When back to two in a van ?

[Woody Guthrie]

Here's how it is in the offices I've experienced and that's really all we can say rather than tarring everyone with the same brush.

There's not that many proper non drivers left in my office, maybe about ten out of 150+.
The rest of the guys take turns on the driving in the van shares.

Out of the non drivers some of them are good guys, they'll take everything they can carry and don't take the piss.
Some of them will do the bare minimum.

Here's the thing though, some of our drivers are also lazy bastards who'll take half an hour to deliver two parcels and get a burger out of the van on the way back while the non driver trundles round with a trolley stuffed with packets.

The point is being a driver doesn't automatically make you more useful, some of our drivers are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

[Alexei]

I personally think the argument of putting your licence at risk every time you drive for RM is a non-starter, and I say this as a driver. By that logic every time you drive your personal car you're also putting your licence at risk. If you're a responsible driver then you're unlikely to put your licence at risk. Driving a RM van doesn't suddenly transform you into some irresponsible fool. Granted, there can be stress involved when delivering many items but the individual is responsible for their workload. If you feel unsafe driving a van and that it is not in an acceptable/legal driving condition, then don't drive it. Don't be bullied into accepting unmanageable workloads and driving unsafe vehicles.

[Woody Guthrie]

I personally think the argument of putting your licence at risk every time you drive for RM is a non-starter, and I say this as a driver.

You could even argue that driving for a living makes you a better driver and less likely to lose your license, not only do you gain far more experience in different vehicles knowing that your job could depend on that license makes you a more responsible driver.

At the end of the day for anyone who started in the last 10 or so years you wouldn't have the job of you hadn't agreed to drive so asking for more money for the responsibility of driving doesn't make much sense.

[HTPostman]

Just going back to single vs shared. It’s single duty all the way for me. 10 reasons if you can be bothered to read them:

Reasons against van share:

1. I can do the round exactly how I want. No arguments, no ‘we’ve always done it this way.’

2. I can load the van how I want - it’s amazing how we all set the van out differently.

3. I can work at my own pace.

4. I can take my break when I want. Mind you I do anyway, I don’t care if someone is on a flyer.

5. Less stuff in the back - 7 bags instead of 14, parcels for 1 side instead of both.

6. If I want to do OT I’m not dependent on my van partner saying yes too.

7. I can keep the van as tidy as possible. Nothing worse when you’re one of those who likes a nice clean cab seeing your partner chucking litter all over while playing on their phone.

8. I can quickly change things around (say if the road is blocked) and do that loop next via dropping off that parcel on the way to doing that special without having to explain everything to numbnuts in the passenger seat who still doesn’t understand and spends the rest of the day telling me how their usual partner never does that.

9. I can tie up the round how I want, turn for packets if I want. I rate and trust my own prep accuracy - on average I misprep one item a week. If I’m working with Stevie Wonder I can be taking back a whole bundle of mispreps each day.

10. I’m not under pressure and told to put my foot down or leave the parcel on their doorstep or just sign for that cos Bob always does. I’m on my own, no peer pressure, every decision I make is mine.

Reasons for van share:

1. If you don’t know the area hopefully your partner does and can give you a few pointers. That’s it.

[Spinks182]

Lots of angry voices here and they are all justifiable. I am a fulltime non driver that has been working throughout the pandemic from home. My fulltime driver partner has been prepping both rounds every day ( with help )and because of that i do a third of his walk for him every day. Some days there are tons of extra parcels and obviously i cant do those with my trolley so its decided in the office each morning how many large parcels will be taken. This is all agreed with the management in the morning! Me and my partner get on very well and we always make sure we have a fair workload between each other. Obviously we are very lucky in this. The sad fact is that people take the piss and management is totally non existent. In an ideal world you would all have situations like mine but we are left to decide trhe rules to ourselves. Sadly people are generally very selfish and only want the easiest day possible. This is not a driver versus nondriver arguement. If the management could be bothered to organise us properly as in actually pull people up on being lazy and not leave it down to us to sort out it would be sorted.

[Cucumber]

Been skimming through this thread and a few things have popped out.
I genuinely think people who don't/won't drive aren't being told the full story by RM/CWU. Making driving a non negotiable skill required for some years now is only half the story. Then on the other hand making it very restrictive what work going forward will be done by the non driving part of shared van partnerships. 6 hours on delivery for FT staff? The past 12 months have proven this beyond any doubt. People who can drive, but won't, or those that hop in/out of being a driver do so for a very good reason, by their own admission in our office - it's about as close to the good old days as you are going to get - I've yet to see anyone deny that. For people to say there is hardly any people who don't drive for RM that will be left soon is totally false. It conjures up an image of 1 or 2 'old timers' semi retired doing indoor work. When the truth is that many offices went to a bare minimum driving/non driving staff back when shared vans came in, such was the rush to get it done.

[SpacePhoenix]

What about the possibility that the non-drivers walk is prepared and bagged for them. The mail gets dropped off somewhere (bringing back of pouch boxes perhaps - locally would mean installing all new ones, the old ones have been either removed or rusted away) and they spend their entire shift, minus breaks out delivering. Undelivered and docket lefts then get collected from the pouch boxes

[Woody Guthrie]

What about the possibility that the non-drivers walk is prepared and bagged for them. The mail gets dropped off somewhere (bringing back of pouch boxes perhaps - locally would mean installing all new ones, the old ones have been either removed or rusted away) and they spend their entire shift, minus breaks out delivering. Undelivered and docket lefts then get collected from the pouch boxes

What would that achieve exactly?
Who is physically capable of delivering for an entire shift?
Who would do the prepping and the bagging up and the dropping off of bags and the collection of stuff from pouch boxes?
The idea is that we make the job more efficient not less.

We will be using van share.
Same as we have done pre-covid.
Any design of new duties will contain more time for the driver to deliver large parcels, many of the largest parcels will move to afternoon deliveries. This will be offset by more letter delivery time for both the drivers and the non drivers in a pair. Some people on this thread are drifting off into fantasy land.

[SpacePhoenix]

Any design of new duties will contain more time for the driver to deliver large parcels, many of the largest parcels will move to afternoon deliveries. This will be offset by more letter delivery time for both the drivers and the non drivers in a pair. Some people on this thread are drifting off into fantasy land.

You're still going to get a good few large parcels in DOs that are meant to be done by the new large parcel duties. The segging of parcels is s**t all round. small normal and Tracked, large normal and Tracked all mixed together. When the parcel hubs are opened we'll have to see that they do with yorks that are mainly the wrong size of parcel

[Celgar]

I personally think the argument of putting your licence at risk every time you drive for RM is a non-starter, and I say this as a driver.

You could even argue that driving for a living makes you a better driver and less likely to lose your license, not only do you gain far more experience in different vehicles knowing that your job could depend on that license makes you a more responsible driver.

At the end of the day for anyone who started in the last 10 or so years you wouldn't have the job of you hadn't agreed to drive so asking for more money for the responsibility of driving doesn't make much sense.

There is another factor to this in that accidents you have on your record while in a RM van may be beyond your control & not your fault. Even then you are still supposed to inform your own insurer for any personal vehicles that you have had or been involved in an accident. This may be used to drive up the cost of your personal insurance and is held as a record against you by your personal insurer for a period of five years.
The last two RTC I had in a RM vehicle happened while the van was parked with the engine off and no one inside the van.
I still and continue to drive a RM van though. I just put the above example to illustrate a reasonable excuse for refusing to drive vans for RM.

[on_the_way_OUT]

Some of our drivers are also lazy bastards who'll take half an hour to deliver two parcels and get a burger out of the van on the way back while the non driver trundles round with a trolley stuffed with packets.

You've just described most of the drivers here! Workwise nothing has changed. Drivers belly aching they have to wait for the walker to get to the first delivery point. Then wait again at each loop. Will they help walkers.... nope.

[on_the_way_OUT]

But that's not all - drivers will tend to do more tracked (because they're doing the bulk and a disproportionate amount of bulk is tracked) and so are more likely to run into issues there.

Not here they don't! Walks were split into loops for a driver and a walker. If the driver has a big parcel they driver to the delivery point. The walker goes to the van picks up massive parcel and walks it to the delivery point then vack to the van. Driver belly aches why walker us so slow finishing loops!
I kid you not.

[Mustard Man 83]

So no, I don’t want to share vans again. Hopefully RM will realise the passenger seat is more useful to ram more parcels in rather then a throne for a lazy old fart to roll cigarettes.
[/quote]

Absolutely loved this comment. 100% agree with you.

[SpacePhoenix]

So no, I don’t want to share vans again. Hopefully RM will realise the passenger seat is more useful to ram more parcels in rather then a throne for a lazy old fart to roll cigarettes.

Easy pickings for RM to get rid of someone. They'd probably be done for mail security/integrity

[xPandabear1992x]

as much as i like my colleagues, have a laugh and a joke and stuff, i like my own space just as much.

as a floater, i get the whole "we always do it this way and you can leave it with mr jones down there over that bridge if mr smith isn't in" more than i care to admit.

like, come on, thanks for the input but the time you spent lecturing me could have been filled driving packets around. I (legit) probably lose half an hour a day to it.