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41 L Radley says bosses should send a driver home if they would be better off in their sickbed.
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I haven't had a day off sick in over three years, which isn't bad for an MS sufferer. but that's now something of a double-edged sword.
Its a point of pride, so I'd have to be at death's door before I actually failed to turn in; not necessarily a good thing, because it clouds my judgement as to whether or not I'm actually fit to drive a 44-tonner.
When you're away all week, it's a lot harder to "go sick". If you're well enough to drive home from several hours away, you're well enough to do your deliveries, right?
Very stalwart of us, until it leads to more sinister consequences. Driver Steve Hope died of leukaemia early this year. He'd fought a valiant battle, but he spent his last six months on the road putting his increasing exhaustion down to age, when, in reality, it was cancer. And he's by no means the first. He told me the nurses in his local oncology department believed the survival rate of lorry drivers was way below that of the general population, because they left it so late to seek treatment in the first place.
So next time you see one of your drivers stagger in, quite obviously not well, do us all a favour and send them home, will you? If we make a bad call, keep going, and kill someone as a result, the blame will lie with all of us. No load is worth that.