3:30am in the Tardis depot

Duty of care

If you’ve seen our vehicles on your travels you’ll have no doubt noticed, we keep the Tardis Environmental  fleet in tip top condition.

Something you may not be aware of are the regular checks which are carried out in the wee small hours on a weekly basis in our depots.

These are performed in addition to the daily checks a driver is legally obliged to complete before setting out for the day.

Three shredded wheat…

Tardis tanker captains are an energetic bunch and the first ones are rattling on the gates before 4am, so the checks for defects has to begin before those who’ve had three shredded wheats for brekky arrive and want to set out on the day’s tankering.

There’s a set procedure laid out on our DR6 Defect report. As you might imagine, it contains the usual checks that anyone might carry out on the family car before a journey, tyres, lights, oil and water levels.

We go a little deeper especially as the average Tardis tanker has a few more lights on than say a Nissan Micra.  Flashing beacons, side running lights, side reflectors, all klaxon warning devices and safety cameras come under the scrutiny of our HGV inspector Dan.

Mirrors, battery boxes, clips and covers, mud guards even the steps up into the cab are checked for safety and conformity.

Defects are identified and rectified before they cause trouble

The morning we looked in on the proceedings, one portable toilet service truck had a nail in a tyre which was swiftly replaced with a new wheel and a diligent HGV driver suspected a problem with the brakes on his tractor unit which was brought into the depot and swapped for another, allowing him to be on his way with 30,000 litres of clean water.

Each vehicle in the depot, checked and all findings recorded. Witnessed and countersigned by the driver the first of which showed us his tail lights at 4:10am sweeping regally out of the depot.

By 5am the yard is as busy as Smithfield market with tankers exiting every few minutes their missions loaded into the hand held PDAs each driver carries.

Just about the only thing we don’t do first thing in a morning, is polish the tanker captain’s boots and give him a mug of tea, so there’s room for improvement yet..

We’ve just published a video of the procedure which can be viewed by clicking below.