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Professional.
Page 17
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failures
OVER THE PAST few weeks I've witnessed the following: an eightwheeler on waste-transfer work turning right at a busy town-centre roundabout by using the left-hand lane to pass the queue, bouncing over a kerb in the process; a 44tanner on the Ml! using the third lane to overtake two other trucks; a petrol tanker jumping a red light; and a bulk tipper doing 55-65mph on a wet single-carriageway. All the trucks were operated by large, nationally known UK companies.
We're forever being told how operators value driver training and development. Well, it seems there's a lot of room for development. These incidents weren't about the kind of human fallibility to which we're all prone. They showed nothing less than complete disregard by so-called professional drivers for the law, other road-users, their employers and for the industry as a whole. While standards like these exist in blue-chip fleets, the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Great British Public and its legislators remains an uphill struggle... Stanley Boyd, driver