Near Miss of the Day 601: Tesco delivery driver in close pass - not the first time we've seen that

I think it is probably in the original nmotd but the answer was there are so many agency staff and late changes, that knowing who was driving was tricky.

I'd have thought that their vehicle allocation process was better than that. The idea that they have no clue who is driving a particular vehicle at any given time, goes completely against the advanced data gathering skills that large supermarkets have. I really can't imagine them having a big bowl of keys, like some tacky wife swapping party.

From previous nmotd

"I was a customer service manager for Tesco for a couple of years, having responsibility for grocery delivery drivers.

All vans on a particular delivery round had a reference like 'L56' or 'E99' for example, this was because if they were running late then they had to inform head office where a national database was compiled every day to keep track of operations and because this reference (van) was allocated a mobile phone so drivers could be contacted if a customer did not receive their order for example.

Drivers were not allowed to answer phones whilst driving mind you as it was a sackable offence. Vans were usually single crewed and used sat navs but there was never enough working ones to go around all the drivers, so it is possible that a 'new' driver would have someone more experienced in the van with them for a day or two to show them the route.

Also Tesco were using more and more agency staff to drive the vans as they were payed less than Tesco staff, so it is possible that Tesco would not have had a clue who was driving the van, as staff could change on a daily basis and there was a high turnover of staff as drivers got fed up of customers giving them grief and a lot of the agency drivers could not speak much English because many of them were Eastern European, especially in the London area for example, so you sometimes never got to know their names.

Some of the agencies Tesco used were pretty dreadful, but supplied cheap staff and potentially they may have not known who had been sent to drive what van on any particular day and as Tesco didn't have a clue who they were when they turned up in store to do the driving, things could easily get very confused believe me.

This may sound odd but Tesco are the biggest grocery delivery company in the world and the big delivery 'warehouses' in London may have a lot of vans going out every day, I can't remember exactly how many but maybe 80 to 150 vans as its a big area to service."

hirsute wrote:

F... Tesco were using more and more agency staff to drive the vans as they were payed less than Tesco staff, so it is possible that Tesco would not have had a clue who was driving the van,

Seems like a good way to lose vans, and coplete loads of groceries, just issuing out van keys underpaid agency staff and not knowing who has the vans.

belugabob wrote:

I'd have thought that their vehicle allocation process was better than that. The idea that they have no clue who is driving a particular vehicle at any given time, goes completely against the advanced data gathering skills that large supermarkets have. I really can't imagine them having a big bowl of keys, like some tacky wife swapping party.

Vehicle allocation systems can be hugely automated and very sophiosticated, however it is a plan, and as with all plans often doesn't survive first contact.

I can't speak for Tesco, however I'm pretty familiar with another well-known retailer, and so as a rule the route allocation is run in the wee hours of the morning before the driver gets to work, or even before they're out of bed - the vehicles will be allocated to the route  (not the driver) as they are loaded - the driver is also allocated the route. Aside from input errors regarding holiday or long term sick, any issue on the day can throw the plan out of alignment - eg vehicle issues requiring a tranship, production delays (yes, sometimes indiviual routes or even orders can be delayed in the warehouse), absent or late drivers causing a reshuffle (there will be several shift start times at 1/2 or even 1/4 hour intervals). Out on route drivers may be relieved or swapped, and drivers may even be swapped last minute to more local routes should they need to - eg impending paternity.

Records are systemically meticulous, however the above may cause the actual allocation to diverge, especially considering some of the larger sites may have hundreds of drivers in one shift.

Smaller ops (eg tesco store based driver operations - note tesco has larger dark store operations too) are likely to have less slickly run outload for a number of reasons, not least due to the model of pick - the timing on store pick is much less efficient and predictable than in a dark store.

The above is not to excuse errors in records, however from a pragmatic view, there is plenty of opportunity for records to be wrong (even if only in about a percentage point of cases), or for a driver to just say they're wrong, and therefore not have a reliable case against him.

There is of course really no excuse for poor records - in my company the drivers actually have to scan their id cards to take possession of the route when allocated - errors in van allocation may still occur, but the chances are that much slimmer. Aside from a late tranship (and even then I think we have updated to scan the van as well as your ID), the only way then that records can be wrong is if you gave another driver your ID, which is a really stoopid thing to do.

I understand all of the above, but changes to the plan should be part of the system. Not knowing who is driving one of your vehicles (especially where agency staff - i.e. some random bloke - is concerned) is really poor practice. I'd guess that the "we don't know who was driving that vehicle, at that time" line is just an excuse for not having, nor enforcing, a decent safe driving policy.
Whatever the explanation is, it's not a good situation

belugabob wrote:

I understand all of the above, but changes to the plan should be part of the system. Not knowing who is driving one of your vehicles (especially where agency staff - i.e. some random bloke - is concerned) is really poor practice. I'd guess that the "we don't know who was driving that vehicle, at that time" line is just an excuse for not having, nor enforcing, a decent safe driving policy. Whatever the explanation is, it's not a good situation

Yes, I'd forgotten the agency staff bit - we don't use them in the vans (unless that's changed, I don't think it has), but we do use them in LGVs.

Ultimately you are correct on all the above re record keeping. I was pointing out that even with the most automated system, there is room for inaccurate records, and the less systemic the more scope there is for this, and it is inevitably when plans change that the system is overridden for manual adjustments where most errors and gaps will occur.

The offense for the driver will be the act on the road. the offense for the operator will be the failure to adequately cooperate with the authorities in identifying the driver. But that cooperation must be scrutable too, to prevent operators giving out names to avoid censure themselves. 

There is an absolute obligation here to maintain adequate records of who was actually driving. Why not look this (very simple) point of law up, instead of pontificating wrongly and at great length?

Dave Dave wrote:

There is an absolute obligation here to maintain adequate records of who was actually driving. Why not look this (very simple) point of law up, instead of pontificating wrongly and at great length?

y'right hun?

This was the response from Tesco:

I'm really sorry to hear about the scary close pass experience you had with one of our drivers on Sunday in the Coombe Dingle in Bristol.

With the registration number you've provided, I have located the store in which the van belongs to and spoke with one of the home shopping managers. The staff member has taken down your complaint along with your contact email and someone will be in touch with you.

I haven't heard a peep from them though.

zero_trooper wrote:

The crappy overtaking when there's oncoming vehicles (I think that the preceding black Mercedes was even worse; 'I'll think about, but I'll still do it').

I had that this morning.  Bristol side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, going into Bristol.  Which is not a very wide road...  Oncoming cars, rapidly approaching speed bump/table, so obviously the best place to try and sneak your Toyota van past the cyclist without having to leave your lane 

I think they were maybe a foot beyond the end of my handlebars at the very most, but the passenger side window was open so the passenger got a face-full of my quite strong language as they drifted... slowly... past... (maybe if they pass me far too close but slowly they thought they'd do less damage if they clipped me?).

I ended up following them (as in, right behind them) until they turned into the works yard between the student union and the catholic chaplaincy...

Too late for that, the time stamp on the video is from May. You've only 14 days for the NIP.

I'd go for 'above' the manager who took the complaint. Then maybe next time they'll do something about it. Or maybe they did and just failed to update the OP.

I did actually send it to the police, but they said they had problems opening the footage and I didn't have time to convert it. I figured sending it to road.cc would be the next best option.

It's a bit odd that road.cc could view the footage but the police couldn't.

I no longer engage with drivers, I just upload the footage to the police. In this case I think you would have had a good chance of action as you had to brake and swerve to avoid a collision. I think you need to emphasise this in your submission though.

As for Tescos, it seems to me that nowadays you just have to be prepared to follow things up if you want anything done. It's easier for managers to ignore things until they get a reminder. If they don't hear anything more then it's dealt with as far as they're concerned. Symptomatic of our society I'm afraid.

Bungle_52 wrote:

It's a bit odd that road.cc could view the footage but the police couldn't.

Maybe because road.cc actually wanted to view it....? 

brooksby wrote:

Bungle_52 wrote:

It's a bit odd that road.cc could view the footage but the police couldn't.

Maybe because road.cc actually wanted to view it....? 

A friend of mine has had some success posting the footage to YouTube as an "unlisted" video and sending the link to the police. 

Unlisted videos are not publicly available and can only be accessed using a direct link.