Taxi Driver Online

Well HGV have to comply with driver hours, as do multidropping 7.5tonne drivers and drivers of (anything over 8 passenger) buses, as commercial/professional drivers you know the rules, common sense is one thing but "I know i can do it" doesnt hold water in caused death by dangerous driving cases



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/m4 ... 25967.html

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I hope you dont have a glass of wine at 02.20 thurs night/friday morning and get up at 06.30 friday and drive.........

and does your "normal" job include paid driving? - then 6 hours taxi work?

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I only drive the cab Friday and Saturday nights and am normally tucked up in bed on a Thursday by 22.00 in view of the long day following.

During the day job I just drive a desk and a phone and my colleagues up the wall

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Nobody told me to use my initiative. To err is human to arr is pirate.

The problem arises because people do not think about it properly.

Taxi drivers often work 12 hour shifts. At the end of that shift they may have driven 240 miles! stating the obvious they have only averaged 20 miles every hour!!! That in itself tells you that a driver is out there for 12 hours - but not actually working/driving for 12 hours.

In reality as I see it, then it is no different than someone in the City/Factory/Shop working 12 hours then getting into their vehicle and driving home.

Also do not get it mixed up with say a lorry/van driver potentially driving for 12 hours, and say clocking up 700 miles - now that is a different ball game.

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

When the body is done with 'being awake' and working..... it DEMANDS the body to go sleep...... research is still going on, especially regarding 2 areas:
1. build up of toxins when awake, needing to be stopped and got rid of .... so the body is then 'shut down'.
2. circadian rhythm of work and rest periods... chemicals being released into the brain system to induce rest time.

working long hours is different from working (driving) to or at point of 'body cut off time'.
Taxi driving is mostly short jobs in and around the home town..... so I see no excuse to have to keep driving, if becoming tired, near the cut off sleepy time.... and no excuse to prevent it with proplus etc (should be banned from professional driving arena).... you don't need proplus, you need to put the safety of the unsuspecting customer first.... and go home.

A slightly different scenario. A friend of mine has just retired from the police force. Apart from being a traffic officer for a number of years, he was also a firearms officer. We have a railway station close by that is not used for commercial work anymore but it used to be used as the stop off for the Royal Train whilst in the area. My friend would work his usual shift on traffic and then have to go and spend the night on duty "guarding" the Royal Train. He used to say how stupid it was having tired officers carrying guns.

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Grandad,

one of the reasons i asked is if we are offered an out of town job we r not allowed to ask where to which seemed silly.i have since found out you can ask how long it will take which kinda clears up that.
thanks for responses guys

Why would you not just accept the job then if you dont fancy it ,toss it off.

It is a completely different entity.... skuttling around home town roads.... and going long distance journey... ie the straight (not much to do) roads like motorways etc.

I had a wakeup call as a youngster....
spent the whole long weekend mixing a soundtrack for a friends film.. as you do. The equip was hired and my parent house converted to a mixing studeo... time was preciuous and the gear was expensive... so ALL weekend, day and night was spent accomplishing task... DONE.
Mon morn at 6am all was packed into car to return to London hire place before 9am (or more costs).

Off I set, fully buzzing that we had acheived our stunning sound track....
15 mins to get out of town
1 hour up the motorway
15 mins in London to studio hire place

first 15 mins perfectly fine and completely unsuspecting of what would occur next...
the 1 hour up the motorway was ok for first half THEN...
what seemed like a chemical was released into my head, with the same effect as being gassed before an operation.... arrrrrrrrrgh, try fighting it.
opened all windows, worked for 3 mins then the surge of sleep swept all over again
moving around in car like an idiot worked all the time i was moving (like an idiot and not the best way to look in control of a vehicle).... within a minute of sitting properly, the sleep swept over me again.

I decided, this was too frightning and idiotic, so as my junction exit was actually the next one, would turn off and sleep..... wierd thing, when got off motorway and looking for a layby, I was wide awake and so just kept pottering for another 10 mins and got to studio.
At studio was fine
trip out of town was fine.
Before getting on motorway again, I still felt fine but pulled into a layby and stopped....... NEXT I KNEW WAS WAKING UP 2 HOURS LATER WITH ENGINE STILL RUNNING AND NO HAND BRAKE ON. It was an INSTANT outage.

Don't mess with sleep and driving... especially being professional people carriers.

"Slavery" springs to mind...

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

if you accept an out of town then after getting it turn it down you get fined apperently as i say you can ask how long it takes which i didnt know so you can make a judgement call

fined?

tell em borrox

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

How can you get fined really ? theres allways the problem with the car/taxi.I know thats why my cab has a fuel cut out switch for unwanted passengers...

Well said ^^^^^^^^^^^ when that liitle gland in the brain releases the sleep chemical your only going to go one way and that is to sleep.

Didnt that bloke who drove his Landy and trailer over a train bridge and caused a big accident nod off?

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most