Winding down for Christmas - FAIL!!!

[rikrobson]

Apart from a bit of wind and rain the roads were relatively quiet today. Back home safe and sound and now ready for Christmas (Drinking)
A quiet Christmas day then off to Edingurgh on Boxing day to watch the 1872 Cup at Murryfield

 

[Wedg1e]

Very easily, they have something called a company vehicle driving policy and this puts the onus on the driver to take breaks at specific hours and they often sneak it in when you read a contract of employment, or similar, and when you sign the document you have admitted having the policy and have not adhered to it which puts you at fault.

In the event of an accident one of the first questions is "how long have you driven" followed by "what breaks did you have and when" and with modern vehicle tracking methods its easy to download the data and if you lie the company has the tracking data to prove you have lied and once you lie you are stuffed, they can track you in many ways using current technology and if you breach your company policy you are culpable and not the company.

If you don't know your company vehicle driving policy then speak to your company H&S officer, or appointed person for H$S matters and demand a copy of their policy and stick to it, if anyone kicks up then throw their policy back at them.

As I'm still up... there is indeed a company driving policy; on the night in question one of the chiefs was calling me and telling me to check into a hotel, I said I'd do so when I got tired.
I didn't get tired until the equipment was delivered , THEN I tried to find a hotel in Ahrensburg without success as there was a 'big event' on in Hamburg and hotels for miles around were full... I dunno, Hamburg, Oktober, what could be happening...?
Anyway, that's the reason I ended up driving nearly another 100 miles to Achim (outskirts of Bremen) to a Best Western.
As I recall, I left home at 1620, got to the Chunnel about 2215, waited around in the freight loading area (that incidentally stinks of p155 from years of lorry drivers who couldn't wait ), got off the train about 0030 which was of course 0130 local.
Decided to drive until the fuel level got low (I'd filled up near Cambridge and the Connect will do 500 miles on a tank) by which time it was about 0600. I stopped for fuel and a coffee, asked the frau where the gents was and she said 'in the restaurant next door'.
On the way down the stairs I passed a shirtless trucker who'd obviously just finished his ablutions so I thought 'that's a good idea', got my bag from the van and had a shave and a splash, which woke me up for the remaining distance.
I think that answers the 'how long did you drive' and 'what breaks did you take', officer and if I hadn't been prepared to do it I wouldn't have. If they ASKED me to do it I probably wouldn't... but sometimes, like having to drop everything and work the weekend, there's a job to be done and you're the only one there to do it.