I’m following a housing development in the borough where I live because I was part of a campaign against its approval. It’s like so many developments in London and other British cities and consists of three tower blocks ten, twenty and twenty-five storeys high, packed close together. It will deliver 290 units of private market housing aimed at investors, 30 units of shared ownership and 51 units of council social rented housing. The council is the developer. It’s the sort of development that shouldn’t even be happening at all, because it doesn’t meet people’s housing needs.

The people living next to the construction site – I’m luckily not one of them – have had their lives seriously disrupted by noise, vibrations from drilling, and traffic disturbance. One of the complaints raised repeatedly by local residents is about heavy goods vehicles making deliveries. They can arrive before and after the agreed site working hours. Although it is not supposed to happen, they may be parked up, as many as four at a time, in narrow local roads, for one or two hours. Although they are meant to approach the site from one direction, and leave by another, they can be going in both directions. Residents raise the dangers to walkers, cyclists and the pupils of the two schools directly adjoining the site.

A senior employee on the site kindly explained more to me about the operations of the heavy goods vehicles.

More than 50 companies are involved in providing materials to the site at various times and at various stages of the development. The lorry drivers are employed by a range of delivery couriers and logistics companies which the site management itself has no contact with. The drivers will operate for the material supplier the product was bought from. A logistics company acts as a coordinator, booking in deliveries to a schedule so as to allow other site activities - like fork lift or crane unloading - to be organised. The logistics company employs traffic marshals to help with these exercises. This logistics company does not employ any drivers.

Drivers contend with the problems of city traffic. If they arrive late they may be turned away, and have to come back tomorrow. This is an incentive for drivers to arrive early to beat the traffic, and creates potential conflict between the interests of drivers and those of local residents.

Drivers have other factors to contend with. They are heavily monitored. Automatic vehicle location (AVL) manages the movement of heavy equipment and materials. Telematics gives managers detailed data on driver behaviour – speed, braking, fuel usage and other things. As an article on this subject online in Tracking Mag puts it: ‘This helps fleets cut costs and improve efficiency. But drivers may feel under a microscope. Some companies offer positive feedback and training rather than just focusing on mistakes.’ Presumably other companies just focus on ‘mistakes’.

There is a range of other automated services, like advanced global positioning systems (GPS) and routing systems; digital tachographs which automatically track driving hours and rest breaks, keeping drivers in line with UK regulations without manual logs; advanced driver assistance systems with lane-keeping, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring and emergency braking. But as the article points out, ‘…some drivers worry about over-relying on these systems; ultimately they’re responsible if something goes wrong.’ Even more intrusive are ‘sensors and cameras [which] track eye movement and head position to detect signs of fatigue, sounding alarms if drivers show signs of drowsiness’. The article says, ‘Many drivers feel these close-watch technologies cross privacy lines.’

Electric trucks are increasingly joining the fleets. These drive differently and drivers have to be trained. Problems include battery management and maximising range, and lack of charging stations which makes route planning more complex. Trials for semi-autonomous trucks are underway, raising the big question of job security.

Apps which allow for automated inspections, damage reports and proof of delivery are all available from a smart phone. But there is a danger of blurring work and leisure, where companies may expect responses outside of driving time. 1

In London there is the added matter of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which entail the partial closure of many streets. They face drivers with longer routes and restricted access, increasing journey times and fuel consumption, especially when there are many LTNs in a single area.

Since fatigue is clearly a risk for lorry drivers, places for rest, refreshment and toilet facilities are obviously important. But there may not be any en route. The Health and Safety Executive advises, ‘Drivers should be provided with a dedicated waiting or rest area where possible, from where they can access toilets and handwashing facilities. If there is no suitable waiting room or area, drivers should wait in their cabs while their vehicles are being loaded or unloaded. ‘You must ensure drivers waiting in their cabs still have safe and easy access to welfare facilities on site…’ 2 This sounds fairly cursory. The government gives advice on working hours. To give a flavour this is just one extract, ‘In any working day the maximum amount of driving permitted is ten hours…mobile workers must not work more than six consecutive hours without taking a break.’3

I wondered whether self-employment was a feature of lorry driving, as bogus self-employment has been a feature of the construction industry for decades – readers may remember the campaign against the ‘lump’.

Logistics companies and others advertise for drivers on contracts. I saw some offering wages of about £40,000 a year. But an article by Backhouse Jones, which offers legal advice to the transport industry, made me still wonder. The article quoted a case from 2017 where drivers engaged by a company had no written contracts, and were usually engaged by phone the evening before a job. They were paid a fixed rate for the day and received no other benefits such as holiday pay and had no guarantee of working. A tax tribunal found the drivers were employees of the company rather than self-employed. A similar case only came to light because the operator was called to a public inquiry following a bridge strike i.e. a lorry hitting a bridge. The tribunal found that the operator put the ‘competitive advantage’ they gained from using bogus ‘self-employed’ drivers before compliance. The tribunal revoked the operator’s licence. Backhouse Jones used these cases to warn off other operators, which makes me suspect it must be a wider phenomenon.4

Several unions have heavy goods vehicle drivers as members. These include Unite, GMB, RMT and the specialist URTU – United Road Transport Union.

Lorry drivers’ wages and conditions are clearly a concern for the unions. In September 2021 Unite the Union national officer Adrian Jones complained: ‘The government’s response to the lorry driver crisis has been to extend driving hours, reduce training requirements, water down tests and weaken the licence required to drive a tanker.’ This was in response to an estimated 600 drivers leaving the industry every week. As Unite said: ‘There has been no attempt to improve pay and conditions across the board by introducing national agreed minimum standards into the industry. Nor has there been any attempt to improve the number or quality of parking areas, welfare facilities and truck stops used by lorry drivers.5

An interesting online chat session on the usefulness of unions to truck drivers offered a reminder of the days when, if you were not a member of the Transport and General Workers Union, you would be turned away from the docks or refineries and the company would be black listed.6

Several contributors advised membership of a union in case of accidents. The case of a URTU member who was supported by Thompsons Solicitors was a reminder that driving a lorry can be a dangerous business. In 2021 Craig was involved in a head on traffic collision that left him trapped in his vehicle for over an hour. The accident happened while he was at work. He was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary where he had to undergo a below the knee amputation. This was a 33 year old man with a pregnant wife. The story is about how his URTU membership gained him the support of Thompsons in getting money for adaptations in his home and retraining to become a personal trainer. But he’s lost his profession and as URTU’s general secretary said, ‘The collision he endured was horrific and entirely preventable.’7