M25/M4 Nat ex driver jailed

[davethelostdriver]

Phil Rooney who was driving the Nat Ex glasgow-London that flipped on the M4/M25 junction got 5 years today. The full story is here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7750475.stm

[Supertractorman]

Reading the report it sounds as though this Driver had no thoughts for his passengers, and deserves his sentence. I feel sorry for his passengers who must have nearly seen what was going to happen.
A few years ago my wife was travelling on a National Express going to Glasgow. On the way North a car driver pulled off the hard shoulder in front of him resulting in a collision, luckily she only had mild whiplash and there were no other injuries. When my wife returned from Glasgow there were two Drivers on the coach, one of the ones was the young Driver who was involved in the previous accident. Coming down the motorway the two Drivers were throwing paper at one another as one was Driving. My wife came off the coach terrified as she could imagine another accident.
We all have large responsibilities driving people about, and driving can be hazardous enough without tempting fate.

David

[daleman]

how come he was still employed with that record for speeding

[Matt]

I dont want to start an arugemnt here, and im not saying all nat drivers are the same! But some of them dont half raz it about somtimes. I mean today on the 556 a nat express driver bust a bo###k to get past me. He was in Stafford broke down an hour later!

We all want to get to where we are going asap, but hey i get there when i get there. No hurry no worry.

Any how the dude got what he deserved. People trust us with their lives, the least we can do is be professonal

[coachdriverjed]

yeah you dont half see nat ex speeding it, your late your late nothing you can do about it,

i couldnt care less if im late as long as its not on my way home stopping me going out to the pub lol :silly3:

[Ray Smith]

It really encouraging to see the response from the members of the forum.

We can all have a laugh and a joke, but when it comes to actually doing the job, the people that are being carried from a to b are putting their lives in your hands.

Professionalism is the name of the game.:thumbup:

[davethelostdriver]

I was trying to resist posting on this one, beyond the inital report but....the Parks Nat ex coach used to pass me regular round about kendal when we had left glasgow 1/2 hour before them and used to make me look like I was standing still...actually phil was not the only one to do this, every crew did it, my reaction was always the same...look at speedo, see i was sitting at 100KM bang on, look at tri-axle nat ex coach pulling away and leaving me and think "must be something wrong with this coaches speedo"...., funny enough after that particular incident the Nat ex/Parks boys never caught us up at all over the distance.

[Victor Meldrew]

In my many years of driving I have given National Express route learning to quite a few drivers.

It's not uncommon for them to have the desire 'not to be late'.

I tell them to back off, work out how much they are behind time and phone in on the coach phone (if it works!) at the next stop. If, for example, they are 30 mins late then add on 10 mins and report 40 mins late running.

It's unlikely they will make up time and they can relax for the rest of the run.

Never really find out if they do it or not when they are out on their own!

[nabramwell]

I work for Nat Exp and it is hard to relax on the tight timetables they give you. For example they only gave me 45mins turnaround at Manchester last week. 3 days out of 4 I was late in and late out cus i needed my 45mins. Oh and they expect you to get from the station to Princess Road in 5 mins. try 25! :ranting2:
At the end of the day I dont drive like a nutter to keep to the timetable, if im late, im late. Maybe if more drivers were like me, they would redo the timetables to suite driving on todays roads. However i can see why drivers do it cus if your late back to the depo, its less personnel time at home.

[Victor Meldrew]

I have to disagree here.

1.You take your legal 45 mins break, then load up and leave late. That’s all there is to it!

2.You get 5 mins to go from Manchester to Princess Road BUT you are given 15 mins to go from Princess Road to Manchester. It’s the same run, the same road.
If you run out of Manchester late at night you just might do it in 5 mins. If you had your 15 mins you would have to sit there for 10 mins waiting for your due departure time.
If you get a good run into Manchester the 15 mins allowed from Princess Road into town helps with the same problem.
The run from Solihull to B’ham is done the same way.
All times taken from an old NX time table but these things don’t change much.
The NX time table may be on a computer somewhere but it is not that sophisticated.
The principal behind all this is that it is OK to run late, but naughty to run early.

3.After all of this, when you get back in the yard, you just book the extra time and get paid for it.

From what I hear the rate is around £8 per hour. Very generous, I think. Where I worked all this summer it was £6.50 per hour and you had to mop, drop the toilet and leave it clean, even if it was 2 in the morning.
Is it true you lads can walk off the coach and not even bother to turn the ignition key?

[nabramwell]

I see your point and i suppose it makes sense. Just one more comment to make; VCS to Golders Green in 35 minutes! Behave! :music_whistling:

Yep, its true. Just a bit of litter picking at the turnaround. Just pull up in the yard open the door, fill in your tacho and grab your bag and your done. We have cleaners for the inside, a guy who washes the outside and parks the coach if its not going out again. Oh and they drop the bog for you too.

Just a shade under £8 once your past your first 9 weeks. I must say i'm shocked by the hourly rate some drivers are on. I was talking to a guy who was running a dup along side my service. He works for a company local to me and he recons their sister company only pay £6.70 an hour! I actually wanted to work for them before I heard that! An he didn't like the gaffer much there, I wont repeat the descriptive adjective he used! :censored:

[Victor Meldrew]

You’ve been to Golders Green Bus Station! What a place, terrible. It’s overloaded all day with TfL buses, and that’s before the likes of you and me come in on our service coaches and dupes to do 2 laps all the way around the inside of the station causing even more congestion. Not to mention the traffic lights at the exit which will only release 3 vehicles at a time, and that is only achieved if you are quick about it.

TfL would really like to get rid of all NX coaches through Golders Green, I believe. There’s a lot of NX drivers who would vote for that.

The last thing everyone wants is a couple of coaches sitting on the NX stops waiting for their departure time, as all the other NX coaches pile into the station and sit in the queue waiting to load or unload.

Much better to run late, than sit and wait, especially here.

Hence the optimistic times from VCS to Golders Green. You just might get a good run and actually do it in the allocated 35 mins.

Incidentally did you notice that the allocated time to do the run in the other direction into VCS is 10 mins longer at 45 mins.

While we are on the subject of Golders Green, did you know that the run from there to VCS is a ‘registered service’ and as such you must do it whether you have passengers or not........ So next time you do a 420 B’ham to VCS and have no passengers off in Golders you are going to go there any way, aren’t you? And if a passenger wants to get on at Golders with a National Concessionary Pass to go to VCS (and you have a seat for them) you will take them won’t you? Not a lot of people know this!

[alan mcculloch]

I sympathise with all concerned here.Drivers should not be under pressure to make up lost time. I believe that the driver or company is penalised for late running, is this true.?

[nabramwell]

Not that im aware of, well I dont anyway, just get a shorter break and/or get home late. As far as i know the company still gets paid, as long as the journey is completed.

Went round this particular bend whilst route learning Heathrow on Saturday, i was very careful!