[BENT_8]

At the end of the day the buck stops with the driver as only he knows whats going on within his mind and body and if not fit he shouldnt have climbed behind the wheel.

Last week i was feeling quite unwell on the Friday morning, i had a big job on, a school camp return which involved 6hrs driving a 57 seat coach full of noisy kids
I knew i wasnt up to it, so i contacted work, explained the situation and despite it being a really busy day with all our drivers already allocated jobs, they covered me without a second thought, thats how it should work as had i signed the pre trip declaration and headed out confirming my fitness, any issues would fall back on me and rightly so.

Having said that, what Singh's incident highlights is what ive been saying on the subject for quite a while now in that its ok to have legislation and proceedures in place as seen to be doing the right thing, but as soon as one aspect of that breaks down as is clear here with Singh saying he was unfit, yet getting told to drive anyway, is that its all just PC bull**** designed to make it look like something is being done to regulate the industry.

Thankfully Singh has an electronic record of the conversation which proves the employer pressured him to drive regardless and will go a long way to making sure that operator wont be doing it again anytime soon but make no mistake, if you think this is an isolated incident you are very naive, im sure it happens daily as the nature of the industry demands whatever it is that needs to be moved, be moved, and if you cant, or wont, as a driver, you'll be replaced in a heartbeat by the next poor sucker sent by some job network provider dangling a wage subsidy and we know it.