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P CLAMPING
Page 9
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Driver clamped while taking call
By David Harris
THE EMPLOYER of a truck driver who was clamped less than three minutes after pulling to the side of the road to take a mobile phone call has complained to the regulatory authority that oversees the clamping industry.
Ian French, managing director of High Wycombe, Bucks-based Roadnight Logistics, says one of his drivers was clamped within two minutes and 56 seconds of stopping to take a call in a Coventry industrial estate.
French says: "We know the time exactly, because he was on the phone to us taking instructions of where to go next, and that is how long the phone call was."
The driver had just made a delivery to the Co-op on ProLogis Park when his phone rang as he pulled out of the site.
He stopped by the side of the road in order to take the call, but when he was about to pull out he noticed someone by his rear wheel.
French says: "He looked back and saw someone jumping in a van and driving off." No sign was placed on the truck, so when the driver's company rang the clamping firm, National Clamps, it was told it would have to pay the release fee of £155.
French adds: "It is not really the money that I'm upset about it's the principle. No notice was stuck on the windscreen, nobody attempted to speak to the driver, and the dampers even tried to claim the driver was asleep. The whole thing seemed unfair."
French admits that when he spoke to the clamping outfit, he threatened to go to the truck and remove the clamp himself, although he says this was said more in irritation than with real intent.
The response of National Clamps was to return immediately in order to f ft a second clamp on the truck.
Nobody at National Clamps was available for comment on the incident, but French says that managing director Trevor Whitehouse told him that absolutely nothing could be done.
French adds: "His attitude was that there were no ifs or buts, there was simply no stopping allowed."
Now French has made a complaint to the Security Industry Authority (SIA), which regulates clamping companies.