DEAR
Page 30
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SIR
AGENCY STANDARDS II With reference to a letter in Dear Sir (CM 21-27 September) and the headline news (CM 24-30 August) regarding the use of agency drivers, I would like to point out to those rightly concerned that there are agencies which do in fact take every precaution possible.
Our agency employs all of its staff on a full-time basis. We also check all drivers' hours stringently and as part of our service we offer the clients a tacho reading service — we send the tachographs to a specialist tachograph analyst and return them to our clients the following week.
I would also like to point out that we are members of the RHA with our own Operators Licence. We understand the concern of using a temporary driver and have taken every precaution in order to give a first-class service.
Clifford G Harden Staff Reinforcement.
Watford, Herts.
• I was surprised to read in the 7-13 September issue that a representative of the PTA was apparently advising his members to commit a tachograph offence. D C Green advises his members that they should "ensure that the used charts are given back to the operator by the driver", (when the agency driver moves on). Of course, some charts could be returned, presuming that the driver leaves on a Friday and for the previous four days he has been with the same company. If the agency driver was only in for one day then he would need to retain that chart because, of course, the law requires a driver to keep charts for the previous Friday and all charts in the current week. To require a driver to surrender charts as suggested would surely constitute an offence. Merely because a driver moves on, does not abrogate responsibilities to the drivers' hours laws and other operators' needs to operate legally. If an immediate record of charts is required, they could be photocopied.
A proper system would be that the driver should, at the appropriate time, return tachograph charts to his agency and, after checking, to the operator. Perhaps in specific cases where the operator does comprehensive checking, and with the agreement of the agency, charts could go back direct to the operator, but only at the correct time. I would hope that this is more like what D C Green had in mind.
Perhaps this disturbing view of returning tachograph charts can be traced back to the almost bizarre perspective on client/agency relationships. Is it seriously being suggested that either the driver or agency (who may not formally employ the driver they supply), should hold the Operator's Licence for a vehicle they could not own and could not specify on a licence? This surely defeats the object of using an agency and is the same as contract hire with driver.
Perhaps agencies should become more like haulage contractors in some respects — but it is not feasible for the majority.
While a driver may become the temporary user of a vehicle he cannot become the temporary holder of someone else's Operator's Licence, and neither can the agency, irrespective of the employment status between driver and agency.
I can, however, agree with the suggestion that reputable agencies should provide information on drivers' hours. This sort of agency is certainly not paying £2 per hour to drivers. Somewhere between £3£4 is becoming commonplace and even the "cowboys" are paying more because 22 per hour will not attract drivers, unless they are desperate. The irony here is that agency drivers are still doing the same sort of range of jobs and purely because of increased demand they are finally receiving almost decent earnings, irrespective of how well they perform, but, there will always be someone being paid ridiculously low rates for doing virtually the same.
H A Simpson, Contract driver, Halesowen, West Midlands.
David Green replies: "Of course, Mr Simpson is right that we must ensure that the 'O'-Licence system obligation remains with the client and does not fall on to the agency. But to do so the client must be clearly seen to be in control as the user of the vehicle and employer of the driver. EC legislation calls for the employer to ensure that the driver returns tachograph charts to him, to check them, and to keep them for 12 months. it must be in the employer's interests to make certain that all charts are returned to him, and he would be in a difficult position to do so once a driver has left his employment. To that extent, there is a conflict between the responsibilities on the employer and the requirement for a driver to carry previous day(s) charts with him."
RENTACRATE BLUES • I'm grateful to you for giving us the sensational news about Rentacrate's change of poll tical colour in your issue of 1420 September, but I'm sure there was a misprint. Surely Rentacrate switched its colour to grey rather than blue, as shown in your photograph. John Baty, Maidstone, Kent.
MISSING B ACKNUMBERS • I have a complete collection of Commercial Motor going back over 15 years, but I am unfortunately missing the following three issues which are also no longer available from your backnumbers department If any reader has these in goof condition I would gladly refund him the cover price and postage:14-20 July 1988, 28 3 Aug 1988, 4-10 Aug 1988. I D Godfrey, Dunstable, Beds.