clearly) to use the hand rail, wear PPE properly etc.

The reality is that why reversing into a space may reduce the likelihood of an accident, the severity of a car park speed accident is is very low 99% of a time and rarely involves human injury. Particularly in a workplace car park with few pedestrians and no children.

Actual incident that happened to me:
I used to work in quarrying, for Redland, now Lafarge.
This was about 15 years ago, so they were fairly hot in H&S but there was a lot of old blokes who knew better….
We had designated parking areas and we had to reverse park in them. Fine. No problem.
Unless you’re the quarry manager apparently who was a year off retirement and used to park right next to the office door, front first, in his company vehicle. The vehicle was a LWB Renault Traffic van.
I needed to use said van, so I jumped in and started it up. Now, this is partly my fault but I glanced at the gear lever (one of those short stubby ones that pokes out of the dashboard) and assumed it was in neutral.
But it wasn’t. Old man who knew it all had left it in gear with the handbrake off….. which he shouldn’t have done either.
As soon as the starter turned the engine caught and the van shot forewards into the wall of the office with quite a bang. It probably moved 3-4 feet. If someone had been in front of me I’d have taken their legs off. I hit it with enough force to move 2-3 courses of bricks inwards about 2 inches and damage the van.
This apparently didn’t make me popular with the manager although he avoided trying to disciple me as he knew it was mostly his fault and there was no paperwork ever filled in. AFAIK the building is still there and still damaged.
The day after I was sitting talking to one of the other guys and i said to him that the manager knew it was his fault, citing parking location, direction and that it was in gear. I was fairly derogatory about him too. I turned round and he was standing behind me. He was popping mad but he knew there was bugger all he could say about it and he left the room.

Spring Watch presenter now firmly camped outside Denis99’s house, in anticipation….

PeterPoddy – That is as much your fault as his.

You didn’t check that the van was out of gear or put your foot on the clutch.

The outcome of it was minor property damage and the possibility of that happening with someone directly in front of you, extremely low as it is very likely you would of checked the vehicle properly if someone was in front of you.

Besides, the direction of which the vehicle was parked didn’t cause the incident, you could of hurt someone if it had been parked the other way, you might have travelled further and hurt someone.

PeterPoddy – That is as much your fault as his.

No it wasn’t. He’d broken the rules. He knew them well enough. If he’d followed any one of the 3 parking rules there’d have been no accident no matter what I did. Yes I was the one driving but I was just the last in the chain. That’s why nothing was ever said to me, because he’d have had more explaining to do than me.
It wasn’t the only incident he was involved in either. I remember one day I was driving the loading shovel (26t Volvo if I recall correctly) and I was asked to do something I considered unsafe, I forget what it was now, but I backed off, put the bucket on the floor, turned off the engine, climbed down and tossed him the keys with words to the effect of “that’s not safe, you want it done, do it yourself”. I went off the the tea room for a bit.
This bloke was a know it all and a hazard himself but he was one of the good old boys and my face didn’t fit.
There’s more, I could go one for a while, but I left not long after. Good riddance.

No it wasn’t. He’d broken the rules.

Still reckon you had a responsibility to check. You were in charge of the vehicle at time of the accident, your fault

I watched at a busy traffic light controlled X roads as this bloke in a builders van tried to turn right then immediately left while trying to answer his phone while working out whether to put down his cup of tea or his fag first ! E Mailed the company , zero response . Probably the boss 🙁

No it wasn’t. He’d broken the rules. He knew them well enough.

So did you.

If you had followed the “SOP” for starting the van, then it wouldn’t have happened. I pretty sure it’s one of the first things you get taught on a driving lesson, check to make sure gear is in neutral but turning the ignition.

The fact the building is still damaged shows how cosmetic and minor the damage caused is.

This link might help you.

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Manual-Car

PeterPoddy – That is as much your fault as his.

Nope. See my comments above about the value of site rules to get everyone to behave in consistent, methodical, predictable ways.

Rules for how cars should be parked (reverse in, handbrake on, netutral gear) are no different to rules about how other machinery should be be operated on site. So if you have a machine with various safety devices on it, there should be a written safe system of work covering how it is to be switched off/shut down/de-energised and left in a safe condition. Yes there is a responsibility on the operator to undertake pre-start checks which should identify if the last person to use it left it in an unsafe condition, but those should only be a back-stop. The primary responsibility rests with the last user to follow the rules and with management to check and ensure that the rules are followed. If operators are allowed to have different practices in how they leave their machines, then it becomes much more likely, even inevitable, that there will be an accident when someone starts up a machine.

So PeterPoddy was not as much to blame. The only entity as much to blame as the manager was Redland itself: having a manager routinely ignore company safety rules undermines safety across the site, and there should have been a safety management system in place which identified it and corrected it (routine safety inspections/audits and a resulting bollocking for the manager).

Whenever human error is blamed for an accident, the actual human error is often not that of the person doing the job, but the human error of managers and the organisation to properly manage safety in their business.

This link might help you.

HSE’s guide to safety management

Isn’t it also the new user’s responsibility to follow procedure for safely starting a machine or vehicle?

Seems to me that safety systems should have backup. So check on shutown AND startup, just in case.

Of course it all depends on if the company had both in place. If they had no startup procedure in place, then PP cannot be blamed for not following it.

Oh and for those who complain about auto handbrakes – you can’t have that accident with one 🙂

Nope. See my comments above about the value of site rules to get everyone to behave in consistent, methodical, predictable ways.

And Peter Poddy didn’t. He did not follow the SOP for starting a vehicle.

Thanks for the link but I am happy without it.

IOSH qualified and routinely risk assess very high risk marine environments.

Isn’t it also the new user’s responsibility to follow procedure for safely starting a machine or vehicle?

The manager routinely parked where he should not have done, and when PeterPoddy went to drive the vehicle, he found that it had been left in gear with the handbrake off. How likely was it that the first time PeterPoddy drove it also just happened to be the first time the manager had left it in gear with the handbrake off? It is very likely that the manager routinely left it like that, i.e. in a dangerous condition. Tolerating that sort of thing happening in a workplace and effectively relying solely on the next operator undertaking pre-start checks to identify the dangerous condition, is asking for trouble. Over-reliance on single individuals not making a mistake is a classic safety failure: British Rail’s safety management system for Signals Passed at Danger (SPADs) was similarly to treat them as human errors which were dealt with by disciplinary action, but after the Clapham crash it was forced to recognise that with so many train journeys and so many signals, it was statistically inevitable that drivers would pass a (small but unacceptable) percentage of red signals, and that consequently it was not sufficient just to rely on the driver seeing the red signal and stopping accordingly.

PeterPoddy said that the vehicle was not one he was familiar with and it was not immediately obvious that the gear stick was not in neutral. Continuing with the analogy of other machines, let’s say that everyone on site operates an Acme 4567 CNC lathe, with the exception of PeterPoddy’s manager who operates an Imperial Super Widget CNC lathe. It’s all the more important that everyone adheres to the same safe working practices when shutting down the machines and leaving them in a safe condition, if PeterPoddy or one of his colleagues may be asked to operate the Imperial Super Widget CNC lathe, with which they are less familiar.

IOSH qualified and routinely risk assess very high risk marine environments.

Providing you are only undertaking risk assessments of specific activities in your own field of expertise, your fellow workers should be OK. However, if you are working at management level with responsibility for site wide safety and implementing and overseeing safety management systems, then I would be concerned.

Tolerating that sort of thing happening in a workplace and effectively relying solely on the next operator undertaking pre-start checks to identify the dangerous condition, is asking for trouble.

That is exactly what I am saying. There should be a procedure both for parking up AND starting. Either there was no start procedure (bad from the company) or he did not follow it (bad from him). The manager was definitely at fault, but PP may also have been.

If anyone cares about the outcome of my original post – the driver has been traced and is being called in for a one to one.

The thought of working in a place that tells me how to walk down stairs and likely getting pulled up by some jumped up little shat in a tie or heels because I wasn’t holding on to a rail makes my blood boil.

The thought of going on a forum to tell people I reported someone driving on the phone doesn’t make my blood boil, but makes me feel empathy and a little despair towards the OP.

The thought of reporting someone using a phone whilst driving for work is perfectly normal to me and I’ve done it. Didn’t feel the need to get justification from strangers though.

This whole thread makes me feel awkward.

*Jazz hands*

Jeez what a thread.

Not only did PP not check it was in neutral, he didn’t start the engine clutch down (or even with his foot over the clutch and brake) and didn’t check the handbrake was on. I bet he didn’t check the mirrors were adjusted to suit either. More his fault than the manager’s IMO.

Why wouldn’t you leave a vehicle in gear? Cars with disc rear brakes are well known to roll away when the discs/pads cool down, shrink and reduce braking force to the point a car can roll away. It’s a good habit to leave a car in gear so the day you park on a slope it doesn’t roll away.

I was taught to always start the engine with the clutch depressed
as easier for the starter motor without the oil drag from the gearbox
and to avoid a jump forward if left in gear

Glasgowdan,

In addition to learning how to walk down the stairs, we also get trained on how to move empty boxes before we are even allowed to think about full boxes….

We have a quota of write up we are required to do each month. Sometimes we have to do “unsafe” practices just to have something to write up.

SO these site rules about handbrake on , reverse in , gearbox in neutral etc
What if you happen to drive a Saab? Where to remove the ignition key the car has to be in reverse?
Leave the car in neutral with the key in the ignition? I dont think so, we got told off by the H + S man for leaving a FLT unattended with a key in it.

With molgrips on this one – never assume that someone has followed the procedure. We had tractors on the farm that you couldn’t start unless they were in neutral so I’ve kind of got used to making sure things are in neutral before I go for the ignition.

As for leaving a vehicle in gear – I’ll do this if leaving the car at an airport car park for an extended period rather than put the handbrake on as it’s quite common for the handbrake to seize on. The last time this happened the battery had gone flat as well so it took a bit of shifting 🙄

There’s places in the States where on steep streets you have to leave the car with the handbrake on AND in gear (reverse if pointing downhill, first if pointing uphill) AND with the front wheels set so that if the car does move it will swing in towards the pavement rather than into the street. This being the land of the free, failure to do so will result in ten years in the penitentary 😆

That is exactly what I am saying. There should be a procedure both for parking up AND starting. Either there was no start procedure (bad from the company) or he did not follow it (bad from him). The manager was definitely at fault, but PP may also have been

Yes, but the fact that the manager’s van was routinely parked improperly in a dangerous condition is more important when looking at the big picture (and was the underlying cause of the accident). From a safety management perspective, it is difficult/impractical to ensure that all drivers check a vehicle is in neutral and the handbrake on before switching on the ignition, but it is much simpler to check/monitor/police whether the vehicle has been left in a safe condition when it was parked, so the safety system should focus more on the latter because it can more readily be enforced and ensured.

Put it this way, how often do you pick up a hire car that has not been reversed parked and does not have the handbrake on and gear in neutral?

I had to visit a lot of oil companies years back. They all had the reverse parking rule long before anyone else, not just to protect pedestrians but because it speeded site evacuation when the sirens started howling. I can’t remember any of the site rules sheets stipulating leaving a car in neutral.

SO these site rules about handbrake on , reverse in , gearbox in neutral etc
What if you happen to drive a Saab? Where to remove the ignition key the car has to be in reverse?

Must be an old Saab then. The 57 plate 9-3 I had was happy with being left in neutral when switching off

Yes, but the fact that the manager’s van was routinely parked improperly in a dangerous condition is more important when looking at the big picture

Quite possibly more important yes.

PS reporting def works

Thanks for the update Mister P and a good result, so far at least.
I scrolled past the pages of noise without reading to see if you had updated with news.
I’d like to see automatic 6 month bans with no mitigating circumstances allowed for people who use phones in vehicles. On the first occasion they’re caught as well.

Not exactly the thread you thought this was going to be, eh, P-Ness…

🙂

P.S. I was going to troll you and claim I was the driver you grassed but thought better of it when considering how many times folk get accused of using the Edinburgh Defence when, in reality, they were genuinely having a laugh.

Maybe next time…