Bin Collections

Quote: Rob Wire "
Quote: Rob Wire "So basically what you are saying is the private sector delivers? Drivers who choose to work for courier firms are not forced to take the job.

They, the private sector couriers, are under the same litigation risk as WBC, drive heavy vehicles and are logistically affected (a lot more) by weather. Upshot is public sector failed, private sector succeeded.'"

This is the last i`ll say on the bins subject, you obviously don`t understand how transport works.

I started out as a courier driver before i passed my class 1 HGV, i was a courier driver for 10 years and did on average 60 - 80 drops a day + collections.

HGV vehicles are not normally used for multi drop courier work due to a couple of reasons, they will only be used in the following circumstances.

1. The parcel he was delivering to you was either too heavy or too long for a van or it would take up too much space on his van where he could have fitted 10 or so smaller parcels on instead of a larger parcel, a lot of courier drivers are owner drivers and space is money so 10 smaller parcels will make him/her more money than one large parcel that takes up a lot of space.

2. A driver that normally does your area in a van may have left the parcel off because he had reached his set target, drivers that are employed by companies (non self employed) normally have a target of a max number of drops, if the drivers run has more than his target then he will leave some parcels off (normally the non next day stuff like 2 day etc). A supervisor may then throw a couple of those left off parcels onto a 16 tonne HGV vehicle or 7.5 tonne that maybe going up your way to do a bulk collection from a customer, it makes sense to clear some of the backlog if another vehicle is heading your way.

3. Its xmas so a lot of companies are probably having to use anything thats available to clear the backlog which has been created by the shear volume of xmas parcels at this time of year plus the delays with weather, ive even known them send out parcels in managers or sales reps cars.

Its uneconomical to use a HGV for multi drop courier work as it would use too much fuel, you would never get anywhere near 50 drops done, you would be lucky to get 40 done. Also in a HGV you need a 45 min tacho break after 4 half hours driving, you can`t afford to be delayed for that long with 60 - 80 drops to do + collections.

Anyway, back to the bins. The bin lorries constantly work in side streets, HGV courier vehicles don`t. As you must surely know, when you normally see a courier vehicle flying about its a van and its a van for a reason, a van is the most economical way to deliver parcels plus you don`t need a tacho break, time is everything when your a courier driver with 60 - 80 drops to do then your collections.

So the private sector hasn`t won at all, its rare for 16 tonne courier vehicles to be in a resedential area as they just arn`t economical or practical to use for so many drops where as an HGV bin lorry is constantly in resedential areas, it doesn`t take a rocket scientist to work out which of the 2 is more likely to have an accident on iced over side roads.....'"